Why The Pokemon Daycare Was Perfect Game Design

[@jonathanmuncil8782]

Playtime on XY: 270 hours Time spent on Route 7 Hatching eggs: 265 hours

[@Lillian2167]

Accurate. lol

[@fishsticxz]

i have 700+ hours on X, you can take a guess what i was doing all that time...

[@lipika2841]

If this is someone's real playtime of their game, it's hard to believe that beating it took only about 5 hrs unless they're a speedrunner playing it the quickest w/o doing a literal speedrun.

[@MicoDossun]

My X playtime was 1100 hours. It’s all about berry farming and breeding scatterbugs

[@Alegriacaptions]

@@lipika2841 maybe they didn't, and to this day they still swear they're going to get a gym badge "right after this batch"

[@noonblight7562]

When I was very young I didn’t quite understand the purpose of the daycare so I’d go back to the daycare after every ‘big battle’ to drop off members of my team to give them a well-earned break. I thought it would relax them before the next battle. It’s silly now, but I think about that fondly

[@slitheringswamp5352]

That's a very cute memory! And pokemon is a roleplaying game, so even though there's no mechanical benefit to it, letting your pets rest after a big fight is a fun idea for doing what your character would do.

[@Maricodone]

Aww I love that!

[@Xenkatze]

This is EXACTLY how pokemon was meant to be played

[@VincentV465]

I don't think it's silly at all. I think this demonstrates the perfect level of role playing that really makes these games special. As adults, I feel we focus so much on the "mechanical benefits" to things that we that we miss moments like this and forget to truly "play".

[@canaldecasta]

I would get so mad whenever the daycare would delete good moves

[@hoennfanboy]

Gen 3 daycare placement is just so perfect for hatching eggs, i love riding my bike past the beautiful flowers into Verdanturf, through Mauville city past the bright colored Game corner, and to the edge of the beach, the waves hitting the shore next to the guitarist trainer. Its both the scenic route & the most linear, absolutely beautiful.

[@DragonTheOneDZA]

Same I love when there are just very obvious extremely long straight lines next to the daycare. Like the one in platinum with some up and down hill ways. I really love the 3D in platinum

[@kirjoittajajoni]

I remember accidentally leaving my Marshtomp in day care in Sapphire as a kid, it was my first ever videogame and I barely knew how to read in my native language and knew no English so I thought they stole my starter and I had to start all over. Never went inside that building again until later age

[@QPoily]

This was me with a Flareon in Leaf Green. I had put it in the daycare a bit south of Cerulean City and completely forgot about it. Months later I was just running around, stumbled upon the place, and suddenly saw a lvl 50 or so Flareon sitting there.

[@JayClearman411]

Did that to my butterfree.. came back a spent a lot of money to get em out of there.

[@cynshie]

I’m pretty sure I did this with my charizard in fire red and then lost all money and couldn’t get it back 🤣 I was incredibly dumb as a child

[@AHPUROshankarMALDITO]

😂

[@Just_Shaun]

I swear this exact thing happened to me where I put my Pokémon in the daycare, only to find that I didn’t have enough money to free them from jail.

[@figurativeElement]

Another reason it's so great is that in Silver's daycare as a kid I randomly fished in its pond, and caught a shiny krabby.

[@cecillewolters1995]

I found my first Corsola there, it felt great discovering that ''secret''

[@MattDustyParker]

Ayo that's pretty great you two

[@droomish1]

I had no idea!! walking into goldenrod with a krabby or a corsola would be awesome, gotta try this

[@AgusSkywalker]

You can get a Krabby with the old rod before Goldenrod. But Corsola requires the good rod you get from Olivine. So no Corsola against Whitney sadly.

[@yaziyo]

I remember being a child feeling like I was stealing other people's Pokemon by fishing/surfing in that pond.

[@DrTimes99]

I wish that there was a "breeding research" mechanic. Basically, In the breeder's house there would be a book shelf you can interact with and the more pokemon you've hatched the more information on breeding mechanics you have access to. Basically, explaining things like how destiny knot and everstones work to unlocking an egg-group feature in the Pokedex, so you wouldn't have to look up compatibility online line or through trial and error. It would be rewarding to players investing in the mechanic, but not necessary for others.

[@BeyondHydro]

I think it would be cool if, after successfully hatching an egg, your Pokédex had a section for breeding groups. You could easily search for what is compatible besides Ditto. Like obviously the ideal Pokémon is one from a different language game that's the same species, but sometimes that isn't an option. I do think itd be an extra challenge if you only got to see a Pokémon's egg groups if you've at least breeded one member of that egg group, but the exception being the ditto egg group (because ditto) and the undiscovered egg group (because it's used for Pokémon that can't breed)

[@turkoositerapsidi]

That is great idea in my opinion.

[@Tony_AM009]

This reminds me of the berry farming area in X & Y. This would be an excellent idea for them to implement for future games as well as fan-made games.

[@pikacrafter2903]

I really do love your videos talking about the nice things in Pokemon. It feels natural like you're just talking to us casually about how much you love Pokemon. It's calm and cozy and makes me love Pokemon more than I already do.

[@turkoositerapsidi]

But do pokémon love you? Yes, right?

[@KyogresHideout_Vegito2121]

Daycare was so much better than the new picnic method and nobody can convince me otherwise. Don't fix what ain't broke.

[@megaspacewaffles]

See I somewhat agree. Though my ONLY annoyance is egg moves, I think they’re kind of a flawed mechanic. But I love the design aspect of the day care.

