Here's a quick mockup of what the battle screen in Pokemon Purple is going to look like, more or less:

I decided to opt for a slightly larger and widescreen resolution for Pokemon Purple, instead of sticking with the standard GBA resolution. 300 x 180 isn't too drastically different from the GBA resolution, but it allows me to do some nice things like display the trainer sprites during battle instead of just at the beginning.

There are some elements in that screen that are alien to traditional Pokemon games. The AT Field command and meter are simple enough… an AT Field is simply a form of defense, and will work almost like a Halo Overshield. It may also affect weaknesses and resistances.

Then there's the Sync bar towards the bottom… which is a bit more complicated. It's replacing the whole concept of attacks having a finite amount of PP, but it's more than just that. It works almost like the Final Fantasy series' ATB system, except you don't wait for the bar to fill to choose an action. You can initiate an action at any time, but different actions will cost different amounts of Sync. Weaker moves like Tackle might only cost 15-30% sync, whereas powerful moves like Hyper Beam will cost 150% or more. And attacks aren't the only thing that require sync… everything from using an item, switching out your Pokemon, and even running have a sync cost.

In addition, the Sync meter is persistent outside of battle and continues to increase as you walk around. But there are dangers associated with letting your sync with a Pokemon get too high, or too low. 50-150% is the sweet spot, any higher or lower and you risk enjoying some unpleasant consequences…

Anyway, that's all I've got to say about the mockup for now.

I'd also like to share some other information about Pokemon Purple, namely the inclusion of a multitude of difficulty settings.

There will be options to control the AI difficulty, the wild and trainer Pokemon level ramp difficulties independently from each other, experience and money earning multipliers, and one more thing…

Pokemon Death. Pokemon can die permanently in Pokemon Purple. Fortunately, there will be an "Off" option. But there will be two more options, Normal and Hard. On Normal, a Pokemon will be able to be revived if it's taken to a Pokecenter in a certain amount of time and/or it has a strong bond with you. On Hard, death will be absolute.

But this leads to an interesting question… what happens if a player has all his Pokemon defeated? Will it be "Game Over"? Well… no. The player will be able to roam the world without any Pokemon in their party, whether by choice or by having all their Pokemon killed. When traveling without any Pokemon, you can't battle any trainers, and wild Pokemon encounters play out almost like a Safari Zone encounter. And in fact, there will be rare Pokemon that can only be found this way, so it might occasionally be a good idea to put away the Pokemon and go solo.