An automatic shiny hunter for any Pokémon game
tomshardware.com
tomshardware.com
For Pokemon I think it's more interesting than simply memory hacking your save file and altering the Effort Values of the Pokemon, which is the simple way to go about this, though a bit boring and as I understand it very widespread if you battle online.
[0] - https://collectiveminds-ca.myshopify.com/collections/nintend... [1] - https://www.switch-up.ca/pokemon-sword-and-shield-mode
Now, hastening grind runs directly counter to most(?) game revenue models.
Interesting times!
Nintendo sent me a letter explaining what this all did back in the day.
But the linked post describes a Raspberry Pi + Capture Card + OpenCV solution that is scanning the screen to detect when Shiny Pokemon are found, which is much more involved.
The $30 'Switch Up' device I linked to seems to operate only on emulating button inputs. Like, you can record and playback a macro.
• You enjoy playing Pokemon but you don't want to or cannot find the time to grind out the few hours of leveling up you need to progress, or to find your specific favourite handful of Pokemon, so you use a device like this to save yourself some time.
• You want to succeed in the competitive space (yes, competitive Pokemon is a thing[0] and is ongoing right now in fact[1]) and you don't want to grind for Pokemon with specific Effort Values, which are the randomly generated numbers that effect how strong your Pokemon attacks are. So you use a device like this, though probably altering a save file would be just as easy and not detectable by Game Freak/The Pokemon Company.
• You don't really care about Pokemon, but you know you can sell Pokemon on eBay[2], so you automate it with a device like this.
[0] - https://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/pokemon-events/pokem...
People who are selling Pokémon on eBay are probably just hacking them in rather than going through the trouble of using a device like this to obtain them “legitimately”
I just want to point out, if you're like me and sometimes enjoy competitive Pokemon without grinding, cheating, playing the story or even owning a device, you can play online a simulator, from which every possible, grindable setting is just a click away. [0]
It's pretty popular, with it's own Elo, tournaments, online community etc. It's pretty fun, I can recommend it.
Why? Mostly because it was fun and a good learning expereince. I barely used the Pokémon I obtained, but I did use them to build a competitive team.
It goes away beyond just automating shiny hunting and a bunch of the programs they have run completely on cheap microcontrollers (teensy/pro micro boards) and there's a very active community that's been going strong for years.