[@nsiderultimaseth]

@KyogresHideout_Vegito2121 I WAY prefer the Daycare system to picnicking. Picnicking is so tedious by comparison and requires way too much active play. With the daycare, you could much more easily hatch mass eggs in the background while watching TV or something.

[@nsiderultimaseth]

@@megaspacewaffles Pokémon BDSP allowed you to use the daycare to pass egg moves laterally. I really enjoyed that system.

[@megaspacewaffles]

@@nsiderultimaseth yep! I think the one egg move rule is terrible haha

[@JayClearman411]

@@megaspacewaffles what are you talking about there’s no 1 eggmove rule? Am I missing something… I remember hatching pkmn with 2-3 4 moves! My treecko hatched out knowing crush claw dragon breath crunch giga drain..granted it was emerald If you got a feebas threw wonder trade with dragonbreathe mist haze mirror coat that was me! I bred a lapras with fissure horn drill an sheer cold just because. In heartgold I was 1 of if the first few guys that’s conceived the idea of Huge Power Marill with Ice punch aqua jet belly drum..

[@hibbs1712]

The gen6 daycare lad has spent many beautiful sunsets on the beach watching me bike past him over and over in the same direction, full of pride

[@junglejuicejuno]

thats a river

[@hibbs1712]

@@junglejuicejuno *SHUT*

[@junglejuicejuno]

@@hibbs1712 no

[@hibbs1712]

@@junglejuicejuno the Battle Resort is in the middle of the Ocean 😭😭😭

[@GraceAndGlorySmash]

There's some extra subtle convenience with the bike path design that I was hoping you'd mention. The route is usually positioned across multiple towns or routes, which makes the music change when you reach the end of the path on either side. It's perfect for grinding eggs without having to even look at the screen. Sure you could also listen for a wall bonk, but that wastes time, and kills momentum on things like Hoenn's mach bike.

[@Cb-ju1nv]

Thissss right here, I still know exactly which part in the goldenrod music to turn around at 😆

[@DeliciousJames]

In my first ever Pokemon game I found the daycare and put a meowth in there without knowing what it did, and came back some time after beating the game to find that the meowth was stronger than most of my team. I thought that was so cool and I was so excited, its what I think about every time someone mentions the daycare

[@rainbowthedragoncat6768]

I just wish it didn't auto-learn moves. Like it's a unique mechanic ig but it makes me want to never use the daycare, except for like magikarp. At least with other "fast level-ups" I only have to worry about if I want that one move at level 63, with daycare I have to take it out for every level up move if I want to keep my moveset intact. Especially in gens without reusable tms

[@NN-oz6rr]

It'd be nice if the caretakers would notify you with a message when your pokémon wants to learn a move from level-up, then you can let them know whether or not you want them to learn it, which move to replace, etc.

[@nervysage]

I like to move my Pokémon’s moves around if I know what learn moves are coming up so I can save time since it always deletes the move in the first slot

[@nsiderultimaseth]

Something I always found interesting about the daycare is that it is largely perceived as a post-game location, despite the fact that you can access it very early in almost all iterations. There generally isn't much incentive to breed until you go for Pokédex completion. I don’t know many people who engaged with breeding to get a stronger in-game team; I do remember once, as a kid, I went through the effort of grinding up my Beautifly to learn Silver Wind so that I could pass a decent Bug move onto a Shedinja. It's a great memory, but it is also the ONLY memory I have of using the daycare during the main story.

[@droomish1]

dang seth you were kind of an industrious kid, I was in there because I couldn't beat the dark elite four guy in gen 5

[@nsiderultimaseth]

@@droomish1 Remember the guy in Paper Mario TTYD who asks what kind of books you read? I answered "strategy guides." I think that tells you everything you need to know.

[@portwise23]

I used the daycare in my most recent X and Y playthrough to get some egg moves on a squirtle, in order to take advantage of mega launcher mega Blastoise. Specifically Dragon Pulse and Aura sphere, passed from a Clawitzer. I had to plan for it though, by resetting for a female squirtle from the professor and training up the clawitzer early

[@OldDistantHermit]

The only Pokemon in any game I've ever brought to level 100 without duping rare candies was my Lilligant in Black. It's a White exclusive except for a single ingame trade, so I did the trade and immediately bred it to get one that was Modest and had Own Tempo. Since I didn't particularly care for any of the starters that gen, it immediately became my lead for the second half of the main story and all the postgame.

[@raziphaz2219]

Yeah, i think breeding could be "buffed" so that little kids playing the game can get cool moves easier. When I played HGSS for the first time (as an adult, I grew up with gen4 but never played hgss) I realized voltorb flip was fun, and got enough coins for a dratini. I then realized I could use garaydos to pass down dragon dance and hyper beam to dratini. If i were young, this would be the coolest thing ever, but let's be real, dratini is not something you want for an ingame play through

[@NotMikey437]

For me it is almost perfect. I just wish you could pick and choose what moves you wanna learn and what moves you wanna forget after you took the pokemon out of the day care.

[@Jesthers]

I kinda like the picnic allowing you to have access to eggs anywhere, but the fact that you can't hatch eggs while waiting anymore really is a deal breaker for me. Make a picnic, constantly check the basket until you get a surplus of eggs, hatch them all, repeat. Making you wait at the picnic while not being able to do anything else just sucks. The efficiency of the entire system is slowed by having to wait another 30 minutes+ at the picnic constantly checking the basket just to get a good surplus of eggs again in between hatching sessions. Being able to hatch eggs WHILE waiting for more is what made the waiting tolerable in the first place.

