About

Where is the comic?

If you want to start reading, click here to go to the first page or click here to go to the most recent page. Use the arrow buttons to navigate to other pages, or scroll to the bottom of this page for a table of contents.

What does "Nuzlocke" mean?

The Nuzlocke Challenge is a set of self-imposed rules designed to add challenge and excitement to the Pokémon RPGs. You can read more about the history of the Nuzlocke Challenge here.

Basically, it's a comic about playing a video game, with the events of the game reinterpreted as an original story.

As for what a Nuzlocke is... who knows?

All right then, what does "Bemurkled" mean?

It's a nonsense word I made up once and have since grown fond of. There are several synonyms, but none quite as vivid. Here is a sample sentence: "When studying the history of China, one often finds that the waters of history have been bemurkled by multiple civil wars and the P.R.C."

And the "Sapphire" part?

The game I played was Pokémon Sapphire.

Tell me something that will give me an idea what your comic is like.

This comic was featured on the Nuzlocke Forum in 2013. You can read the feature here.

There are a lot of different Nuzlocke comics, but I think the tone of mine is a little different than some of them. I can't promise I won't be breaking the fourth wall (that's what we have TM 31 for!), but I'm trying to make my main character someone who doesn't yet know all about the world and game of Pokémon. She doesn't already know which monsters are crummy or awesome or common or popular, although she does seem to know basic things like type matchups. Incidentally, I've never played through a Hoenn game before, so some of it's new to me as well.

Aside from that, I like to say that the early pages of my comic have awful scribbly art and obvious pop culture references, while the later pages have better scribbly art and more obscure pop culture references.

How far are you in the game?

Not all the way through yet, but a ways farther than I've drawn in the comic, which is also a ways farther than I've so far displayed online. (I like to have a bit of a buffer.) So, no, I don't know how this all ends, but I do have some idea what will happen next.

How closely are you following the game?

Somewhat loosely. Captures, evolutions, deaths, and important battles will be pretty close to how they were in the game; the plot will not. I don't always take comprehensive notes, so details may not be 100% accurate. And I'm obviously not showing every minor trainer or bit of level-grinding I did, nor will I consider this all to have canonically occurred offscreen within the story of the comic.

Oh, and the in-game rival Brendan has been removed and replaced with my friend who started a Ruby Nuzlocke run at the same time as I started my Sapphire game. So here's to hoping nothing important happens during the rival battles.

Who are you?

I'm Billy. I'm from Saskatchewan. On the internet I sometimes go by the name "Vivificient", which is just a word I found in the Oxford English Dictionary and misspelled a little. The character Vivi in the comic is a shameless self-insertion. So in some sense, the main character Zizzy is my imaginary little sister.

Rules

Basic Rules

1. A fainted Pokémon is dead forever.
2. Catch only the first wild Pokémon encountered in each area.

The Fine Print

• An "area" is a place with the same name (e.g., all of Granite Cave is one area). If a Pokémon is captured in an area by fishing, one cannot also be captured there in the grass, and so on.
  Exception: each zone of the Safari Zone is its own area.
• No repeats: cannot capture a Pokémon belonging to the same evolutionary family as a previously captured Pokémon (including if the previous one fainted).
• Ignore the first two wild Pokémon in an area if they are repeats; if the first three Pokémon in an area are all repeats, capture nothing in that area.
• Gift Pokémon and fossil Pokémon do not count as the capture for their area, and may be used.
• In-game trades are allowed; inter-game trades are only allowed with other Nuzlockers (none anticipated though, as I don't have a link cable...)
• Legendary or fixed-encounter Pokémon count like regular encounters, so cannot be captured if another Pokémon has been encountered in the area.
• Item use is allowed (except revives, of course).
• White out is not game over; carry on unless progress becomes impossible.

Table of Contents

Indigo Plateau
Little Root Town
Professor Birch
The Challenge
Zigzagoon
Ruffles
Wingull
Benny
To Petalburg
Wally
Reflections
Woods
Rustboro
Roxanne
Nosepass
Stone Badge
Premier Ball
Rusturf
Devon
Mr. Stone
Children
Maddy
Steven Stone
Old Rod
Marina
Hot Chocolate
Brawly
Machop
Knuckle Badge
Sailing
Slateport Beach
Babysitting
Blackest Depths
Ice Cream
Grand Opening
Captain Stern
Thieves
Pirates
Mistakes
Ninja
Triathlon
Triki
Leviathan
Graves
Mud
Plusle
Playground
Coins
Manners
Nobody Home (I)
Nobody Home (II)
Roses
Full Moon
Mr. Wattson
Old Man Problems
High Energy Luxatrope
Toast
Short Out
Reconnaissance
Nothing to See
New Mauville
Lights Out
Groceries
The Plan
Tomorrow Morning
Officer Jenny
Pretty Brave
Dynamo Badge
Cycle
Mudbert
Marshtomp Contest
Winstrate
Rollout
Picnic
Fiery Path
Rumbles
Getting Away
Bamboo