Pokémon Mystery Universe

Pokémon Mystery Universe, very commonly abbreviated to PMU or sometimes PMUniverse, is a fan-made non-profit MMO (massively multiplayer online game), based off the ' franchise's installments of the ' series. It was founded in 2008 by the individual Linkachu, and has since been upheld by many different successors and the current staff team.

The game uses the 2D sprites and tiles from the first couple sets of games in the  series, as well as other miscellaneous sprites, music, and sound effects from all games. It includes Pokémon from beyond Generation 4 with contributions from players in PMU and PMD the communities, making sprites for those Pokémon, and other items and tiles.

In order to play, an account must be created inside of the client. In-game accounts are independent from accounts on the forums.

Gameplay
Like the in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, the player character themselves is that of a Pokémon. The starter is not determined via a quiz but rather manually decided. Most of the gameplay revolves around exploring dungeons; maze-like structures with a set amount of floors, and the layout of each floor being randomly generated. They are inhabited by wild enemy Pokémon who can be defeated using moves. Pokémon will give experience when defeated, allowing one to gain a level after a certain threshold is reached akin to the Pokémon games in general, and possibly be recruited, adding it to the user's collection of usable Pokémon in the Chimecho Assembly.

The typical turn-based combat is instead real-time in PMU due to its nature as an MMO. The player is able to have four Pokémon in their team at once, and they are able to be switched to and used individually. When a Pokémon other than the leader (first slot) faints, the player can swap to another in the team, sending it back to assembly. Revival items can be used to keep Pokémon during dungeons. The player is automatically assigned to their own unnamed exploration team upon creation of a character. Missions can be done in dungeons to increase the Explorer Rank of this team for benefits. The player has an inventory to hold items, which can be found, bought, and used to aid them in dungeons. PMU features a bigger variety of items, ranging from ones from the main-series games, to items completely unique to it. Items are able to be safely stored away in a Kangaskhan Storage in the overworld, or sometimes in dungeons. Fainting without being able to swap or revive will force the player to give up, which causes loss of items.

PMU is an open-world environment. The aforementioned dungeons, several locations and NPCs can be found throughout it. The majority of dungeons in the game are original creations by members of the staff team. PMU does not have a prominent story, leaving goals up to the player's desires. Players may communicate with each other using the game's chat interface and will see each other outside of dungeons unless in a party or guild together. The chat is also used for certain commands. Some actions such as picking up or dropping an item are displayed in the chat, but other events like attacks are shown in the Battle Log. The client supports player customizations, of which can be found on the respective forum category.

PMU 5 and PMU 6
"PMU 5" is one of the earliest versions of Pokémon Mystery Universe. Created in 2008, founded by Linkachu, it was running on an engine called "Eclipse". Versions of Pokémon Mystery Universe prior to 6 were mainly graphical updates; client repacking of new or updated tilesets or graphical interface images. PMU 6, as dubbed by the players and staff was a version that occurred over time.

PMU 6 and below had extremely basic gameplay in comparison to its ascendant; the player would move with the arrow keys. A single move could be binded to the Control button and used. Using moves on entities consisted of left-clicking the target and then executing the move. One could become an outlaw if they make another player faint——you could inflict damage on other players at any time. In addition, the stat system was wildly different. Rather than being based on stat growth like in the main games, every level gave the player three stat points to allocate to the stats, unless the player had a special stat point-affecting item.

Players were able to recruit Pokémon, just like in later versions of PMU, though evolution did not exist in PMU 5. Dungeons were not randomized as they are now and instead were all pre-made maps. Every map was 15 tiles wide by 20 tiles tall and rather than being connected, each map was its own screen. The tiles were a mix of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon tiles and tiles from other games, such as RPGmaker and the default tiles from Eclipse, just like in later versions. Pokémon with sprites bigger than 32 by 32 pixels were not in the game as the engine did not support it.

Most of the restrictions from PMU 5 were retained in PMU 6. One of the biggest changes from PMU 5 to PMU 6 was evolution, which was added on April 1st of 2009. Shiny Pokémon were a feature in PMU 6 that had been removed in PMU 7 initially. PMU 6 was replaced by PMU 7 on September 1st, 2010.



PMU 7
The current version of the game is dubbed/codenamed PMU 7, released on September 1st of 2010. The numbering has become defunct as this version continues to be developed, leading it to not be referred to a specific version at all. It has since moved away from the Eclipse engine onto its own, bringing drastic changes and improvements to the features and functionalities of the game.

Attacking is no longer limited to a single hotkey——now done using 🇧🇹 🇧🇹 🇧🇹 🇧🇹 and 🇧🇹. A target can be hit as long as they are in range of the move, instead of having to click it to set it as a target. The interface has become more modernized and consistent, which allowed skins. Dungeons are now properly randomly generated mezzanines. Stats follow the progression of the main series, going off a Pokémon's base stat total.

Improvements were made to the graphics: Pokémon sprites had better animations which later got changed directly to their data from the PMD games. New tiles were added and updated with higher quality rips. Portraits were shown in the team panel rather than the Pokémon's sprite. Shinies were re-added permanently for every Pokémon, as opposed to a select handful. Newer generation Pokémon, moves, and new dungeons continue to be gradually released. Exclusive event dungeons called Holiday Cave are ran for holidays, weekly events are hosted for players to earn certain items, and other events like mapping contests will sometimes be held.

Info relative to the current version of Pokémon Mystery Universe can be found in the PMU 7 category.