---
# nuzlocke-tracker-j28y
title: Curate route ordering to match game progression
status: completed
type: task
priority: normal
created_at: 2026-02-05T13:37:39Z
updated_at: 2026-02-07T12:30:17Z
parent: nuzlocke-tracker-f5ob
---

Routes are currently in alphabetical order from PokeAPI. Update the order field in each game's JSON seed file to reflect actual game progression (e.g., Pallet Town → Route 1 → Viridian City → Route 2 → ...).

## Automated Approach: Bulbapedia Walkthrough Scraping

We already have all location/encounter data from PokeAPI. The missing piece is progression order, which can be extracted from Bulbapedia walkthroughs.

### Data Source
Every game has a Bulbapedia walkthrough with routes listed in progression order:
- https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Walkthrough:Pokémon_FireRed_and_LeafGreen
- https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Walkthrough:Pokémon_Emerald
- https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Walkthrough:Pokémon_HeartGold_and_SoulSilver
- (and so on for all games through Gen 8)

### Implementation Plan
1. **Scrape walkthrough TOCs** - Parse the section headings from each game's walkthrough page to get route order
2. **Normalize names** - Map Bulbapedia location names to PokeAPI location names (handle differences like "Route 1" vs "Kanto Route 1")
3. **Generate ordering** - Create a JSON mapping of `{game: {location_name: order_number}}`
4. **Update fetch_pokeapi.py** - Apply ordering when generating seed data

### Benefits
- Automatable for all games (Gen 1-8)
- Bulbapedia walkthroughs are community-maintained and accurate
- Scales as we add more games
- Only needs to run once per game (or when walkthroughs update)

### Considerations
- Gen 9 (Scarlet/Violet) is open-world so ordering is less meaningful
- Some games have branching paths - may need to pick a canonical order
- Name matching between Bulbapedia and PokeAPI may need fuzzy matching

## Current Scope
- FireRed and LeafGreen share the same route progression (Kanto)
- HeartGold and SoulSilver share the same route progression (Johto + Kanto)
- Emerald has its own progression (Hoenn)
- So effectively 3 unique orderings to define for current games

## Files
- `backend/src/app/seeds/data/firered.json`
- `backend/src/app/seeds/data/leafgreen.json`
- `backend/src/app/seeds/data/emerald.json`
- `backend/src/app/seeds/data/heartgold.json`
- `backend/src/app/seeds/data/soulsilver.json`