How you can help

So you like the Essentials kit and want to contribute something to it. But what? Here's what you can do to help even without knowing about scripting.

## Report bugs

Essentials isn't perfect, and there are parts of it that don't work properly. If you have found something that didn't work as it should, or worse, crashed the game, let us know! You can report any bugs you find in the page Known bugs.

Be sure to include as much information about the bug as you can. Does it occur every time you try and do a particular action, or just some of those times? Is there anything else that you think might affect it (e.g. having lots of events affects lag).

A good way of looking for bugs is to stress test - see below.

## Suggest more features

While most of the things that make a Pokémon game a Pokémon game are already in Essentials, there are some things that aren't. The page Suggested features has a list of features and tweaks that you have said you want to see in Essentials.

You don't just need to mention the big things - small things are just as important (and will be easier to add in too!). We can only deliver what you want if you tell us what you want.

If you can't think of anything you want adding/tweaking off the top of your head, try one of the following:

* Play the official games, and see what they have and how they work.
* Play fangames, and see if they've got anything interesting.
* Look at other Pokémon starter kits, and see what features they boast.
* Think about a particular part of a Pokémon game, and imagine everything you might want to do with it.
* If something "just bothers you", find out why. Chances are, it's something you can suggest.

## Implement bugfixes and features

On Essentials version in GitHub, you can do Pull Request with bugfixes. You can do Pull Request with features as well, but keep in mind that not all features will be approved. The Essentials development notes have info about stuff that should be implemented next.

## Create new attack animations

The All Animations Project is to organise the efforts of everyone who wants to help improve and add to the animations in Essentials.

## Add to the wiki

The wiki is the documentation that goes side by side with Essentials, and is just as important as the kit. What you can do is look at the wiki and see if it needs improving.

Ways you can improve the wiki are:

* Add more information.
	+ For starters, you can go through the notes that come with the kit and make sure everything in them is mentioned on the wiki somewhere.
* Add new pages.
* If you think an article needs rewriting (to make it clearer), mention that in the article's talk page.
* If there's something you want to know, but that information isn't on the wiki, mention it in a talk page.
* Add more images, to illustrate various articles.
* Write a tutorial.
* Suggest changes to how the wiki is laid out.
* Design a logo. We need two versions: 216x156 (for MonoBook), and 250x65 (for New Look).

## Resource hunting

We're always on the lookout for resources that will help fill out Essentials and make it even more useful. By resources we mean:

* Graphics (tilesets/sprites/icons/menus).
* Music and sound effects.
* Scripts.
* Fonts.

## Stress testing

Stress testing is where you use something in every possible way you can think of, in order to try to break it. If it doesn't break, you have a good product. If it does break, you know when it does and why, and we can fix it.

Obviously stress testing the whole of Essentials is a big task, so you can stick to (or at least start with) just one aspect of it (e.g. the Pokédex). Think up every situation you can that involves that aspect in some way, and see what happens. Make a note of every little thing about each of these situations that you think could be tweaked or fixed. Then think of everything about that feature that you *want* it to do, and see if it does or not.

Stress testing is useful for bug hunting, and also for discovering the limitations of a feature.