[@kryzethx]

If you use egg power sandwiches, it's still faster though..

[@Jesthers]

@@kryzethx oh definitely. Don't get me wrong, the speed you get out of picnics is crazy, well outpacing all daycares. I just wish I could be.. doing something while that happens. Spending a half hour mashing the A button just isn't fun.

[@kryzethx]

@@Jesthers I just set the controller down while watching something else, occasionally checking back in to check the basket. It's not that different from mashing left and right while waiting for eggs, but it's better for me because I don't have to actually do anything to generate the eggs; they just happen. It's a lot more passive until you need to start hatching them (then it's basically identical, just running around in circles, just like pressing left and right for hours, except it's faster in SV because of egg power)

[@miimiiandco]

I guess you could take pictures while you wait...

[@NotSlaya49]

Picnics are kind of a weird sidegrade from the old daycare setup. They're technically more passive than the old way since it's time-based and doesn't require you to walk, but you're also trapped in the picnic dimension and can't do *anything* else while you're breeding. Also, there's zero visual indicator that you've got eggs available. Honestly, that's pretty much the worst part. Super annoying having to check the basket repeatedly, I cannot comprehend why it doesn't change at all when there are eggs in it.

[@DragonTheOneDZA]

I wish the basket just opened a bit when there was an egg. And when there wasn't it closed Or. Giant notification mark

[@Munto-Z]

Discovering the daycare and learning about Pokemon breeding is a core memory that I'll cherish for the rest of my life.

[@TheWesinatorvids]

Bro, please don’t ever stop making videos. I love watching these.

[@Piggly8w8]

After breeding in Scarlet for so long I can confidently say that picnics were a mistake. Take me back to the days of this magical building with the the ability to breed and hatch at the same time, the perfect terrain for it and lovely views to remember as I use it. I miss em so much! All of them!

[@Gloomdrake]

1. Making Curry was more fun than making sandwiches. 2. Idk, it’s just kinda gross to be laying eggs in a picnic basket? Lay your eggs away from the food, thanks. The two systems should be nowhere near each other

[@turkoositerapsidi]

I am playing Shield 🛡️ again and tho it's story is bad compared to Violet and pokémon models are worse too, the camp and eggs being separate and how I can talk and play with my pokémon buddies or let them play together in day care is much better, mirror herb + day care would be a nice tho.

[@temsikpark]

Something I’ve always loved about daycares in Pokémon is the peaceful environmental ambience they contribute to the world. It’s a big part of the reason Route 117 in Hoenn is one of my favorite places in Pokémon ever. It fills me with so much joy to see the Kecleon and Azumarill in the daycare along with the flower gardens and all of the NPCs running and jogging around on that route! The same goes for Route 34 in Johto, Solaceon Town in Sinnoh, Route 3 in Unova and Four Island. I’m also just naturally a sucker for places like the Pokémon volunteer shelter in Lavender Town, the Pokémon Zoo in Fuchsia City, the Moomoo Farm or any other place that showcases the overworld Pokémon sprites and displays the relationship between humans and the world of Pokémon. I guess you could say it all just makes me feel like I’m surrounded by beauty, as they say……….. Excellent video as always Droomish and I wish you and everyone else the best of luck with your breeding endeavors!!! 🥚

[@WhoTookMewtwocoder]

You are incredibly good at writing scripts. I have never thought about the daycare more than right now. Great work!

[@trevorpacelli8056]

Let's also not forget how the daycare brought us the legendary meme of Skitty and Wailord being able to mate.

[@kryzethx]

Hot Skitty-on-Wailord action lmao

[@DragonTheOneDZA]

Explain to me why a whale is in the field egg group? Like is it normal for whales to casually stroll through grass???

[@trevorpacelli8056]

@DragonTheOneDZA Must be a reference to the theory that whales used to be land-dwelling mammals.

[@RuneRelations]

I know Game Freak seems to want to get away from this place to some degree with all the newer competitive prep options (Mirror Herb/LV50HT/Ability Patches). But I would like this place to return in Gen 10. Or would at least like them to make a system to get eggs with an more obvious way of knowing if you have eggs like the daycare lady crossing her arms instead of having to just wait around and check the basket periodically in Gen 9.

[@ToasterGnome2TheSequel]

Even if the basket sparkled or something that would help

[@rainbowthedragoncat6768]

I mean, I appreciate all the easier competitive options, but yeah daycare coming back would be nice. Only issue is mirror herb might be kinda tricky to implement, but maybe it stores your party data when you deposit a mon into the daycare or stores the last mon taken out of the daycare and copies moves from there, or you could just chuck the mechanic entirely and go back to traditional egg moves

[@turkoositerapsidi]

​@@rainbowthedragoncat6768How would mirror herb be hard to implement exactly? It would be the same as what can be done in Shield and Sword but one would need other pokémon to hold the herb instead of the two being the same species of pokémon. I personally do not like the picknic and eggs being the same thing. If I want to just spend time with the pokémon buddies why do it has to be the eggs as well.

[@rainbowthedragoncat6768]

@@turkoositerapsidi I thought mirror herb just took moves from any mon in your party with the right moves

[@turkoositerapsidi]

@@rainbowthedragoncat6768 It does, but if you put two pokémon in daycare in Shield if they are same species, the one teaches the other all egg moves it can if there is move space left.

