Pokémon Director Reveals New Details About His Next Game

Pokémon director Shigeru Ohmori has revealed new details about his next game at Game Freak. After spending over 20 years working on the monster-catching franchise, the developer wanted to try something original. And his new magical girl game takes inspiration from a pretty unexpected place.

Pokémon Director Explains Why He Wanted to Make an Original Game

Screenshot: Game Freak

In a new Famitsu interview, Shigeru Ohmori revealed how Game Freak’s upcoming Rainy Day, Sunny Girl game came together. Following development on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the director began exploring ideas for other projects.

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One of those ideas eventually became the Switch 2 smash-hit Pokémon Pokopia. However, Ohmori also wanted to pursue “forms of expression that can only be achieved in a completely original game.” That led to a separate project combining magical girls, real-world weather, and, surprisingly, laundry.

According to the interview, the idea was partly inspired by Ohmori watching his wife do laundry. If that sounds like an unusual starting point for a Game Freak title, the connection makes more sense once you hear how the game actually works.

Screenshot: Game Freak

In Rainy Day, Sunny Girl, players control magical girls whose outfits give them different abilities. However, those clothes get dirty over time, so you need to wash and dry them to maintain their powers. Sunny weather helps them dry faster, while rain slows things down. Yes, doing laundry is actually part of the gameplay loop.

Game Freak’s New Game Uses Real-Time Weather

Screenshot: Game Freak

Beyond keeping your magical girls’ outfits clean, weather also plays a role in combat. Players patrol a city and battle sentient trash monsters in turn-based encounters, with their abilities influenced by both their clothing and the current climate.

Ohmori explained that the team wanted to make something “firmly rooted in real life, with a sense of everyday reality.” Since checking the weather on your phone is already part of many people’s routines, Game Freak saw an opportunity to build a game around that habit.

For example, taking a rain-type magical girl out on a rainy day can give you an advantage in battle. So the weather outside becomes something you can use when deciding who to bring on your next patrol.

When Does Rainy Day, Sunny Girl Release?

Screenshot: Game Freak

Ame Nochi Hare Onna is scheduled to release this winter as a free-to-play game for iOS and Android. However, it is currently only announced for Japan, so players elsewhere will have to wait for news of a wider release.

While many fans know Ohmori for his work on Pokémon, his next project sounds like a pretty big change of pace. Magical girls fighting trash monsters while waiting for their laundry to dry certainly wasn’t what I expected from the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet director. But I’m curious to see how Game Freak brings all those ideas together.

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