Game Informer has shared its latest piece of its Pokémon coverage following its trip to Game Freak’s offices over in Japan. This newest published piece features Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda discussing various topics regarding how the team creates Pokémon designs, what the rules are for creating a Pokémon, on if designs are ever thrown out, and more.

First off, in regards to what rules there are for what Pokémon can and can’t be, Masuda said this:

“One thing we always really pay attention to is treating them like living creatures so you have to try and imagine where it would live in the environment and why it looks the way it does, what would it eat? When designing Pokémon, and not just from a graphic design perspective, there must be a reason for why it looks the way it does and you have to think about why it might live in the Pokémon world.”

Next, Masuda explained that Pokémon designs are rarely thrown out entirely:

“Once you’re in the middle of creating it and someone were to say, ‘No!, that’s not a Pokémon,’ and the design process gets killed? That doesn’t really happen that much. Usually, instead, maybe the person who is directing the game might say it won’t work in its current form, but maybe if you did this and adding ideas onto it might make it work better.”

In addition, Masuda also had this to say in regards to the evolutions of Pokémon:

“One thing that happens a lot – well, not a lot – but happens sometimes, is that you start out with a cat, and when it evolves one easy idea is to say, ‘Okay, now there’s more heads.’ We always want to make sure we think, ‘Why does that happen?’ And when it evolves, why does it have three heads? So that’s just something we’re always trying to think of – what’s the reason for what changes and how it looks?”

To read more from the interview, you can go here.