26th February 2011: ... well it took more than a day or two! Overall this latest update has taken more than 80 *hours* ... not including the time it took to read through all the help messages sent in and decide on the best ones to be added to the site. Our thanks to *everyone* who has written in, even if all of you are not mentioned by name - all this could never have been done without all the help that's come in from across the world.

As you know, Andy came back to help with the sorting out of the final cheats and help messages for the page here. Pokémon has moved on a lot since he wrote the first Walkthrough ... back in the year 2000. You guys have helped make this site into something unique since then :)

There's nothing like it anywhere else in the world (nor ever likely to be!). So please keep visiting whilst we go away and try to sort out the long-term funding to help keep it on line for ever.

If you want to write to us (or send a message to Andy) you can use the form here. We can't write back (the form doesn't allow e-mail addresses to be included) but every single message will be read :)   and thank you all, again.

17th February 2011 [9pm, GMT]: It begins ....

The new Cheats pages are currently downloading from the server (when we do a major cheats update, that changes the links content of every other cheats page as well as on many other pages, locations, HMs, techniques, TMs and a great deal more, let alone the major Pokédex pages) .... so the output is going to take us a little while yet. We have to "generate" all the new content, yet :/ long task, but the Cheats pages at least will be up on line soon.

Andy came back to help with the selection of the final cheats entries (a mammoth task, this has been) and he's added a few comments, along the way :) We'll be changing the mail form (and a lot else besides) in the next day or two, so please wait to write to us until everything is in place - thank you :)

3rd February 2011: Our thanks to Lauren for the drawing she sent in of Dragonair, now (finally) added to the Gallery page.

Sorry for the delay here in recent weeks (explanation below) - we are aiming to start work on the new updates again shortly.

More scheduled to be on line within the next few days, all going well :)

30th December 2010: Best laid plans, and all that - as you know, it was planned to start work on the next Pokémon update straight after Christmas - however a fall on some steps on Christmas Day has resulted in a broken foot. So, sorry, there is going to be a delay (four weeks at least). Sorry guys :/
Penny will be back to add the latest stuff that's been sent in, as soon as she's able to. In the meantime our best wishes to all of you for a very Happy New Year : )

18th December 2010: At 4.25pm today, the visit count for Andy's Guide to Pokémon hit 20 million pages : D   so major celebrations going on here :) thanks go to all of you who have helped in the building of this area, by all the cheats and help and shortcuts you have sent in, and to the countless thousands of you who visit these pages so regularly.

I know it's a long time since the last update! and sorry for that. The "science" took a whole lot longer to put in place than anyone imagined, though it's properly open-for-access now, with just the content for the individual "elements" (oxygen, carbon, etc.) to be added.

We're still (very) busy with link restores across the whole site - see the "Latest News" page - but the next "cheats update" for this area is due to be started some time over Christmas / New Year. We'll be back shortly :)

In the meantime you can see the access stats for Andy's Guide to Pokémon in "real time" on the page here.

Have a great Christmas :)

14th June 2010: ... our thanks to all of you that have been sending in messages lately :) We're still tied up with the "science", which is almost now at auto-generation stage - has been a long haul but we're hoping to get the next output on line by about the end of June, which should free up a little more time for everything else : )

Today's update is just about "Super Cool Zone dot com" ... and to let you know it's "back home". Last year the domain name got "bought" by someone else ... they kindly agreed to "give it back", but actually getting it back home safely to the site has taken a very long time, for one reason or another. We've now got it located within the main site, and registered with a UK firm, so it should be safer, ongoing :) And the mirror sites have been put back in place here and here and here. So everything is back how it should be, now : D

15th February 2010: ... and hello again :) sorry for the (very) long absence, but we've been fully tied up in putting together the "science" area ... the programming for which was based on what we designed back in 2007 for interlinking all the Pokémon and cheats in Andy's Guide (without Pokémon, this new science area would simply never have been possible, which is quite an awesome thought). The science isn't "finished", quite yet ... but hopefully this summer, all going well.

Today's update is just to say that we've added the picture of Lucario - sent in by Lauren, from North Carolina - to the Pokémon Gallery. More original graphics always appreciated :) might take a while to get them on line, but we'll do our best.

