I organized a Pokémon Soul Link Nuzlocke event for friends

Last year, I saw a video of Smallant, cjya, and Fir playing a Soul Link Nuzlocke. I didn’t even know what a Nuzlocke was at the time, but the video was so cool and looked like so much fun that I wanted to organize a similar event for a few friends here in Germany.

The game we chose to play was FireRed/LeafGreen.

And as a designer, I wanted everything to visually match as well :D

• I designed the invitations to look like the “Retro Mail” from FR/LG.

• The trainer cards for all of us were also based on those from FR/LG, but I redesigned them into team trainer cards in three different colors, and of course replaced things like the displays for money, Pokédex, and play time.

• I had the badges printed on adhesive foil so we could stick them on once we earned them in-game as a team.

• The Nuzlocke rules and the Pokémon quiz I wanted to play with everyone additionally were also made up of elements from Pokémon.

• As a reward for the winning team, I wanted to give each of them a Pokémon egg, which would “hatch” into a plush Pokémon once they got back home after our meetup, because you know: after all, you need to walk a few steps first. I bought colorful plastic Easter eggs, sanded them down, sprayed them with texture spray, and painted them.

When it came to food and drinks, it was really important to me that it wasn’t just “Pokémon-themed” like Poké Ball cupcakes or something, but instead food and drinks that actually appear in the games (with the exception of the "Lemonade" in quotes which was beer, my husband insisted on that one so there’d be something alcoholic to drink^^').

• The main course was supposed to be Poffins, which we interpreted similar to empanadas (except for the sweet one), naturally colored using things like turmeric, matcha, spirulina, dried berries, etc.

In short:

The red ones had spicy Massaman curry,

the blue ones had "dry" (in german its translated to something like savory) braised pork in plum sauce,

the pink ones had a sweet stracciatella cream with raspberries,

the green ones had a bitter green lentil curry with lots of vegetables,

and the yellow ones had a sour citrus chicken curry.

• The Moomoo Milk was homemade Horchata de Arroz. The rest (re-labeled lemonade, senbei cookies as Lava Cookies, chocolates rewrapped as Rare Candies, etc.) was store-bought with small modifications.

I wanted the silhouettes to match the in-game sprites as closely as possible, so I specifically bought water and milk bottles that resembled the game sprites, and I made sure the lemonade and beer cans were silver at the top and bottom :D

Planning the whole event, designing everything, printing it all, cutting, sticking, painting, cooking, etc., was sooo much work, it took forever, and I could write so much more about it, but the actual day was insanely fun and I DEFINITELY want to do it again! <3

I’d love to do it the next time (maybe even later this year) for Pokémon Emerald, with a few changes, and of course new trainer cards and invitations that match the in-game ones :)