[@AdisPlays]

Daycare helped me much because I had completed a living dex in Platinum, but I wanted the same thing in Soul Silver without having to move them over from platinum and having to recatch every single Pokémon again, so instead I bred them all and traded them over to level them up with the increased trading exp boost to evolve them to store them there, only had to recatch the legendaries. + the fun part was that because I spent so many hours hatching I managed to get a shiny Larvitar without even not trying to Shiny Hunt, very fun bonus 😉

[@Farons8]

Route 117 in Hoenn is like my digital childhood street. I spent hours, days in there between RSE and ORAS. The Verdanturf theme is lovely, play that shit at my funeral

[@PURPLE_G0J0]

Pokémon Emerald Daycare is perfect design* That long strip of cycling through 2 towns and 2 routes is peak game design!

[@Elfking94]

And thats not even including the cycling road in the other direction

[@Qbe_Root]

@@Elfking94 The cycling road is far from a straight line, there was an actual challenge in the game to ride down it without bumping into a wall or another cyclist

[@Elfking94]

@@Qbe_Root well I didn't say it was a straight line tho. But ya thanks. I think my record is 9.6 on it. I thought it was a nice spot from 3 directions. And even the fourth is nice

[@AuraTale]

ScVi getting rid of daycares makes getting eggs unsatisfying.

[@OmegaX5000]

In a somewhat recent playthrough of Red, I dropped off the Magikarp I bought at Mt. Moon at the Daycare right after defeating Misty and forgot to pick it up. I then went the ENTIRE GAME with that Magikarp in the Daycare, beat the League, caught every legendary and noticed I was only missing one entry for my Pokédex. It was then that I realized I never picked up my Magikarp from the Daycare, and it had gained over 30 levels over the course of the game! I do like that in later games, the Daycare doesn't level up your Pokémon, but I don't like how they just flat-out removed the Daycare in Scarlet and Violet. I appreciate being able to get upwards of 10 eggs at once, but there's no way of knowing when an egg has appeared to my knowledge. How long am I supposed to wait to get the eggs? I've only bred Pokémon 2 or 3 times in Scarlet and it felt completely random when the eggs would appear. Does it have a visual indicator when the basket is filled up with 10 eggs?

[@user-mg8gb8gm7i]

No, there is no indication of the basket being full. Honestly, I feel like I could have gotten over the changes if they had at least added a visual and/or auditory indication that your basket was full. I hated having to set a timer to remind me to check my basket so I don’t waste my sandwich plus a second timer so I’d know when to make a new one. I ended up buying a Switch Up just to collect eggs for me and it’s the only reason I can stand breeding in SV

[@grunkleg.2934]

I think Picnics kinda suck. - In the Pokemon games of old, going from normal gaming to egg mode was very, very simple. Meanwhile in S/V, you need to stop whatever you're doing, make sure you've got exactly what you need before going into Picnic mode, find an open space away from a town or hill which can sometimes be really bothersome, go into a Picnic which takes S/V's slow ass forever to do, and start twiddling your fingers. - On that topic, the level of agency you need to apply to the task is unclear. Eggs show up super slow unless you make an Egg Power sandwich and there's no tell for when an egg is ready to be collected, which manages to make things inconvenient and annoying for both casual and optimal play. I think the basket can hold 12 eggs max, genuinely have no idea since I don't use Picnics on the rare occasions I play Violet over any other video game. - There's really nowhere nice to hatch eggs. No sort of straight path exists that's both away from getting into a wild battle and able for you to set up Picnics, so there's another thing that takes you out of the experience. For something that was probably designed to make it so you don't need to pay attention, it requires you to pay far more attention than the older method to really get anything out of it. The whole thing feels like yet another example of Game Freak thinking they know what their players want based on hunches they receive in dreams, thereby taking even more control away from the player.

[@Dad_Shoes]

I don't get it, isn't that exactly how it works for both the daycare and picnics? Both require you to only have the Pokémon you're looking to breed in your party (before depositing them into the daycare) and just waiting around until you get eggs. You bike until you get an egg for daycare, or just wait around for picnics. The only real difference is that the daycare is in a set spot whereas camping can be done anywhere outside of a town, which does seem more convenient. I just hatch eggs in towns to avoid encounters, just like I would avoid tall grass to avoid them. Am I missing something that makes one better than the other?

[@acetrainerdevin1164]

​​@@Dad_Shoesin the day care you could hatch the eggs you have while new ones generate at the day care but with picnics this is impossible as you need to end the picnic in order to hatch eggs and honestly even if you could hatch eggs in picnics it would still be worse as you have to have the parent pokemon in your party meaning you'd hatch eggs slower due to having less slots especially if you also throw in a flame body mon

[@Dad_Shoes]

@@acetrainerdevin1164 Yes, but getting eggs and hatching them is far faster than in Gen 9 that I feel that it's more efficient. I know I've hatched far more eggs than in previous generations because it takes around a minute for them to start hatching.

[@acetrainerdevin1164]

@@Dad_Shoes the egg cycles are literally the same as in swsh lol

[@tefnutofhoney2832]

The main problem is in the dumb decision to go to an open world with every encounter being a wandering pokemon. As well as the free camera. You cant just make a long stretch with no tall grass or trainer sight lines if theres no tall grass anywhere. We dont need the wheel reinvented, ffs

[@ivanbluecool]

Just wish it was faster to release pokemon in bulk when doing this in older games. Took forever to make perfect nature mons with the right egg moves for later games

[@analoghabits9217]

you can reverse clone eggs in emerald to "release" 5 @ a time, this is also how bad eggs are erased

[@Br0oham]

Fortunately I have Pokémon Box, so I can abuse Emerald's battle frontier to erase like 300+ Pokémon at once

[@BeIlG]

