hack Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - Explorers of Alpha (3.0.3, last update 3/10/2025)

[luguno]

hi have a problem with the game

after i made the secret waterfall mission the game turns black after i finished a dungeon

basiclly it doesnt get to the meal scene after a dungeon

can someone help me

[JS_]

Can you not use spinda drinks on hardcore difficulty? Or is there something else blocking it rn

Spinda said it dosnt want to incurage drinking if that's only temporary then ill continue to save all my gummies if not ill just eat them all normally till I get something with pricing hurl or whatever the iq skill is called 

[Alphadaemon]

38 minutes ago, JS_ said:

Can you not use spinda drinks on hardcore difficulty? Or is there something else blocking it rn

Spinda said it dosnt want to incurage drinking if that's only temporary then ill continue to save all my gummies if not ill just eat them all normally till I get something with pricing hurl or whatever the iq skill is called 

The only interest in using gummies with Spinda's Juice Bar outside of Dojo dungeons is to abuse the stat boosts. So yes, it's disabled

2 hours ago, luguno said:

hi have a problem with the game

after i made the secret waterfall mission the game turns black after i finished a dungeon

basiclly it doesnt get to the meal scene after a dungeon

can someone help me

Enable cutscene skip

[Brendell]

On 7/18/2025 at 2:12 PM, Alphadaemon said:

I wonder why you are getting this issue... the only way I can reproduce these is by using a Reviver Seed cheat. I'm afraid besides that I cannot see a way to fix anything as the only way to reproduce it I found was by external tools

Eh, no skin off my back; I still think they're funny.

[LePingCosm]

Hello, the feature where you can only enter story dungeons with your OG team isn’t vanilla right? It’s such a bummer because I've got all these cool new mons that I have basically no reason to use if not for grinding ranks.

[Alphadaemon]

2 hours ago, LePingCosm said:

Hello, the feature where you can only enter story dungeons with your OG team isn’t vanilla right? It’s such a bummer because I've got all these cool new mons that I have basically no reason to use if not for grinding ranks.

Story dungeons are a minority of the game's content, most of it is not behind using your team so you have a lot of reasons to use them.

[LePingCosm]

4 hours ago, Alphadaemon said:

Story dungeons are a minority of the game's content, most of it is not behind using your team so you have a lot of reasons to use them.

That’s fair enough I suppose. Though it would be nice if I could make my partner the leader in such cases.

[JS_]

25 minutes ago, LePingCosm said:

That’s fair enough I suppose. Though it would be nice if I could make my partner the leader in such cases.

Tbh I think it would be really nice if you could change the order of your team during the dungen (like who is leader and in what formation the team travels)

Also I noticed that while in manual mode you not longer have access to tactics Is manual mode a "hidden" tactic itself? 

Also imo would nice pressing the off button on a non leader would make it end as soon as its his turn again 

I know all of this isn't necessary and probably not worth the time it takes to code because manual mode itself kinda already dos all of that on its own (even if sometimes a little slower) but i just like talking about game mechanics 

 

[SR9e]

Hello, I really like all the work you have done for this game that I appreciate so much, when I saw that Zorua was available I was excited by the idea, but the illusion ability is reason enough for me not to choose it, I would still like to know if there was a way (Action replay) or object to cancel this, I find it very annoying, although if it couldn't it would still be a game as good as it is, I would still like to play a game with Riolu+Zorua.

[Alphadaemon]

5 hours ago, SR9e said:

Hello, I really like all the work you have done for this game that I appreciate so much, when I saw that Zorua was available I was excited by the idea, but the illusion ability is reason enough for me not to choose it, I would still like to know if there was a way (Action replay) or object to cancel this, I find it very annoying, although if it couldn't it would still be a game as good as it is, I would still like to play a game with Riolu+Zorua.

Illusion's implementation is like in SMD in 3.0.X, however in 3.1 it doesn't make you appear as transformed. I could write a cheat code so people can play as Zorua/Zoroark in the meantime but this would have to wait this evening my time which is in 12h

Edited July 22 by Alphadaemon

[DarkNik1]

Hello, i encountered a bug/softlock. In Chapter 5 after i clear the dungeon and rank my badge up the game goes black and freezes without reacting to any of my inputs. I did try to play through same dungeon on my ds with r4 and on DeSmuME without any result. Is there any fix to that?

[Alphadaemon]

4 minutes ago, DarkNik1 said:

Hello, i encountered a bug/softlock. In Chapter 5 after i clear the dungeon and rank my badge up the game goes black and freezes without reacting to any of my inputs. I did try to play through same dungeon on my ds with r4 and on DeSmuME without any result. Is there any fix to that?

