Pokémon Uranium

The game follows a similar gameplay formula to mainline series Pokémon games. The player is tasked with defeating eight Gym Leaders scattered across the game's main setting of the Tandor region, which they fight using captured Pokémon, with the aim of becoming the strongest trainer in the region. 200 Pokémon are available to the player to catch and use on their team throughout Uranium, with 166 of them being Fakemon, which are entirely original, fan-made Pokémon. A new type of Pokémon, Nuclear Pokémon, are available in-game, and are irradiated versions of pre-existing Pokémon in the game.

Several optional gameplay modes are featured, including a Nuzlocke mode, and the ability to translate Pokémon's speech to human language. Online functionalities, including the ability to battle and trade Pokémon with other players, are also available in the game.

Pokémon Uranium was in development for nine years prior to its release and was primarily developed by two fans, who go under the names ~JV~ and Involuntary Twitch. The fan game was developed using RPG Maker XP with alterations to allow for elements of the Pokémon video game series to be used, primarily added via the fan-made software Pokémon Essentials. It was developed to have "better mechanics and a deeper story" than the main series games. Involuntary Twitch stated the initial desire to create the game stemmed from her and ~JV~ wishing to create their own Pokémon game, with the idea developing further from there.

The game had four public betas as of 2015, with the fourth releasing on January 6 of the same year. The game's first completed version was on August 6, 2016, and was released on the game's website. Uranium was released on Microsoft Windows software, with a MacOS version initially in development. It also has its own dedicated wiki.

Within one week of its release, Uranium was downloaded over a million and a half times. PC Gamer attributed its popularity to the recent release of Pokémon Go, which caused a resurgence in the franchise's popularity, and the upcoming release of Pokémon Sun and Moon. Due to the timing between releases, fans looking for more Pokémon content were believed to have flocked to Uranium. The popularity of the game caused its official website to crash shortly after its release due to high traffic.

Kallie Plagge, playing the game for IGN, highlighted the game's effective emulation of mechanics in the main series despite being made by fans. CGMagazine's Bella Lara Blondeau praised the game's difficulty, tackling of complex topics, and incorporation of aspects from throughout the series, expressing disappointment at its takedown by Nintendo. Nicole Kurashige, writing in the InVisible Culture Journal, felt Uranium's focus on the relationship between the player and their father served as a response to the trope of the player's father being absent in the main series Pokémon games; Kurashige believed that by having this relationship play an active role in the story, it subverts the trope and touches on darker themes than would usually be discussed in the main series.