Thanks go to all of you who have been sending in new info for the site ~ we're hoping to get more cheats up on line when the science is completed, though we're also dealing with more progs on the language worksheets area, and keywords for learning wordsearch puzzles - looks like being an amazingly-busy year, but we will get to the new Pokémon messages as soon as we can :)

17th May 2009: Hi guys - just a brief update to let you know that the Platinum Pokédex has now gone on line - we hadn't forgotten! but it's taken a long while to create it, so we hope you find it useful :)

We have to go away (again) now and build the new "science" area - the final major new area for the whole Project HappyChild site - so it could be a while before we're back again. Enjoy Platinum! and let us know if you find out anything about the game (or any of the earlier versions) that you'd like to pass on to other visitors. We still have a build-up of messages to go up on line, but as you know, we're drawing everything together to complete Andy's Guide. We'll add more pages here when there's time somewhere :)

4th January 2009: Happy New Year to all of you, and thanks for staying with us during the long months of getting all the other areas of the whole Project HappyChild site (almost) completed!

Some of you will have noticed that we came back here and sorted out all the 'bits and pieces' (links, tag colourings etc.) a few weeks ago - since when we've been immersed in ploughing through all the cheats and help messages you've all sent in. And there are now some more cheats pages on line! see 4501-4520 and 4521-4540. Building new cheats pages takes soooo long - like 25 hours for each page - because of the complex underlying structure by means of which so many separate Pokémon themes are interlinked - in both directions - on the site pages here. Creating Andy's Guide to Pokémon has been the toughest area out of almost 20,000 pages - but you guys have made it what it is. Quite extraordinary.

We have to go away now and do more work to bring the rest of the site up to date - plus stuff like the dual-language worksheets (Spanish-English, Chinese-English, etc.) and the French grammar - but we're aware that Pokémon Platinum is due out (in most countries) this year, so we'll be back as soon as we can :)

Pokémon is one of the toughest games on the planet - if you play all the versions there are over a *million* different factors to keep in mind whilst you're playing. We haven't listed all of them! but you have the main structure here across all the games, and enough help sent in by visitors to this site over the last eight/nine years - and everything interlinked throughout Andy's Guide - eg see the Red/Blue/Yellow Pokédex, or FireRed LeafGreen cheats - to find your way through. Just remember that *everything* (in the whole of Andy's Guide) that's *underlined* is a link to related information, so explore .....

Today's Pokémon players are the "lateral thinkers" of the next generation - who knows how you will change the world for the better.

2nd January 2008: Happy New Year to all our visitors!

We're delighted to tell you that the huge cheats backlog is now cleared - and the best of everything received has now gone on line. Sorry we couldn't include everybody's input - there were lots of duplicate messages as well as masses that looked highly unlikely :) do appreciate you all writing though, and do write again if you've (ever) sent something that you feel is vital info for the site, and that didn't go up on line. As many of you will know, there have been endless mail problems as well as one big computer crash (hard drive) so it's possible that some valid entries also got lost along the way :(

Please use the mail form to write to us (e-mails remain unpredictable!) ... that way your messages end up together on a board that only we can see, and we can read them and print them out from there.

We're also highly delighted to say the database entries are all done now, as well. All the main areas of the site are now dovetailed in with the cheats/help messages you guys have sent over the last seven years. You can see the results from the main pokedex pages - eg see the red-blue-yellow pokedex (you can move from one pokédex to another by clicking on pokémon outside the block that includes cheats links) - and the colour version index pages (eg see firered/leafgreen cheats) - there's a phenomenal amount of info on line now and for the first time you can access all the different areas a lot more easily.

The seaweed-green entries on the A-Z pages don't "go anywhere" (but the cheat numbers next to them *do*) - eg try the E page and click through to all the messages that relate to the Elite Four (etc.). The rest of all the A-Z entries (as well as a linked cheat number) will also take you to other areas of the site - you'll often be able to see by the colour, which version is relevant, or what area of the site a link will lead to.

We still have some finishing-off to do! ... pages like Mew and Missingno, and some of the version pages like Ranger, XD and Stadium - plus the odd tidy-up here and there where the database colours have come out wildly wrong because we put in the wrong hex code (colour codes are something like "53825e" so it's not always easy to spot if something is wrong, until the code gets output on a page!) but these things will get dealt with along the way. If anyone spots something that needs changing, just let us know :)

We'd just like to thank all of you that have supported this site with your visits and the huge volumes of help messages you have sent. Every single message on this site has come in from one of our visitors, from countries across the world. What you have created together is quite extraordinary ... take a look around and see what has been created by all of you. An awesome achievement :)

Wishing you all the best for 2008 .....

17th December 2007: Well, we're making good progress with the database! even if it takes a *long* time to do all the entries (about 50,000 boxes [cells] in the database so far). You'll see there are lots more cheats links now in place from the red-blue-yellow pokedex (which has cheats links for the pokémon that first appeared in that dex, whichever game version they're referred to within) and more are gradually being added to the other dexes as more of the cheats get entered on the db.

