Trainers, it’s a big day for us all at the Hub. Yesterday evening, we launched a new version of our well known database site: db.pokemongohub.net, marking the culmination of months of development, design and testing!
Here’s what the new database entails:
- Includes all Gen 1 => 7 Pokemon stats, sprites and voices (where available)
- Includes HP, CP and IV charts for every Gen 1 => 7 Pokemon
- Includes all available moves and move sets, ranked per Pokemon
- Includes all available move stats and sound effects!
- Includes a list of simulated counters for every available Pokemon, Legendary Raid bosses included also
- Tons of ways to filter and sort Pokemon lists: per Generation, max CP, stats, types, name, etc…
- Includes a blazing fast search engine
- Includes animated videos of Gen 1 => 4 Pokemon
But the list of features doesn’t stop there:
- For the first time ever, you can now install the website as any other application! It’s not a true native app, but it gets so close that it doesn’t really matter!
- The app works in part offline: all icons, images, videos and sounds are cached for offline usage, making successive visits to the app faster and reliable in bad network conditions
- In order for the app to work offline, you need to pin in to your home screen or install (Android only)
This is a cornerstone release for GO Hub, as the new DB site marks the beginning of an even larger project, that we’re not yet ready to unveil. Let’s just say that you will have a large part to play in it!
Developer notes
This release is a really big deal for us, as it’s a huge upgrade over the previous version, both in terms of content and in terms of technology. Allow me to bore you a bit with techno babble, I haven’t slept for the past 6 days and I’m itching to share some tidbits from the development process.
The app is built using node.js and React, both state-of-the-art technologies for back end and front end development. The website is powered by our proprietary simulator (written by Incien) and a hefty amount of code and data we harnessed from various sources:
- Game Master files
- various bundle packs around the internet
This is the first time I’ve tried to build a Progressive Web Application and the experience felt good – it is a bit time consuming, but the payoff is immense: there’s no other technology on the web that will allow you to have a rich experience even on a 2G cell signal. It’s also very satisfying to open up the app as a regular, native app
We also tried to keep the code footprint low, with our production build clocking in at 179 KB of JavaScript and around 8 KB of CSS. I believe we can get those numbers still a wee bit down, but that’s something that we’ll work on during the next release.
On the server side, major upgrades were done to the DB server, which has now essentially doubled in terms of CPU / RAM and disk size. Although we don’t need this much power at the moment, this additional breathing room will play a critical role in our future projects that tie into the DB site.
With that said, we hope you will enjoy our new Database site! Be eager to report errors – we’ll probably fix all of these next week, after we get back from Dortmund. Want to meet us in Dortmund? Hop on to our Discord server and join in on the fun.