I think the breeding mechanic and daycare kind of feeds into my childhood want for a farm like simulator or tamagochi style thing in pokemon. In the early years it blew my mind when you drop off your mon and they show up in the side room at the daycare. I wanted to work there and have my whole box go to this farm daycare place. It seemed like such fun. This would of made egg move style things more fun. You have to make a pen with your two mons and you have to train them to pass a move along to the other. Maybe a move related item as a toy or exercise looking item in their pen. I always hoped for something like that. ALSO the sandbox gym maker thing. The pixel days would of made perfect sense to add that. Going through clairs gym in the gen 2 games always made me feel like we should be able to make these same type of puzzles. MAINLY the bases. I think this is why they were disappointing in gen 3. They put so much effort into something that really holds no purpose, The minimal effort to allow us to make those gyms was wasted. It almost feels like they tried doing a gym maker type thing but scrapped it and gave us all the parts. Maybe because a lack of online for gen 3 but it would come by gen 4? Just feels so close to be wasted Xo.

[@kenyaholloway-reliford8213]

I've always wanted a Pokemon virtual pet sim where you raise, care for, and breed them instead of it just revolving around fighting.

[@thoopsy]

When I was a little kid playing Sapphire, I couldn't read very well so I couldn't find Sootopolis to finish the story. But I COULD understand that the daycare, that two Pokemon who were compatible made eggs. So, I made a lot of eggs of my favorite Pokemon and gave them all little nicknames. It was even better in Pearl, because I had Pokemon Ranch and that gave me a place to put them all and watch them run around stuff. That was so fun for me, like playing with dolls.

[@AssasiCraftYogUscus]

Pokemon breeding was the first in depth game mechanic inever explored. First in Heartgold to help my friends get starters, but in gen 6 it took off for me. I put in effort to get pokemon with all egg moves, or shiny etc. Tbh i enjoy the breedimg mechanicnmore than battling..Gen 9 really sunk this for me

[@JayClearman411]

Same! I really like trading pkmn I’ve bred with certain characters too. In HeartGold and Soul Silver, it is entirely possible to Trade Pokemon with several Kanto and Johto Gym Leaders after you obtain their Phone Numbers and meet them at their favorite locations or fulfilling certain requirements. For instance, after you defeat or capture Zapdos outside the Kanto Power Plant, Lt. Surge will be wandering around outside looking for more Electric Pokemon. He will also trade you his female Pikachu. Brock is located inside the entrance/exit of Diglett's Cave (From Pewter City), and will be willing to part with his Rhyhorn or Bonsly

[@lavenderlele]

Egg moves… natures… IVs… shininess.. Naive. Fickle. Shallow. All I need is to be surrounded by the simple, effective, and beautiful wonder of the daycare game design.

[@MyNameKeys]

Last year I became a dragon breeder in Emerald, creating a family line of Bagon that have inherited water & dragon moves from their paternal Gyarados. There’s also a Treecko-line descended from Salamance who know dragonbreath & bite. Right now I’m working on finishing Leaf Green so I can continue my Dragon breeding efforts with Dragonite & Charizard lines, with the eventual aim of producing hybrid families each way, and perhaps I can even get a Totodile-dragon hybrid too. I love egg moves ❤

[@funnelkaek]

daycare employees HATE to see a ditto come in

[@CysmaWinheim]

I'm wondering how many other RPGs use a mechanic like this. The first one that comes to mind for me is the Teacher in Citizens of Earth. Once you recruited the Teacher, you could "enroll" as many as nine Citizens into one of three different "courses", with the longer ones being more expensive but granting more EXP. This was based on time rather than Steps but served a similar purpose, though due to the asking price for enrollment, this wasn't very cost effective until later in the game when you're swimming in spending money.

[@beauvogames]

When Ruby and Sapphire were out and new, me and my friend Lewis wanted to try and breed extra starters to trade with each other but with less Internet back then (still in its early days), no Ditto in the game (before FRLG) and this nudging "figure it out yourself" mentality where we didn't fully know all the breeding mechanics - he suggested trying Castform since, like Ditto, it's also blobby, squishy and transformative... it did not work 😂 (but to this day I still admired his creativity haha)

[@turkoositerapsidi]

That is very interesting.

[@Foreriverricky]

Alot of Pokémon are just weird to imagine hatching out of an egg. Like magnemite and voltorb. How do they hatch out?

[@hibbs1712]

Pokemon canon eggs are different from IRL eggs, they're like energy containers. Arceus created the original egg he hatched from to create the universe. It's confusing and this does not help your question at all, I know

[@figurativeElement]

The egg is a metaphor for ???, this is known

[@MizYin]

Intense wiggling!!

[@turkoositerapsidi]

How about gothita?

[@ivanzoneBR24]

I found funny that my favorite pokémon game have no acess to breeding until the postgame and my second favorite have no breeding at all.

[@tfx9223]

FireRed/LeafGreen and Red/Blue?

[@twilighttoast01]

@@tfx9223 i’m pretty sure the first one he’s talking about is black and white 2. At least that’s what first came to mind lol

[@Dad_Shoes]

​@@tfx9223 Red and Blue didn't have breeding.

[@thatdankguy5140]

@@tfx9223 or legends arceus

[@tfx9223]

@@Dad_Shoes “my second favorite have no breeding at all”

[@capreo]

yet another huge W from Big Droomish Inc.™️

[@BeIlG]

EEEEE!!!! Droomish video!!! Im saving to watch this with lunch!

