I'm Working On A Game

posted by graham on July 10, 2026

Ever since I first read about My Friends the Monster Trainers by Jamwitch via Laura Michet’s blogpost about it, I’ve been completely enamored by that game. I love the not-technically-pokemon designs about it. I love the believable-in-fiction setup for the game’s premise. I love how toyetic the design of the whole webpage where you play the game is. And what I found was that I also craved more: more not-pokemon to try to determine from clues, more detailed typings and how those types overlap with the real world, more keeping track of which creatures turn into which other creatures, among many more notes I wrote down to try to come back come development-time.

Since roughly June 1st of this year, I have been working on putting together a list of 50 names of not-pokemon followed by illustrating simple contour drawings of them by hand on my phone. Here are the names in alphabetical order.

Aboara
Arcupine
Blaazé
Bluega
Boarealis
Boouoy
Bowvine
Brewelée
Buffalloy
Bullbil
Calvine
Canaro
Capyterra
Chinchiller
Coltage
Cragmite
Dextsnail
Dragonet
Ducktile
Fincho
Flambébé
Gumchu
Hogtide
Hogwash
Hydromedary
Icebis
Joltergeist
Koalala
Llamina
Magmoo
Malleabard
Ossilot
Pneumatoad
Psycculent
Ratarot
Rockoon
Sanguin
Scorchion
Scorchling
Serindigo
Shrewdinger
Silverant
Sinisnail
Smolten
Snowflee
Spoonswill
Stingrazor
Tamanoir
Tsooienami
Ziprunner

As of tonight, (and the reason for this blogpost) I have also now completed the 50th hand-made drawing on my phone of each of the names above, which marks a sort of milestone for this game. I’ve included the drawings below in a random order to try to prevent any accidental spoilers for the eventual game, since presumably a major goal of the game will be to figure out which name goes with which picture.

There’s still a lot of work to do on this game. There’s a whole story that contains logical clues to deduce the various not-pokemon, their names, their types, what they’ll become, and where they live. I’ve never had to do much writing for any game I’ve worked on, so I imagine that will take a lot of effort.

Then there’s all the coding. I don’t want to just copy the UX from MFtMT, as much as I like that game, since that feels lazy. However, there are parts that I imagine will get reused: some of the game being organized around jotting down clues and facts while the other part is organized around analyzing info for new logical conclusions, for instance.

I’m excited about this milestone and I am hopeful to continue to use this momentum to make something fun.