More cheats pages are on line at 4341-4360 and 4361-4380, but there are many more new cheats still to add. And they also have to be added to the database, so it's not a five-minute-job. Please send in more good info, especially any of you that have experience of the diamond + pearl games :)

Meanwhile we've updated the items + pokéballs page and all the locations/gyms/badges and HMs pages, as well as creating new pages for diamond + pearl locations, diamond + pearl HMs and diamond + pearl TMs. Cheats links are set up on some but will be added to the rest whenever time allows.

Still a lot of work to do, but we've done a huge amount up to now, and will be progressing all this whenever we get chance.

Happy Christmas to all of you and thanks for all the comments on the way the site's developing :)

18th November 2007: There's a huge amount of work in progress on the site here - you might not be seeing a lot of changes (yet) but we're doing a great deal of work behind the scenes!

Latest cheats page is on line at 4321-4340 but we have hundreds more good cheats still to add, so please be patient! Not everything that gets sent in will be added (we get loads of duplicates as well as a fair amount of stuff that's not genuine) but we *will* aim to add all the good info that people send in to us.

Thanks go to everyone who's helping :) and please check back when you can, if you've recently sent in info for these pages.

21st October 2007: Just an update on what's happening here right now. Thanks to everyone for the new items being sent in (some of you at least, have found the new mesage form!) which we're starting to add to the site.

We've done all the database entries for the 2000 series which are now all linked from the Sundry A-Z area, the element groups (water, flying etc.) and the red/blue/yellow pokedex. Cheats in the 3000 series and 4000 series (mainly gold, silver, crystal, ruby, sapphire, emerald, diamond and pearl) have yet to be added to the database - once they are, these will also provide more links to and from the 2000 series, so bear with us for the time being :)

Meanwhile, we also have around 300 new messages to add (and these will also need to be added to the database). Everything that gets added to the database will also provide backlinks to previous messages, so will help massively in finally linking everything together - but we can only tackle one block at a time (out of approximately 60 we yet have to do) so not everything will interlink until all 60 blocks of work are completed. It's all fairly complicated! and we may not do the blocks in any sort of logical order (from your perspective) but in the best way we can, to help related cheat messages to be located easily.

For now, there's a new cheats page on line at 4301-4320, and more will follow soon (usually on Saturdays/Sundays, as that's when most people seem to be on line here, and probably the easiest time for us to do this). We'll probably wait to update the links from gyms, gym leaders, trading, Mew, Missingno, accessories, power ups, hms, etc., until all the database entries are finally completed, and the new links from the pokédexes (gold + silver, ruby + sapphire, diamond + pearl) may also have to wait until the end (depends what's possible, timewise, as we progress through all of this).

21st September 2007: Just a brief note to let you know that there's a lot of work going on here behind the scenes!!!

You might have noticed that stuff is moving around, or that the cheat links from the latest 300 messages added, are no longer visible - but they'll be back, in due course, and much else besides.

For the time being you can contact us via the new mail form here :) please only send info that you're sure will be useful, and if possible that isn't on line here already! ... yes we know that's difficult, because of the volume of cheats now on line, but it will be a lot easier to find things when we finish what we're doing here :)

1st September 2007: All the new dexes are now on line :) we hope these will help answer many of the questions that have come in here recently.

There's still a lot of work to be done, on making it possible for the cheats links to be made from the four dexes which have "original Pokémon" in them, but we're progressing through this in stages, so bear with us :) Copies of the previous dexes have been left on line to ensure you can find what was here previously, as well.

RED/BLUE/YELLOW POKÉDEX	GOLD/SILVER/CRYSTAL POKÉDEX	RUBY/SAPPHIRE POKÉDEX	EMERALD POKÉDEX	COLOSSEUM POKÉDEX
FIRERED/LEAFGREEN POKÉDEX	XD: GALE OF DARKNESS POKÉDEX	DIAMOND/PEARL POKÉDEX	NATIONAL DEX - JOHTO / HOENN / RANGER / SINNOH

30th August 2007: 80 more cheats items on line ... but we've put clearing the backlog on hold, just for a little while, so that we can focus on providing some detailed information we know many of you may need :)

Life here has been somewhat complex recently, with the volume of new messages coming in, because a lot of the info is repeated (asked or answered already) and also quite a lot of "answers" come in that don't mention the numbers of the cheats messages being replied to, which makes it very difficult for us (or you) to know what refers to what.

So we're taking a slightly different approach, in the way we structure the site, and we will be creating new Pokédexes for *all* the main versions of Pokémon. First of all, we've made a NATIONAL DEX - which gives some comprehensive info about Johto, Hoenn, Ranger and Sinnoh dex numbering, and, together with the new Pokédexes [all now on line, see links above], will provide an overall "framework" to which we can attach/link the new info you guys send in, as well as linking to/from the cheats entries already on line here.