Skip cutscene

[SR9e]

17 hours ago, Alphadaemon said:

La implementación de Illusion es similar a la de SMD en la versión 3.0.X; sin embargo, en la 3.1 no te hace aparecer transformado. Podría escribir un código de trucos para que la gente pueda jugar como Zorua/Zoroark mientras tanto, pero esto tendría que esperar esta noche, que es dentro de las 12 h.

It would be a great detail on your part, I've searched for hours and found an action replay for this, but I haven't been able to get it to work, so far I've played with Riolu and Togepi, they also make a cute duo, but I'm worried about the Tegetic and Togekiss sprites (especially Togekis looks horrible) and since I want to complete it 100% if I would prefer to restart with a Zorua. thanks for your time!

[PandaTrash]

Will the new update release anytime soon? I wish to evolve some of my staters but can't due to the ascend stone bug. If it's not releasing anytime soon that's okay! It's just that the bug is a bit frustrating. Again, no worries if it's not.  

[LePingCosm]

I want to give props to this mod because it straight up killed my enjoyment of other rom hacks since it’s so good. The sheer quality and quantity of QoL changes is insane plus the fact that you're a solo dev is nuts. Good job man, I mean it.

[Brendell]

Oh, hey, I was wondering if you could clarify some interactions? My current fancy is Annihilape, which has Defiant as one of her abilities. I've also got the Unique Item, the Rage Shackle; which, for anyone reading this later, 'protects the pokemon from stat reductions'. The interesting thing is that it triggers against growl, negating the stat drop and the attack increase. Yet, the Shackle lets screech through, triggering Defiant.

I guess I have two questions then; what is the trigger condition for the Shackle? And, what is the trigger condition for Defiant? The former seems unreliable; and for the latter I'm curious about Self Stat drop like Curse or Close Combat, as well as secondary stat drop like Psychic.

[JS_]

I have some questions about grinsengs, move sets and live seeds

The short form is:

what movesets can you recommend and when should I use my live seeds?

Im still far away from getting access to multiple grinsengs but i got one from prize tickets and I have been wondering what's the best way to use them 

Im on extreme difficulty and just beat up grovile in crystal caves 

My guys h growlithe and finneon ~level 45

I made shure to play bad on the sentry duty so I could get perfect highscore every time so I have 10 levels in seeds where im not shure when to use them (i have pirce hurler on a 3rd guy so could hit both ny mons)

I think if I use them now I could learn headsmash and flareblitz or i could save them for the final jump to level 100 when the time comes

Rn my moveset is fire Fang, rockslide, ember

And last move I usually change depending on dungen between t fang, flame trower, crunch, double kick and ror 

But im not shure what my endgame moveset is supposed to look like

If grinsengs boost to power is the same no matter what but pp scales then ember to me seems to be better than flamethrower because more pp

But if you get enough boosts so that pp dosnt matter anymore than flamethrower or heatwave (i think i can get that) would be better because of their range

And if the power boost is always the same aren't multi hit moves even stronger if the boost applies to every hit (and iirc accuracy also gets boosted)

Edited July 24 by JS_

[CloudStone]

Is this where we report bugs?

So I haven't yet looked into this very deeply, nor do I have an adequate screenshot of the text log at this time, but I'm experiencing an issue with exclusive items. At least one of them isn't working, but I imagine it may be true of all exclusive items with that same effect.

Essentially, I'm playing as an aron, and I have the iron torc in the bag, which is supposed to prevent critical hits. I don't think it is doing as such however. As a matter of fact, it seems to increase the damage of critical hits.

Quoting the text log from memory:

Spoiler

Skarmony used sky attack
It's not very effective...
Aron took 4 damage
Skarmony used sky attack
Aron's Iron Torc prevents critical hits
It's not very effective...
Aron took 256 damage
Aron fainted

Admittedly, this is while using MelonDS. I'm working on setting up a different emulator. Will edit this if I find things are different with a different emulator.

edit: It seems that melonDS is the only emulator DS emulator out there that supports Linux. I don't have a windows computer, and I don't plan on buying a windows license, or risking Windows's destructive installation process  just for this. I therefore cannot test this on a different emulator at this time.

Edited July 25 by CloudStone

[Brendell]

Quick bug report: Palkia's ORB was smacked out of their "hands", and while the abilities reverted correctly, the sprite did not. Not a huge deal, just a lil bug.

