Hello and Happy Halloween time for a game that looks innocent on the surface a simple hack of Firered called FRLG.IPS. If you put a Pokemon game, Deltarune, and an engaging ARG in a blender then you would get FRLG.IPS. I feel like I should explain what an ARG is at least. I’m sure most of my readers know what Pokemon and Deltarune are (unless you come here for the scam stuff). ARG or Alternate Reality Game is a puzzle often employing different websites, easter eggs, or even seperate url in websites with the goal of telling a complex story. ARGs are intended for entire communities to solve some big mystery about a piece of media. Often ARGs will have a friendly enough surface while telling a darker story if you dig in. A good example would be Welcome Home an ARG about that on the surface is a small puppet show styled after Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood and by diging around the website later turning into people being mind controlled by Wally and Home two of the main characters.

FRLG.IPS starts not with the actual game, but with the Pokecommunity post advertising the game. Like other Firered hacks it starts off with features at first it sounds normal, but then you read the list and quickly learn through wording this may be a different beast altogether. First it mentions working alone, stating only one Pokemon allowed, but it is listed as a continuation or the Pokedex being completable kind of a contradiction. Even then in Pokemon fan comunities like this one it is more common to say this is an Iron Mon game where the challenge is pick your Pokemon then try your best. The features get weirder and weirder as you read until you reach the screenshots. Each picture is wrapped in a code and the ARG has officially started when you decode the message you are taken to a blog simulating 2003-2004. Most of the links are dead, but what we need to focus on are the rumors link. It mentions some announcements of “new” Pokemon(mostly Munchlax) eventually you reach How to find in Firered and Leafgreen no name is listed. This is after it mentions the Regis and Espeon and Umbreon.

Now we have reached to play the patch follow all of the instructions including starting with squirtle and naming the rival BLUE and evolve Squirtle early (there are some tips to show you how.) At first things seem normal the Old Man in Viridian City questions why you claim you never caught a Pokemon and don’t know how only for something to happen and then claim you just said you did. A little weird but one of the features said no tutorials so it is written off. Later, in Cerulean City Blue comments how we never caught anything and how we seem to be sticking with just one Pokemon even criticizes our Pokedex before telling us about Bill’s house and walking away aside from that nothing too weird yet.

This game starts to get weird from here this Rom Hack thrives on and has a large emphasis on what can only be described as playground rumors. Things like Mew under the truck and the Mist Stone able to evolve fully evolved Pokemon. Those were all rumors people first heard on playgrounds while a majority weren’t true some were. To continue don’t go into Bill’s house. When you approach Bills house a cave opens and you are brought to Bill’s Secret Garden. The area is based on rumors that Bill has a garden behind his house full of rare Pokemon as the Player constantly hears about how large his collection is yet never see it.

The garden is seemingly endless and after wandering for awhile a strange looking moving almost glitch appears and the world has bubbles appearing and brighter than the other areas and the glitch starts talking. It mentions the world being a dream and how things that don’t exist can in this world. It then challenges you to a battle which is easy to win. It looks like some kind of Cimera and beta form of a Pokemon. It isn’t a hard battle and you are awarded with the Soul Badge allowing Surf outside of battle. Also avoid any Gym Battles for now as they aren’t needed and head to Cerulean Cave. There is a new item called 8F where Mewtwo usually is. To get there flee from all battles and use healing items. You should be warpped out as soon as you pick up the item.

Head back to Bill’s house and save him from being merged with a Pokemon to get the S.S Anne ticket. From here play normally till you get to the inside of the ship. As soon as you enter the 8F becomes a Mist Stone and by using it you can evolve Blastoise to Rainer. A glitched Blastoise with inverted colors and one move Abyss. This move can’t miss and is a one hit KO it can still fail if your level is lower or Sturdy is involved. From here proceed to the rival battle and use this move on Raticate. Something happens to Raticate and BLUE runs off in a panic. This references the Blue’s Raticate rumor. During a regular playthrough this is the last time you battle Raticate. You next see Blue at Lavender Town and he has some dialouge that pushes the idea something happened.

The Sailor chews you out for what happened to Raticate and seems to know more than he lets on, but leaves you alone for now. At first this acts as a reference to a hoax image where he says to buy the game or die as part of an anti piracy measure, but was proven to be a rumor. Now, for two of the most annoying points in the game Rock Tunnel needs to be navigated without Flash so you need to look up a guide I used Bulbapedia’s map. You can’t do anything in Celadon City or Lavender Town right now so just continue to Fushia City.

Navigate the Safarii Zone until you find the HM for Surf and the Gold Teeth. They’re in the same area as usual and after spaming the a butten for several minutes at this point trying not to catch something took longer that you may think thanks to a game crash and accidentally catching a Nidoran forcing 2 resets. Fight Koga for the Soul Badge after lightning hits it and no one reacts exchange the teeth for the Strength HM. Surf to the Seafoam Islands an pick up a Water Stone. There are two in the cave and it doesn’t matter which you get and return to Fushia City and the Safarii Zone enter the Saffarii and exit it immedially say no when the guy asks if you are done with the game and hit retire a possible reference to the walk through walls glitch in early Pokemon. From here toss every item aside from the water stone in your bag and walk to a specific part of the map two steps to the right of the sign on the Seafoam islands. Then leave to the south and interact with the rocks in the order specified by Abby’s blog. Save here as the game has a tendency to crash.