Remember that all you visitors are the people who have made the content of this site. Andy wrote the Guide for the red, blue and yellow games when he was 14, mainly to help younger kids playing Pokémon, and the Cheats area he created is now used by many thousands of kids/teenagers across the world. Andy is grown up now :) but he's established Andy's Guide to Pokémon as a permanent "meeting place" where you can continue to find all the in-depth info that's been sent in by Pokémon players down the years.

Thank you for all the really useful info sent in! and please bear with us whilst we restructure things to link everything together so all the info is easy for everyone to find. Not everything here is a "cheat" - this area is also about making it easier to do various parts of the games, or find things, or what Pokémon to use where. Our thanks to all of you who have shared your knowledge, to make Pokémon easier for all the younger visitors who read these pages :)

15th August 2007: Just a brief note to say we've finally updated the GALLERY with the pictures sent in by visitors. Worth a look :) those by Brenden (Canada) are particularly beautiful. More pictures always welcomed! though you might have to wait a while, to see them go up on line :) mailing address is on one of the orange-linked cheats pages - we don't publicise it because it is *only* for sending graphics, please use the mail form further down, for anything else.

27th July 2007: Just a brief note to say that there are more new cheats on line - including, finally, some more detailed info for Pokémon Ranger - we'll be adding quite a lot more entries (relating to all versions) over the days ahead. This page won't necessarily be updated as things progress (keep an eye on the table for new orange links being made active - you might need to refresh the page here to see new links) but we'll update again whenever the cheats backlog is finally cleared .... :)

The links from the pages for individual versions - Diamond & Pearl, red/blue/yellow, etc. - won't be updated again until everything is complete, but you should be able to find all the new entries, until then, by using the new Cheat-Number links from the table above, or the follow-on links at the bottom of each Cheats page.

12th July 2007: Delighted to say that all the links from the new areas are now in place, so that it's easier to find cheats relating to a particular colour version - eg FireRed/Leaf Green has over 120 linked cheat entries now, and Red/Blue/Yellow over 300.

Some of the new pages - eg Colosseum, Ranger, and Diamond + Pearl - don't have a lot of entries as yet, so please do feel free to send in any info relating to these games. Doesn't have to be a "cheat" as such, just something that makes it easier for other people to find their way through the game/s. The form for writing to us is here.

9th July 2007: Another page of 20 new cheats, tips and shortcuts is on line, including most of today's entries, and the remainder of the "voting" items (along with the best of the comments received on the items that were in that area) at # 4141-40.

8th July 2007: 20 more items are now on line, including the most recent entries, at # 4121-40.

6th July 2007: The next new batch of 20 is on line, including items sent in over the last day or two, at # 4101-20. More to follow fairly soon :) including the entries from the recent "voting" area and the comments we received on the items there.

We've also created the new areas for Diamond + Pearl, Colosseum, Stadium, Ranger, Emerald, Crystal and Wii / Battle Revolution, and we'll be adding links soon from those areas to all the cheats currently on line.

30th June 2007: As many of you will know, there have been all sorts of changes going on in this area of the site, the last few weeks, whilst we looked at ways of involving more of you directly in what goes on here :)

Thanks to all of you who have e-mailed your views, or offered to be involved in the "TEAM" set up, in one way or another.

We're happy to say we now have the first 100 NEW "cheats, tips + shortcuts" entries on line! They're at # 4001-20, # 4021-4040, # 4041-4060, # 4061-4080, and # 4081-4100.

Please continue using the form HERE to write to us, and we'll get more of your entries on line as soon as we can. TEAM members are welcome to comment further on the new items that have gone up, also :)

p.s. As you know, we've reduced the size of this Cheats index page because it was getting so *long* - lots of the previous news items, including credits to people who've sent in various items for the site, can be found on the page here (items 1-30).

Because of the "time factors" during the building of these pages (alongside the rest of the Project HappyChild site, which now has over 25,000 pages) the entries in the Cheats, Tips, Shortcuts and Help area have mainly been tested by visitors (not us). There is plenty of feedback shown, on what works and what doesn't :) and a great deal of genuine info has been added by many people who have taken the time to write in and share their knowledge.

In the years since 2000, Andy's Guide to Pokémon
has received anything up to 20,000 visits per
*day* ..... we intend leaving it on line
virtually forever, so your own kids can visit
in years to come, and see what you put up here.

NEWSLETTERS - this website has been on line since 1998 - there have been a lot of Newsletters! The archive is here and the very last Newsletter is here.