[@patrickormerod3472]

0:10 I think the word you were looking for was "unassuming", not "unsuspecting"

[@silvrie1652]

Id like to imagine it implies that some shady ass shit is going on in the daycare like some sort of front for pokemon trafficking

[@luckas221a]

​@@silvrie1652 yeah, I mean, they want me to believe that animals which usually have litters anywhere from 2 to 2000 offspring are producing one single egg? hmmmm

[@isaac-s6f]

🤓

[@thisguy9943]

It is the subtlety of the presentation that really sells the line. Its something you should passively notice, not be told about. That is the magic, the game placing it RIGHT there for you and just going "yep. You see it." No long winded "Trainer Tip" board or NPC blathering about the line and how you should use it. It really is Peak.

[@R_Aqua]

As an avid pokemon breeder, I agree. 95% of my playtime on pokemon xy is going right to left on the daycare route and spinning around Lumiose Tower to hatch them. The addition of destiny knot mechanics, everstones and bracers made it just impossible to resist.

[@SongokuJidai]

I was really looking forward to ORAS bringing the Route 117 Egg route back. I hated how you had to keep flying to and from Lumiose for hatching in XY. My disappointment on reaching "MaUviLlE HiLlS" was immeasurable and I believe it and the lack of Battle Frontier is the main reason I never finished ORAS despite being more hyped for it than any other game in my life. If I'm just going to do the Battle House again, I'll do it in Kalos where all my teams are already.

[@Friendly_Neighborhood_Qrock]

0:44 unh- uh , nah my pokemon was fuAhcin

[@2kiris]

picnics suck but the mirror herb is a lovely addition

[@turkoositerapsidi]

Agreed

[@kristenmurray7946]

Excellent video as usual. keep up the good work

[@kaminari1028]

I’m not extremely into competitive, but I play a bit and I like to breed a ton of Pokemon for the right IVs so I can try different combos. I really despise breeding in the picnic system. Please, please bring the daycare back!

[@25fan]

For those looking for a spot to hatch eggs (or evolve certain Pokemon, etc.) in SV, I'll suggest the Levincia gym battlefield - if you hold both sticks (camera movement and player character movement) suitably, you can ride around in fairly large circles within it without accidentally leaving, while not encountering wild Pokemon.

[@guard13007]

7:11 I love the detail that you chose to have your thumbnail represent "the line" one tile off. :P Was that a mistake or an easter egg for us who are paying closer attention?

[@Kaiji...]

I don’t know. I got bored too quickly, I had fun a few times, but appreciate the addition. Competitive/masuda method players probably think differently.

[@Fleshlight_Reviewer]

not only it was the best daycare spot with the nice bike lane, but there are numerous trainers to quickly level your team (in pokemon rse)

[@analoghabits9217]

in gen3 the distance from the pond to the rollout tutor & back thrice is 246 steps, just 10 short of the 256 step breeding cycle, which is also the length of the hatching cycle. this can be used to approximate how frequently to check for eggs. in emerald, the distance from the battle tent sign to the riverbank & back is 268 steps, just 12 over the hatching cycle, helping you count your egg cycles.

[@Weatherman4Eva]

Counting steps? I was watching a TV show while flipping my d pad back and forth

[@lucky7blue]

The intentional long road is a good point. I’ve never think it that way! The game didn’t shove it onto our face but was obvious enough for our satisfaction of finding it

[@enhasa5653]

Love that you were using Cascafarra theme.

[@balanc-joy9187]

In the middle of doing years worth of Shiny breeding in _LeafGreen_ and _Ruby_ so the Daycare is _definitely_ on my mind these days. I swear, I WILL get those Shiny Charmander, Squirtle, Igglybuff, and Eevee!! I honestly enjoy how straightforward it is in terms of basics. I remember leaving Pokemon in the Daycare in LeafGreen every so often in playthroughs, then returning to pick them up and see how they'd developed and being consistently blown away, as those were in my younger years as a person and as a Pokefan.

[@xenobrina7880]

I've really started to value the daycare during main story content. It's a relaxed change of pace when looking for Pokémon with certain natures or other traits. It's not necessary (the games are not hard enough to where minmaxing like this is needed) but it has helped spice things up. I remember breeding a whole box of Duckletts in Black/White because I wanted a girl with a certain nature.

Also, its implementation in RGBY is simply amazing. By the point you reach it, you may have 1 or 2 Pokemon with some amazing potential but hard to train (Magikarp and Abra). It serves you to leave them, go to Vermilion, do the whole SS Anne and Surge's Gym things, explore Diglett's Cave, go to Pewter Museum and collect Old Amber, and return to find your Pokemon a bit stronger and closer to evolve to just get for the bike and move to Rock Tunnel.

[@ranchsauce3232]

Droom you are so so good please never stop I yearn for your uploads

[@rabbitcorp.103]

That wasnt even the ride line in the thumbnail 😂😂😂 its literally the next line down

[@charizaro2]

Shiny hunting with eggs in sword and shield felt so easy, I haaaaaaaaate breeding in camps now. It sucks.

[@Hawktalon07]

For some reason, my brothers and our friend got really into breeding Wooper in gen 4 (I’m just realizing now that despite multiple boxes of Wooper, we never got any shinies)- so the long road through Solaceon and the north and south Routes will always be the Wooper Trail to me

[@Shad0w5carab]

It nails exactly what a number of the best and most unique features of the Pokémon games nail: it functions perfectly well and logically with zero understanding of the underlying mechanics but it is also rewarding to those who do put in the time to understand how it works. I’ve always felt the same way about EV’s. As a kid I remember multiple times feeling like Pokémon that I had caught at a high level late in the game just weren’t as strong as when I had that same Pokémon at the same level but I had raised it since the early game. As a kid it felt like all that work I had put in to raising a Pokémon was actually worth it and that the bond I form with my Pokémon was actually making them stronger. As an adult it blew my mind when I learned what EV’s are and that they are the reason I had that experience as a kid and of course now understanding the mechanic I can use it to make my Pokémon even stronger. Truly brilliant game design

[@jameswright4539]

While more convenient, I feel like picnic breeding just doesn’t have enough the same charm that daycares did.

