Swearing, abandonment, strategic difficulty - not necessarily things you associate with a Pokémon game. And yet here's Pokémon Apex, a fan game aiming to keep the core PokéTemplate intact, but make everything that surrounds it a little more mature.

Pokemon Apex in action.

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As Kotaku points out, that doesn't mean we're getting into, er, Rule 34 territory - Nathan Gunzenhauser's project is about a child of divorce who escapes into video games, before making that escape a little too literal and landing smack-bang in a world of demons... that just happen to be named Pokémon.That's paired with some more in-depth strategy gameplay. As Gunzenhauser's devlog puts it: "The game is intended to be somewhat difficult, meaning that you will need to think about your strategies and make conscientious choices about your team in order to progress. Playing through the game haphazardly will get you into trouble."It's an intriguing little thing - there's something fascinating about looking at how a developer with completely different motivations can fundamentally alter a familiar game. Also, the shadows are surprisingly brilliant.It's worth remembering that Nintendo can be quite protective of its IP - only last month, a lovely 3D tribute to the original Legend of Zelda was shut down - so if you do want to give Apex a try, it's probably worth downloading an alpha version sooner rather than later.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and he'd argue that the backstory to Cubone is about the most adult thing he's ever read. He's not a well-read man. Follow him on Twitter