pokemonsay is like cowsay but for pokémon only. It was inspired by ponysay (cowsay for ponies). Internally, pokemonsay still uses cowsay, so you need it installed too (cowsay... not ponysay).

If you simply want to use pokemonsay, the only thing you need installed is cowsay. But you are probably interested in fortune as well, to provide random sayings to your pokémon. To install them both in Ubuntu, simply run:

$ sudo apt-get install fortune cowsay

If you want to rebuild everything in the repository, you will also need img2xterm. img2xterm is used to generate ".cow files" from the pokémon images. To install it you will need to build from source. The instructions are provided on their repository. And if you know an easier way, please tell me!

Keep in mind that pokemonsay will only work if you have cowsay installed and available in your $PATH. To install pokemonsay run these commands in a terminal window:

$ git clone https://github.com/possatti/pokemonsay
$ cd pokemonsay
$ ./install.sh

After the last command, you will have pokemonsay installed in you home folder in ~/.pokemonsay/. And an executable script will be created in ~/bin/pokemonsay, so that you can have pokemonsay in your $PATH too.

It may be necessary to logout and login back again to have pokemonsay in you $PATH. This is specially true if you have never had a ~/bin/ folder before. Your operating system will have it added to you $PATH automatically after the ~/bin/ folder is created... I hope.

You can install pokemonsay through Homebrew. It is pretty straightforward:

$ brew tap possatti/possatti
$ brew install pokemonsay

There's an interesting fork by @xaviervia that allows you to run pokemonsay on Docker. Check out xaviervia/docker-pokemonsay.

Now that you've installed pokemonsay, you can make it work like so:

$ pokemonsay Hello World

To have a random pokémon saying some random thing to you, use fortune:

$ fortune | pokemonsay

And if you really like it, you can add the command above to the end of your ~/.bashrc file (or equivalent). So you will have a random pokémon speaking to you whenever you open a new terminal window! :D

You get a cowthink-like version too. Try it:

$ pokemonthink --pokemon Charmander "Should I wear some clothes?"

Just in case you hate Pokémon and you've installed pokemonsay "by mistake"... Humpf! You can uninstall it by running:

$ sh $HOME/.pokemonsay/uninstall.sh

In order to use pokemonsay you don't need to build anything because everything is built already within the repository. But if you want to download the whole images again or make some change in the process, here is how it's done:

# Download pokémon images from Bulbapedia... Thanks bulbapedia!
$ ./scrap_data.sh

# Manipulate the downloaded images, to make the pokémon look
# to the right, and trim the useless space around them.
$ ./fix_images.sh

# Use 'img2xterm' to generate .cow files (for 'cowsay').
$ ./make_cows.sh

And there it is. Now install it with install.sh and you are done.

A special thanks to my friend Lucas Coutinho Oliveira (@lucascsoliveira) who helped me with some Pokémon wisdom. Thanks buddy!

Please notice I don't own Pokémon or anything related to it. Pokémon is property of The Pokémon Company.