On 7/23/2025 at 4:15 PM, JS_ said:

I have some questions about grinsengs, move sets and live seeds

The short form is:

what movesets can you recommend and when should I use my live seeds?

Im still far away from getting access to multiple grinsengs but i got one from prize tickets and I have been wondering what's the best way to use them 

Im on extreme difficulty and just beat up grovile in crystal caves 

My guys h growlithe and finneon ~level 45

I made shure to play bad on the sentry duty so I could get perfect highscore every time so I have 10 levels in seeds where im not shure when to use them (i have pirce hurler on a 3rd guy so could hit both ny mons)

I think if I use them now I could learn headsmash and flareblitz or i could save them for the final jump to level 100 when the time comes

Rn my moveset is fire Fang, rockslide, ember

And last move I usually change depending on dungen between t fang, flame trower, crunch, double kick and ror 

But im not shure what my endgame moveset is supposed to look like

If grinsengs boost to power is the same no matter what but pp scales then ember to me seems to be better than flamethrower because more pp

But if you get enough boosts so that pp dosnt matter anymore than flamethrower or heatwave (i think i can get that) would be better because of their range

And if the power boost is always the same aren't multi hit moves even stronger if the boost applies to every hit (and iirc accuracy also gets boosted)

As for you, friendo, there are a few things I can suggest. I'll start with those life seeds, because there's info that'll help with your other questions. 

So! On the difficulty you're on, there should be a stat cap. I think. I know the expert and higher difficulties do, but I'm not in town atm, so I can't check. Anyways, the stat cap is raised after dialga and again after a certain mission in post game. If you are on one that has stat caps, I'd be careful using them. If you don't feel bad about it, I'd save before eating them, figure out what the cap is by eating a bunch, then reload and don't go over that HP cap. Save the rest of them for after the cap is raised.

For your moveset and Ginseng usage... I'll state my suggestion, and then explain why, so if 'ya don't want to read it, 'ya don't have to. 

I'd try and get a heat wave TM, and Ginseng that. If not that, Flamethrower.

Why? First off, Ginseng only boosts the one particular instance of a move. What that means is that if you learn ember, ginseng it, then replace it with flamethrower, all the ginseng you used on Ember is lost. Even if you relearn Ember, it won't have any Ginseng applied to it. So, you are rewarded for Ginseng-ing moves that will be in your endgame moveset. I don't know if H Growlithe has Rock Head, but I can confirm that both the regular and shiny H Arcanine have this ability, which means that the two moves you listed are probably going to be in your endgame moveset. If you have them, use it on them, full stop. That said, at level 45 you might not have access, so I'd say Heat Wave or Flamethrower. I'm personally of the opinion that having at least one Room Clearing move is a necessity for end game, as monster houses or large rooms become severe problems if you can only attack one pokemon, while 5 enemies get to use Water pulse on you.

On to Ginseng mechanics. If you'll note, I did suggest two moves that have rather low PP. The reason for that is two-fold: you can easily farm Max elixirs in the beach cave, I think, and the more Ginseng you pour into a move, the more PP it gets. In addition to many IQ groups getting Multitalent, which just gives all your moves PP. That doesn't mean Hyper Beam will get 40PP or something, as, to my knowledge, and as stated in the first post, each move is balanced to itself. This means very powerful moves that start at 9PP, for example, can usually only get to around 18PP. Meanwhile, my Scizor has Metal Claw with 53PP.

Now, because the moves have been balanced, this means that the ginseng damage boost is not the same across the board. That Scizor I have will deal less damage with Metal Claw (base 4* damage), than with Steel Wing (base 8* damage), even with both of them having maxed the ginsengs I can use on them. You mentioned multi-hit moves, right? Well, each hit is improved, but it is not to the same extent that hydro-pump is improved. It's increased by a smaller amount, to make sense for a multi-hit move.

Now, here's where I tell you why you might not want to fully ginseng Ember, even though it might have an insane amount of PP. It comes back to those stat caps. When you're pushing up against those caps, moves with greater damage become far more useful. If you and the Bastiodon have the same stats across the board, it could take 4 or 5 Embers to KO it. Meanwhile Fire Blast can KO it in 1 or 2 uses. That might seem fine, but that's the difference between taking one Earthquake or four. Ouch.

