Pokemon Pokopia director thought up the Animal Crossing-like while placing grass for Ruby and Sapphire, as he wanted to give players "the experience of creating their own Pokemon world"

Senior director of Pokopia, Shigeru Omor,i says that the game's concept comes from when he was working at Game Freak in 2001, and his first task was to place grass in Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire.

In an interview with Famitsu translated by GamesRadar+, the long-time director of the Pokemon series explains where the original idea for Pokopia came from. As one of three people who began prototyping the concept following the release of Scarlet Violet, Omori created the concept for a Pokemon-themed sandbox city builder.

"The foundation of the game, or rather the seed of the idea for the game, came from when I started work at Game Freak in 2001 on Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire and my job was to place the grass," Omori says.

While plenty of people, myself included, are put off by the idea of touching grass, Omori wanted to share the joy of grass placement with the world. "When I'm working on a game I use something like an editor, and I place patches of grass, and Pokemon can jump out of these areas," he says. "Though I'm doing this as a creator, I found that it was very interesting. I wanted to make a game that would give users the experience of creating their own Pokemon world."

With the announcement that the sky is the limit on the number of people that can create their own Pokopia island together, everyone can soon experience entry-level work on a mainline Pokemon game together.

90 minutes with Pokemon Pokopia convinced me this could be the biggest cozy game since Animal Crossing, and I'm already eager to spend hundreds of hours in it