[@damonrichardson1999]

I used to train Pokémon overnight as a kid here by duct taping an Advil or something to the D-pad up and the B button and I'd add weight to pin them down while I ran up the mach bike slope over and over. I had school, so grinding levels wasn't as easy otherwise. This was my trick to get Trapinch to learn dig so I could get the Regis without doing much work. And in the remakes, I spent a long time breeding the whole line of Honedge as shiny. Without the day care, things wouldn't be nearly as fun.

[@DarkCobra88]

I think we all lost hundreds of hours to hatching eggs at some point, from shiny farming to trying to understand breeding egg moves, natures and ev's, it truly was a place we spent a lot of time, well, maybe not the building its self but still. Good memories of the normal run on Ruby thinking i was the only one who realised the perfect hatching spot was there to later in life find guides telling people its there.

[@undercoverduck]

When I was younger and couldn't understand English I thought the daycare was holding my pokemon hostage and I needed to pay a ransom to get them back :')

[@turkoositerapsidi]

Would be nice if Pokémon was in more languages. I did not have this experience tho because Stadium 1 was my only Pokémon game until I got an used copy of Sapphire later on and my English wasn't that good yet, but I think I did understand enough to not get that, but maybe I just forgot it.

[@francesfuego6950]

As a long time Pokémon fan I wholeheartedly agree with you and your sentient but I also have to add that the “Digifarm” from digimon games especially cyber sleuth is even more impressive . I stopped playing the game a long time ago to just keeping going through evolution-trees just seeing what happens and I’ve never been more content since I had an r4 for my ds long ago lol

[@CyberseGreninja]

I spent so much time in Emerald hatching eggs for pokemon to use in the battle frontier.

[@armorbearer9702]

I wish there was a guy that can tell you what egg moves are for Pokémon in your party.

[@VentiVonOsterreich]

When playing Sapphire I always dreamt of crossing past that fence curious to see the rest of the Daycare environment

[@deathblowringo4168]

I know Magikarp is the only pokemon that has 5 Egg cyles, which is the least amount to hatch a single Magikarp egg, but with Pokemon with 40 Egg cycles such as pseudo-legendaries, Basculin, Larvesta and Happiny, will take a huge time to hatch. In Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Egg cycles are 255 steps long just like generation 4, but are shorter on special dates. This is due to copying the aspects of the original Diamond & Pearl versions.

[@brendancurry9808]

I remember when I played X, my second pokemon game after emerald, I noticed how the routes they are on are straight lines for that exact purpose to hatch eggs. I felt so smart lol

[@dragonshinerthewyvern1597]

the daycare in rb/frlg being next to the underground passage and right between the cities you need to visit to get the bike... mwah

[@holschermarc]

I remember in Gen5 i learned about breeding, IVs and EVs for the first time and that from the god dam N-Zone of all places. The next few month i started making research and having notes on many of the rules of it like an actual scientist researching a topic. And than the Super Training in Gen6 a few month after this kinda made half of my notes irrelevant because i could just EV Train my Pokemon easily with that ..... but it was still a lot of fun and felt amazing.

[@nocline]

Breeding in game is probably my mosf favorite feature, I really love daycare since years and continue to use it for breeding or just having fun. The new picnic feature and all the easy way to breed now send me to retirement.

[@xChaoLan]

great video again by Dr. Oomish

[@pokeperson1000]

The daycare is intentional and deliberate. You make the conscious choice to put your Pokémon there, whether it be for breeding or for experience. Remove the daycare and randomly implement the breeding mechanic into something else, and you get something like Throckmorton the Houndoom from Tumblr. Player starts a picnic, gets preoccupied with something else. Comes back, and Throckmorton, the only female Pokémon in their party, has filled the entire breeding queue with eggs. Four of the remaining five party members share an egg group with Throckmorton, and the player has no god damn idea who the father is.

[@turkoositerapsidi]

Yeah.

[@nightfrostbreeze]

I watched this video while hatching eggs in Ultra Moon looking for a shiny Cacnea! Haven't got it yet but hopefully soon.

[@SerssVlog]

I was shinyhunting and that sound almost killed me, such a big jumpscare

[@TheCoolerDrilis]

I actually did notice that the Day Cares tend to have a long straight strip nearby, when I was younger.

[@nobleoxidation]

"they do not dare to take away the satisfaction of figuring this out on your own" God I wish Pokemon as a franchise would go back to this. The joy of discovery feels so stripped from the games now to make sure NO ON EVER could possibly miss something. Even down to taking away the joy of the daycare center.

[@BiggestPhangirl]

My first game was Emerald and I had absolutely zero idea what I was doing but colorful animals make cute sounds, I’m in. Got wrecked over and over. But I remember the daycare next to Mauville and thinking the eggs were random (I was very surprised to know I could get eggs in the first place) and not step-based, and being mad because kid me thought all Pokémon were compatible parents. For years I continued to think eggs were random and would frequently check back, then go battle, then check back, rinse and repeat. And then the game’s internal battery died and ruined a lot of stuff I once adored (like the PokeNav’s call feature). Here’s to hoping Nintendo reformats Emerald or Ruby/Sapphire onto their Online Play Membership GBA library for the Switches!