This means that anything that can push your damage or defense over the stat cap becomes very valuable towards the end of each story arc, and in the end game. Croagunk Swap items, Stat Bands, Stat Moves, and more powerful moves are all ways to deal with this problem. I actually carry some stat boosting bands to swap between for Monster Houses. It makes a significant difference, easily going from ~200 to ~300 damage, which is enough to turn a two use Earth Power into a single use room clear; depending on the pokemon.

 

Edited July 27 by Brendell
Trying, and probably failing, to put spoilers on the images for polite-ness

[Yuuna]

I'm completely new to these forums and such so idk if theres specific places to post this.

Sorry if this is not the place but I'm having an issue. I can download the xdelta file perfectly fine but when I go to patch it with the online patcher, it takes all day to download 48 mb just to tell me no file is found.. I've done this 3 times, redownloaded the xdelta file and still it keeps happening. I'm doing this on android though, on my PC it wouldn't even start to patch and stays at 0 mb downloaded. Anyone have a suggestion or an already patched file? I've patched two other roms prior to this with no issue. Only this one I'm having issues with

[Alphadaemon]

3 hours ago, Yuuna said:

I'm completely new to these forums and such so idk if theres specific places to post this.

Sorry if this is not the place but I'm having an issue. I can download the xdelta file perfectly fine but when I go to patch it with the online patcher, it takes all day to download 48 mb just to tell me no file is found.. I've done this 3 times, redownloaded the xdelta file and still it keeps happening. I'm doing this on android though, on my PC it wouldn't even start to patch and stays at 0 mb downloaded. Anyone have a suggestion or an already patched file? I've patched two other roms prior to this with no issue. Only this one I'm having issues with

First do not ask already patched files as it's illegal.

Second the post states you should use a specific patcher called xdeltaUI and none else. This patch is made so I'm sure people patching it have the right output.

[JS_]

9 hours ago, Brendell said:

Quick bug report: Palkia's ORB was smacked out of their "hands", and while the abilities reverted correctly, the sprite did not. Not a huge deal, just a lil bug.

As for you, friendo, there are a few things I can suggest. I'll start with those life seeds, because there's info that'll help with your other questions. 

So! On the difficulty you're on, there should be a stat cap. I think. I know the expert and higher difficulties do, but I'm not in town atm, so I can't check. Anyways, the stat cap is raised after dialga and again after a certain mission in post game. If you are on one that has stat caps, I'd be careful using them. If you don't feel bad about it, I'd save before eating them, figure out what the cap is by eating a bunch, then reload and don't go over that HP cap. Save the rest of them for after the cap is raised.

For your moveset and Ginseng usage... I'll state my suggestion, and then explain why, so if 'ya don't want to read it, 'ya don't have to. 

I'd try and get a heat wave TM, and Ginseng that. If not that, Flamethrower.

Why? First off, Ginseng only boosts the one particular instance of a move. What that means is that if you learn ember, ginseng it, then replace it with flamethrower, all the ginseng you used on Ember is lost. Even if you relearn Ember, it won't have any Ginseng applied to it. So, you are rewarded for Ginseng-ing moves that will be in your endgame moveset. I don't know if H Growlithe has Rock Head, but I can confirm that both the regular and shiny H Arcanine have this ability, which means that the two moves you listed are probably going to be in your endgame moveset. If you have them, use it on them, full stop. That said, at level 45 you might not have access, so I'd say Heat Wave or Flamethrower. I'm personally of the opinion that having at least one Room Clearing move is a necessity for end game, as monster houses or large rooms become severe problems if you can only attack one pokemon, while 5 enemies get to use Water pulse on you.

On to Ginseng mechanics. If you'll note, I did suggest two moves that have rather low PP. The reason for that is two-fold: you can easily farm Max elixirs in the beach cave, I think, and the more Ginseng you pour into a move, the more PP it gets. In addition to many IQ groups getting Multitalent, which just gives all your moves PP. That doesn't mean Hyper Beam will get 40PP or something, as, to my knowledge, and as stated in the first post, each move is balanced to itself. This means very powerful moves that start at 9PP, for example, can usually only get to around 18PP. Meanwhile, my Scizor has Metal Claw with 53PP.

Now, because the moves have been balanced, this means that the ginseng damage boost is not the same across the board. That Scizor I have will deal less damage with Metal Claw (base 4* damage), than with Steel Wing (base 8* damage), even with both of them having maxed the ginsengs I can use on them. You mentioned multi-hit moves, right? Well, each hit is improved, but it is not to the same extent that hydro-pump is improved. It's increased by a smaller amount, to make sense for a multi-hit move.

