Pokemon Tactics

As a kid, I sank countless hours into Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. And Pokemon? Never let go of it — still playing today. When Pokemon Conquest came out, I thought I'd finally get the tactical crossover I'd dreamed of… but it wasn't quite what I'd hoped for.

So I set out to build my own: a tactics game that stays as close as possible to real Pokemon, with a Final Fantasy Tactics twist. I work on it in what little free time I have (new dad — time is tight), with the help of Claude Code.

As for the game: no more menu-versus-menu battling. It's an actual battlefield. You move your team across an isometric grid, play the high ground, and line up area attacks (careful not to torch your own Pokemon in the process). Type, positioning and terrain decide how the fight goes.

Playable demo — runs right in your browser, free, no install.

Team Builder

Compose your team of 6 Pokemon: pick the species, ability, held item, nature, four moves, and distribute stat points (1 SP = 8 EVs). Import or export to Pokemon Showdown format.

The Game

Pokemon Tactics brings Pokemon battles to a tactical grid inspired by FFTA:

• Isometric grid with areas of effect and positioning that matters
• Pokemon system — official stats, 18 types, STAB, status conditions, 4 moves per Pokemon
• Charge Time system — Speed determines action frequency (FFX/FFTA-style CT), switchable to classic round-robin
• Friendly fire — AoE hits allies too, think before you blast
• Up to 12 players in hot-seat (teams or free-for-all)
• AI opponents with difficulty levels (easy / medium / hard)

Getting Started

pnpm install
pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:5173 in your browser.

Or play online at kekel87.github.io/pokemon-tactics

Tech Stack

Language	TypeScript (strict)
Game engine	Pure TypeScript core (zero UI dependency)
Renderer	Babylon.js 8 (2D-HD sprites on a 3D terrain)
Tests	Vitest (1300+ tests)
Bundler	Vite
Linter	Biome
Monorepo	pnpm workspaces

Project Structure

packages/
  core/            Pure game engine (logic, calculations, grid)
  data/            Pokemon data (stats, moves, type chart)
  render-ports/    Renderer contract (ports, view-models) — engine-agnostic
  view-core/       Presentation logic (orchestrator, AI, setup) — engine-agnostic
  render-babylon/  Babylon.js scene & board rendering
  render-canvas2d/ Canvas2D HUD primitives (HP bars, pills, text)
  ui-dom/          Reusable HTML/CSS battle chrome
  app/             App shell (boot, i18n, settings, team UI, DI wiring)
  network/         P2P multiplayer transport (protocol, room code, WebRTC via PeerJS)
docs/              Game design, architecture, roadmap, technical references

Feedback

This is a personal side project built in my spare time. I welcome feedback, bug reports and feature ideas — I'll address them when I can.

• Report a bug
• Request a feature
• General feedback

Built with AI

This project is an AI-assisted development experiment. The human creator is creative director and architect — he doesn't write code. Claude Code (Anthropic) is the lead developer: it writes the code, tests, documentation, and manages execution plans, assisted by a team of 20+ specialized AI agents.

Credits

Pokemon Data

Source	Usage
Pokemon Showdown	Stats, moves, type chart, damage formulas
@pkmn/smogon (pkmn.github.io/smogon/data/sets)	Competitive sets (OP Sets curation)
PokeAPI	Complementary Pokemon data
Bulbapedia	Formula documentation
pokemon-showdown-fr	French translations

Sprites

Source	License
PMDCollab/SpriteCollab	CC BY-NC 4.0
PokeSprite	MIT
Pokemon Showdown — held item icons	MIT
Pokepedia	Type & status icons
Bulbagarden	Category icons (Sword & Shield)
Custom isometric tileset — generated from PMDCollab textures	CC BY-NC 4.0
PMDCollab/RawAsset — attack effect particles (PMD Origins)	© Nintendo / Spike Chunsoft, no license

See CREDITS.md for detailed per-Pokemon sprite credits.

Tools

Tool	Usage	License
Goxel	Voxel editing (entry hazards, decorations — tree, tall grass, rocks)	GPL-3.0, free
gltf-pipeline	.gltf → .glb conversion for voxel assets	Apache-2.0
PeerJS	WebRTC data channels for peer-to-peer online multiplayer	MIT

Inspiration

Games — Pokemon Conquest · Final Fantasy Tactics · Fire Emblem · Advance Wars · Triangle Strategy · Dofus · Pokemon Mystery Dungeon

Open source — Pokemon Showdown · PokeRogue · Grid Engine · godot-tactical-rpg

Disclaimers

Intellectual property — This is a non-commercial fan game made for educational and experimental purposes. Pokemon and all related properties are trademarks of Nintendo, Game Freak and The Pokemon Company. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed, or sponsored by these companies. If rights holders request removal, it will be taken down immediately.

Artificial intelligence — Nearly all code, tests, and documentation in this project were generated by Claude Code (Anthropic). The human creator acts as creative director and architect — he guides, reviews, and validates, but does not write the code himself.

License

Code is licensed under MIT. Pokemon sprites are from PMDCollab under CC BY-NC 4.0 — see CREDITS.md for details.