[@godofdreamzzz]

My ditto is on like lvl 87 from being in the daycare all of its life

[@turkoositerapsidi]

At least the ditto is well cared after.

[@MediumDSpeaks]

Does he talk about how they're (as far as I remember) always next to a gigantic straight line you can speed along back and forth to be able to hatch the eggs while just playing the game in the background barely paying attention?

[@balanc-joy9187]

Yep.

[@droomish1]

perhaps

[@kurenian]

I do wish that we could upgrade the daycare in order to speed up grinding, like a mini-farming sim in Pokemon. Ideally this would only be possible in the late game and would require a specific items, NPCs, and money, but constructing a new set of swings or a slide for your Quilava while also speeding up the EXP grind would be perfect imho.

[@swagmastermario8933]

Personally, I always liked riding around on the roof of Mauvile city in Omega Ruby. Always seemed like the best spot for hatching

[@c0wqu3u31at3r]

I used to use the Gameboy Player and Pokemon Ruby to hatch eggs as so: * go to one of those sand dune things you need a mach bike to go up * try and walk up it - you come down straight away but it counts as a step * hold up on the analog stick and unplug the controller from the console at the same time, your character will still try and go up the sand * turn the TV off and come back later, the egg will have hatched

[@DrCoeloCephalo]

After playing Pokemon ever since its beginnings in Red, Blue and Yellow, I eventually expanded my horizons to other monster collector JRPGs to make new journeys, new experiences and new friends as Pokemon has always taught me to value. On said journey, I ended up playing Dragon Quest Monsters Terry's Wonderland for the GameBoy. In said monster collector, it had a mechanic to hatch and breed monsters as well and even had eggs before Pokemon introduced the mechanic in GSC. DQM makes it so when you breed monsters for an egg, all you have to do is pay some gold coins to hatch it instead of wasting so much more time walking in circles and a straight line. The bred monsters are guaranteed to have higher stats as opposed to how Pokemon randomizes IV spreads. The game also has an NPC you can talk to that can tell you what is inside the egg. Playing a very wide variety of games outside of Pokemon has given me alot more scope on game design that proves far more simple, far more effective and far more beautiful to appreciate.

[@cecillewolters1995]

Which system do you like the most of all those games?

[@DrCoeloCephalo]

​​@@cecillewolters1995 Yo-Kai Watch 3, easily. They programmed IVs to more often be average and not really make much difference so that they are actually optional, EVs can be boosted using BP and reset and redistributed any time you want and Natures are fully changed with cheap book items. I can spend plenty of time on a game filled with content and challenge instead of running around in a circle.

[@cecillewolters1995]

@@DrCoeloCephalo Interesting, thanks for the reply ^^ I've heard Yokai Watch wants to make a comeback, you hyped for that?

[@DrCoeloCephalo]

@@cecillewolters1995 It's a completely different game like how Snack World is different from Fantasy Life. They barely showed off any gameplay. I would like to see more before passing judgement. Until then I have my own game ideas to work on using Yo-Kai Watch's good game design.

[@CaptainObliviousV]

The only time I’ve ever used the Daycare for Exp purposes is in a Soul Silver nuzlocke I’ve been doing off and on for the last few years. It’s been a godsend in evolving mons to abuse the dupes clause in a region with a ton of repeating encounters, and just generally good to cut down on the ungodly grinding this game requires.

[@Justic_]

In regards to SVs picknicks replacing the daycare, I feel they on one hand improve on certainn elements of the daycare, giving you universal access to it, giving the player their own choice for where they feel it's most convenient for them, in a way that's probably the most fitting way to implement this into an open world game. It does however lose the passive nature, being able to just leave and do other stuff while eggs are being generated, since you need to be picknicking the entire time. So in that sense, maybe turning the daycare into something like Gen 7s Pokepelago might've worked better... but I do think that it makes sense as a way to breed Pokemon, even if it doesn't completely live up to the daycares legacy.

[@lerdog]

Considering how obtuse Pokémon can be with some of its mechanics, the Daycare is (was?) indeed perfect

[@draconk]

Was is more correct since there is no daycare on Scarlet/Violet

[@turkoositerapsidi]

Daycare was good. It's so nice to leave pokémon buddies to have fun time there. Good roleplay too.

[@AIDreamBeatsMain]

This is making me wanna hop on Scarlet/Violet and continue my breeding project… 😂 I know we didn’t get the regular Daycare there but I actually have been wanting to BE the Daycare people in game since Gen 1 and the new system gives me that feeling. 😂

[@grlluigi]

I want more pokemon ranches like in legends arceus

[@turkoositerapsidi]

Yes.

[@grlluigi]

My brother and I constructed a contraption to hold down the d-pad on our ds' so we could hatch eggs w/o having to do anything using one of those spinny tiles in a dugeon

[@tigerspruce8580]

I absolutely hate picnics for eggs. Like, it is more streamline to get eggs in a picnic and to just pick them up from the basket nearby. However, you can't move around and hatch more eggs while waiting on eggs to spawn in the daycare. It creates a sort of wait period for making more eggs if you run out of eggs in the boxes and really slows things down imho

[@turkoositerapsidi]

I do not like how the eggs and camping is the same in S&V, also why they could not make repellent and illuminate to work on over world encounters?

[@Murphjammin]

And here I thought I was so smart for discovering long lines to ride my bike and hatch eggs all by myself lol

[@TheGael128]

i give this video a chef’s kiss