nuzlocke-tracker/.beans/nuzlocke-tracker-j28y--curate-route-ordering-to-match-game-progression.md

title, status, type, priority, created_at, updated_at, parent

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