Meandering Mondays: Nuzlocke Comics

Hi again everyone, sorry for being late with this, First Night was a big success even with the sudden downpour.  This combined with all of my roommates moving in distracted me enough that I'm running a bit late today.  So in honor of my roommates this week's post is about to topic one of my friends is a massive fan of, Nuzlocke run webcomics.


To start off with a  Nuzlocke run is a set of rules you can play a Poke'mon game with to make it harder.  The two most agreed upon rules are that you can only catch the first Poke'mon you meet on each route and that if a Poke'mon faints you can't use it in battle ever again.  These rules are self enforced and make the game both more difficult and interesting to play.  You end up playing a very strange collection of Poke'mon many of whom are rarely used by most players and your team constantly changes as you loose Poke'mon to unexpected criticals and harsh battles.

The name of this variant comes from a nuzleaf owned by one of the first players to use these rules.  In addition to just playing the game they chose to create a comic describing their journey.  The comic became popular and as more players tried out the variant some chose to create comics of their own which has led to a small community developing for them online.

The comics vary in quality and tone and like many fanmade works are often left unfinished.  These comics often expand beyond just describing the in game events the player experiences such as gym battles and their team member's tragic deaths.  Many give the Poke'mon complex personalities or special features which make it even more emotional when they are defeated in battle.  Others rewrite the events of the games which range from simple changes to explain the extra rules to complete restructuring featuring new origins of Poke'mon and the creation of major historical events.

Overall Nuzlocke runs are basically webcomic type fanfiction and have all of the features of fanfiction.  Some of it is amazing, some of it is really bad and all of it is about Poke'mon.  So if you like Poke'mon but want a bit darker story and a bit more intensive plot consider looking up a Nuzlocke or two and try it out.