Beginner's Guide

Category:Guides
Welcome to the world of Pokéngine! Here you will find the basics that will help you enjoy playing this unique user-driven MMORPG.
This article serves as a beginner's tutorial to understand how the game works. To access the game, see: How to Access
=== Basics of Pokéngine ===
Pokéngine is a massively multiplayer online RPG divided up into Regions. Each in-game region has been hand-crafted by the community itself. Regions may be played in any order, and your progress in any region will save if you leave and return later. Regions have distinct layouts, challenges, Mons and story. Some regions contain sprawling adventures across varied locales, while others are smaller in scale and contain puzzles or unique gameplay mechanics to progress.
New players begin their adventures on HUB Island, which will introduce you to many basic aspects of playing the game. From there, you may access the Airport and travel to any region that is currently available. For beginning players, Neo Sinnoh and Retro Kanto are re-creations of the regions in Diamond and Pearl and Red and Blue, respectively. Although the region itself may seem familiar, you may find new Mons and other surprises, so go in with an open mind!
As you play, be mindful of the fact that many of these regions are works in progress and are planned to have new content added over time. Additionally, the engine itself is in beta, and frequently receives new features, bug fixes and other updates. Because of its work-in-progress nature, you may encounter unexpected glitches or bugs. Make sure to report these on the Discord in the appropriate channels.
=== Controls ===
Pokéngine is played in your web browser using a keyboard and mouse or touch screen. The game controls differently depending on if you are playing the mobile or desktop version. The game will detect your screen size and automatically switch modes if it senses you are on a mobile device. For the best experience, it is recommended to use Google Chrome.
The following controls are specific to the desktop version of the game. When playing on mobile, you can control the game using the buttons available on-screen, swiping left and right to access the party menu and game chat.
==== Widgets ====
The game window contains numerous sub-windows, including: the overworld, the game chat, and various Widgets such as the player's Bag, region map, Dex, and current party. You can move these widgets around by holding down right-click and dragging them. Certain widgets allow you to adjust their size by dragging the bottom-right corner. You can right-click on most widgets in order to minimize them.
==== Using Items ====
When you have an item in your Bag, you can right-click on it, or drag it into the main game window to use it. When in battle against a wild Mon, on the turn where you would select a move, you may drag a Ball from your bag into the game window to try and catch it. You can also assign specific hotkeys to certain items to use them whenever you press that key.
==== Controls Menu ====
Press ESC to open up the controls menu. This allows you to customize certain display and gameplay features as well as to enable or disable Exp.All. 
=== Creating and Adding Content ===
Because Pokengine is a user-driven project, many users might want to create content on the site, such as Mons, Dexes and Regions.
All registered users have access to the Tilefuser. This is a tool that lets you create tilemaps using the various free-to-use tiles or your own custom tileset. These maps are a critical first step towards creating a playable area in the game!
Dex Owners can add and edit Mons inside dexes that they own or contribute to. Region owners have access to Mapbuilder which allows them to take tilemaps and convert them into playable areas in-game through applying JCoad, Pokéngine's custom coding language.
For more information on how you can become a Dex or Region creator, see the following guides:
Obtaining a Dex
Obtaining a Region