The Enjey Project
Many people have tackled the task of attempting a complete fan-region for Pokemon. But not everyone has made a full map, story, and all the other creative elements that are often part of a Pokemon region. In my biggest passion project ever, I’ve been working on my Odyssey– the Enjey region.
To discourage theft of my designs before the project is complete, I’ve limited the publicity of my Fakemon designs. However, if you’d like to see some of them, you can support me on Ko-Fi to gain access to some exclusive behind-the-scenes posts!
The Enjey region is based on my home state, New Jersey. Its name is derived from the abbreviation, “NJ,” as well as “Enjoy,” because of the state’s reliance on tourism culture.
While the state certainly has a sour reputation as “America’s Armpit,” it certainly has a lot of good qualities, too. Beaches, wetlands, mountains, and proximity to two major cities gives a lot of geographic variation in a very small space. Of course, New Jersey’s rude reputation isn’t wholly unwarranted, so the story of this region won’t be afraid to dive into darker, sardonic elements.
Additionally, New Jersey itself won’t be the sole inspiration for features in the Enjey region. New York City, Philadelphia, and the New England area, and the North American East Coast as a whole will also serve as inspiration to give the region a wider, more comprehensive feel.
Pokedex
The most important part of any fan-made Pokemon region is its Pokedex. After researching the process that the Pokemon company uses to develop its world, I’ve found that often times, the Pokedex comes first after the region concept is finally selected, and its character designs and story follow the inspirations of these Pokemon designs.
Additionally, they usually come up with about three times as many concepts as they actually need for the region. A Pokemon region typically consists of 100-150 individual Pokemon. This means that each generation probably has around 300 concepts floated around, and only a third to half of them actually makes it to the finish.
Naturally, I shall be doing this same process. I have a spreadsheet of all the concepts I’ve come up with, including their production names, types, niche, and what level of finish their art/design is at. Doing this spreadsheet forced me to become more fluent in using Excel and similar software. I also have a regular notes document, containing images and more in-depth thoughts on each of these ideas.
Starter Pokémon
For the sake of preventing theft of my designs, as well as acknowledging they are always subject to change, I have only uploaded three of my finished Pokémon families here. These are Enjey’s starter Pokémon!
Inspired by real endangered animals in New Jersey, these starters came out very charming and cute. They are also partly inspired by the types of people you find in New Jersey— Pupsprout is the local who loves it here, Travillar is the enthusiastic tourist, and Eftadot is the Jersey native with ambitions of moving away. These traits are more apparent in their final evolutionary forms, Batriculture, Migrafly, and Skylamander.
Closing Thoughts
It’s no exaggeration to say this is perhaps the longest project I’ve ever undertaken. I’m sure Enjey will take me about two or three years to complete at least.
A large scale project isn’t so daunting to me, though. I’m a fast worker, and this is a subject matter I’m really passionate about. Pokemon, world building, character design… there’s a little bit of everything in this project. And when it’s complete, I’ll be glad to display the entire pokedex, map, and character list right here on this website.
On my Patreon page, I do my best to post updates to this project every few weeks on the $30 per month tier. If you’d like some other behind the scenes content about Enjey, you can also support me on Ko-Fi.