Now, here's where I tell you why you might not want to fully ginseng Ember, even though it might have an insane amount of PP. It comes back to those stat caps. When you're pushing up against those caps, moves with greater damage become far more useful. If you and the Bastiodon have the same stats across the board, it could take 4 or 5 Embers to KO it. Meanwhile Fire Blast can KO it in 1 or 2 uses. That might seem fine, but that's the difference between taking one Earthquake or four. Ouch.

This means that anything that can push your damage or defense over the stat cap becomes very valuable towards the end of each story arc, and in the end game. Croagunk Swap items, Stat Bands, Stat Moves, and more powerful moves are all ways to deal with this problem. I actually carry some stat boosting bands to swap between for Monster Houses. It makes a significant difference, easily going from ~200 to ~300 damage, which is enough to turn a two use Earth Power into a single use room clear; depending on the pokemon.

 

Thanks a lot 

Probably don't have to worry about the stat cap yet since palkia is still pretty far away 

I cleared future now and the difficulty seems to shift a little from just trowing a lot of guys at me to trowing guys with high stats at me 

By now I learned heat wave, flare blitz, and head snash by level up so i might end up using those 3 + thunder fang for type coverage and then bring along more max elixirs 

My parter (finneon)

Usually is the one doing screen nooking with the movset of

Water gun (for 2 tile range and pp)

And a linked move that is probably overkill of raindance tailgow and surf 

Usually nothing really survives that because of swift swimm hitting twice but it might be overkill and when I enter a monster room its not in a spot where it can hit everything 

[Brendell]

17 hours ago, JS_ said:

Thanks a lot 

Probably don't have to worry about the stat cap yet since palkia is still pretty far away 

I cleared future now and the difficulty seems to shift a little from just trowing a lot of guys at me to trowing guys with high stats at me 

By now I learned heat wave, flare blitz, and head snash by level up so i might end up using those 3 + thunder fang for type coverage and then bring along more max elixirs 

My parter (finneon)

Usually is the one doing screen nooking with the movset of

Water gun (for 2 tile range and pp)

And a linked move that is probably overkill of raindance tailgow and surf 

Usually nothing really survives that because of swift swimm hitting twice but it might be overkill and when I enter a monster room its not in a spot where it can hit everything 

Aah, that makes sense; especially with Finneon being a very effective nuke with that set up. And, I actually like having a high PP range two move on a partner, as they're almost always behind you.

If you didn't want to run Heat Wave, you could use the Start button to switch into manual mode. That would let you retreat into the hallway to swap with your partner  then clear them out. Or if you could learn volt switch/U-turn on arcanine- those let you attack and swap while your partner can still attack. 

Oh, also, I think you get access to Volt tackle or something; the electric version of flare blitz. It could be worth while to wait for that one, as your ability gets rid of the downside. I couldn't take it on mine, as I like to do solo runs, and I had to drop it for Giga Impact. Nothing like a giant rock dog shouting "I AM THE BULLET!" before launching itself 10 spaces at you. ;3

[JS_]

3 hours ago, Brendell said:

Aah, that makes sense; especially with Finneon being a very effective nuke with that set up. And, I actually like having a high PP range two move on a partner, as they're almost always behind you.

If you didn't want to run Heat Wave, you could use the Start button to switch into manual mode. That would let you retreat into the hallway to swap with your partner  then clear them out. Or if you could learn volt switch/U-turn on arcanine- those let you attack and swap while your partner can still attack. 

Oh, also, I think you get access to Volt tackle or something; the electric version of flare blitz. It could be worth while to wait for that one, as your ability gets rid of the downside. I couldn't take it on mine, as I like to do solo runs, and I had to drop it for Giga Impact. Nothing like a giant rock dog shouting "I AM THE BULLET!" before launching itself 10 spaces at you. ;3

Lmao  

V tackle is only for evo tho and the switch to manual mode is what I have been doing till now

[Yom]

Just started playing the hack, and got my butt kicked on Hardcore. Is this difficulty designed to make you optimize your MC and Partner from the get go, or is it expected for you to reset like 5+ times just to get one clear of an exploration run?

Felt like early game enemies were too strong and too numerous for a random team of Cubone + Ralts to reliably clear a dungeon without a bag full of status items (which I dont have)

Edit: Ah, please don't take this as me complaining about the difficulty's design though. I'm more curious about the intent and thought process behind how you designed this and how I should be approaching it. Expert felt too easy, while Hardcore felt too much than what Im usually comfortable with. So I'd like some pointers to find a nice balance in difficulty

Edited July 29 by Yom