When you regain control you will be in a house and by going outside and interacting with a weird object warps you repeat this until you get to a glitched Saffron City. All the NPC’s have the same dialouge and the thing from before is all over the city though most will just warp you to the Pokemon Center. Eventually, you find the object outside Silph Co. and this leads to an audio puzzle and new URL. By following instructions hidden in the text that eventually start highlighting these making it easier to see. If everything is done right you are warpped to the S.S Anne and after learning from the Captain’s diary what happened after you left another battle with a glitched Pokemon happens with the reward being an exchange and you are warped back with the water stone now another Mist Stone at the Safarii Zone enterance in which the guard is very confused about how you got here, but disregards it saying he must be imagining something.

At this point evolve Rainer again into Mellenium and remove the guard to the cycling road. When you finally get to Celadon City you learn Erika isn’t here and you need to get her in Saffron City. She is visiting a sick Sabrina at the Pokemon Center and wondering why there is no hospital before noticing you and going to the gym. Talk to her and Leaf tries to warn her about something and to Erika’s credit she lies about a break and runs away until you catch up and she battles you. Earning the Rainbow Badge and more improtantly the use of Strength outside of battle.

This is a good time to mention you don’t play as Leaf rather you force her to do things. As mentioned this game takes a lot from Deltarune so this is more common with Kris from that game. In Deltarune you don’t play as the main group of heroes you play as a Soul controlling Kris and forcing his actions and much like FRLG. IPS Kris fights some decisions and even may refuse and rip the Soul out and cause trouble. At various points it becomes obvious that Leaf tries to warn, refuse, or tell others what is happening being terrified of battling. Only for the Hand to take over and force her to comply.

From here solve the Seafoam Island puzzle and continue to Cinnabar Island Blaine isn’t in the gym he is at Pallet Town so go find him in the grass patch he is on the phone more than likely with the Sailor as you eavesdrop he then notices you and walks away. He doesn’t go to the gym instead you find six NPC’s around the map all of which are coneected to glitches and rumors. The old man is how you find Missingno, Mr. Psychic is connected to some rumors, but mostly just gives you the TM for Psychic, The Daycare Manager while the daycare didn’t exist in Gen 1 only introduced in Gen 2 it was home of an infamous cloning Pokemon glitch, The Name Rater not connected to any glitch though Speedrunners discovered the less long the Pokemon’s name the faster the game may be a reference to that, the Safarii Zone guard his involvement has already been discussed and you have to walk through the wall to get him, and lastly Bill who was also discussed earlier.

Return for the secret key and step onto a tile on Cinnabar Island’s coastline where you encounter MissingNo. after the Secret Key becomes the ???Key. You get a Thunder Badge and the HM for Fly. Use fly to get to Celadon and enter the Rocket Hideout find the elevator and use the ??? Key this lets you fight Giovanni twice. Remove him and get the Odd Ticket. From here you are told to go to Lavendor Town. Apparently, Blue’s Raticate came back and has trapped people in the tower and warpping the world around it. A little girl plays hide and seek, but seems to know more than she lets on eventually revealing that she knows about the Hand. You then fight a Nightmare Creature though you have to run from it winning or losing just crashes the game. After it removes Blue and the little girl tells you to leave Kanto for awhile.

Now, head to Vermillion and the sailor takes you to Six Island, enter the Dotted Cave and solve the Braille puzzle for the Sapphire. After head for Altered Cave the Sailor tries to stop you again only to fail and you remove him. After travelling deeper into the cave, the ???Key and Sapphire open a cave. This leads to the last three Strength puzzles and two URLs and audio puzzles. After solving them Professor Oak challenges you to a battle to stop you at this point he really isn’t a challenge. This is likely a reference to Oak being the final boss and Champion an idea that was later scrapped, but code for it still exists in Red and Blue and is accessible through cheats and glitches. Enter the cave and you are transported to Bill’s Garden find the creature from last time and it gives you the last HM you need Dive. Return to Pallet Town and inspect the rock by the water obtaining the last Mist Stone. Use the Mist Stone, but don’t teach Dive yet head for the Seafoam Islands again.

Defeat or remove Articuno and enter the cave behind it and teach Dive. You will find a replica of Bill’s House enter where the garden would be at. From here you battle the Sailor in the toughest fight in this game all of his Pokemon are immune to Abyss, but if you use his second Pokemon to setup x items the fight is actually pretty managable. After that you run into the last two puzzles a rock jumping puzzle that I sort of just brute forced until I got to the end and the last URL audio puzzle. Walk into the void and trigger the final cutscene.

The games story is best experienced blind and like most ARGS has a lot of puzzles and easter eggs. This game doesn’t set out to be Kanto all over again but instead sets out to tell a horror story. That is all it needed to do. The last url is a link to a thank you for playing message from NovaMeow the creator of this Rom Hack. They explain the hack came from having gotten a broken leg and watching a Raticate Iron Mon challenge. Also inspired by the Weird Route in Deltarune and Lovcraftian Horror. Clear refences and love is shown to all of those and after they say they crunched to get this game out, they plan to take their time with their next game. The demo is slated for 2027/2028 and I am looking forward to it. It doesn’t seem to be a horror hack, but if NovaMeow made an excellent game and chooses to do something different or put easter eggs alluding to FRLG.IPS then that is all the better.