Post by JGroes in Next version comments

Viewing post in Next version comments

Posting this here, since it's the most recent post.

Really like the game, it's long enough to be interesting, without being so long as to make it hard to replay. My only complain is the lack of interactivity, and the fact that some routes kinda lock you out of a good ending. For example, in my first run, I didn't get to evolve Beldum due to focusing on the investigation. This meant that, despite my having the full picture of what was happening in town, I lost the final battle due to skipping the ranger stuff (due to feeling like the game was really pushing me towards areas like the lighthouse). So yeah, I think there should be more ways to reach a good ending.

Also, I'm fairly sure there's some sort of problem with the love variable? I got close enough to Cynthia for the MC to think about telling he was her boyfriend to Lance, and to get the scene where she basically begged me to follow her, but the game didn't make it seem like she was anything but a good friend. Maybe change the threshold like you already mentioned, and perhaps add a few more things that allow you to gain points with her?

Otherwise, good luck and good work, man. Can't wait to see what's coming next !

Writefuck1 year ago

The love threshold is a little weird, especially late in the game. It'll be tweaked in a few places in the next update. Also the last scene with Cynthia has her basically begging you to come with her to Sinnoh regardless of your love stat. That's because I only wrote one version of that conversation. This can result in a nonsensical situation where the player goes out of their way to get as little love as possible, but still ends up with Cynthia. Future versions of the game will have several different versions of this final conversation, depending on love and/or other factors. Possible options will include staying in Olivine City to work with Jasmine in the gym, going off to that boring desk job in Kanto, or something illegal.

I consider the "ending" of the game to be the climax on day 4, with day 5 being a lengthy epilogue. Under that definition, there are three different endings, although two of those have two possible variations. The endings are (with minimal spoilers):

You capture the villain all by yourself, which is the "best" ending
The villain beats you in battle, but one of your allies stops them from escaping, which is the "good" ending
The villain either escapes or dies, which is the "bad" ending

Both the "best" and "bad" ending are kind of hard to get, with most routes getting the "good" ending. You don't need to evolve your pokemon to get the "good" ending and you don't need to meet with the rangers to get the "good" ending either.

Getting the "best" ending does require you to evolve your pokemon, and get to four clues. One of those clues is available in two different locations, and two of the clues are found in the same location, so really it's more like three clues. One of the places where you can level up your pokemon also gives you one of the clues you need, so leveling up and getting clues aren't mutually exclusive.

There are three places where you can level up in the game, and you need to level up twice to evolve. Meeting the rangers is one of them. The lighthouse is another option, although if you do things in a very specific order, there won't be anyone there to fight and level up. The gym is the other one and it's available any time on day 2 or 3. The next update will add a fourth place, but it's tied to a sidequest. In theory I could have put a whole lot more pokemon battles in the game and make leveling up easier, or make it pretty much inevitable. But I was trying to walk a fine line with the battles and not have them be just filler, like most of the random encounters in a main series pokemon game. I'm not trying to make a proper pokemon RPG, because there's already hundreds of romhacks for that. That's why, for example, the pokemons' levels are not shown to the player, nor do the pokemon have defined atk/def/etc stats. That's also why the game doesn't actually let you pick your pokemon's moves. It might be cool to make this into a proper RPG with all the options that comes with that, but I don't see how that would improve the story, and that's my main focus. I'm sure if I really wanted to, I could program the entire pokemon RPG battle system in Renpy if I wanted to. But it would take forever and it wouldn't be worth it.

As for the lact of interactivity - yeah. I know most of the game puts you on autopilot. It's kind of stupid that I call the main character "You" but then don't give "You" a whole lot of control over yourself. It's a stylistic choice and it's not a good one. Future versions will give the player some more options, but most of the game still comes down to, "Pick and place to go and watch how it plays out." I know it's kind of bad. All I can say in my defense is I've never written a game before. Also I was making this whole thing up as I went, which didn't help.

JGroes1 year ago (1 edit)

Wow, that's a much longer answer than I expected, thank you! Going to try and explain myself a bit better.

I did get the best ending on my second or third replay, that wasn't a problem. The problem was more that I ended up doing mostly redundant events that locked me out of the ending. For example, I went to the docks twice (getting the bar and the Red events), same for the Lighthouse (getting both of weatherdude events) but, as I realized on my next games, there's no real point to doing either, since the Red intervention at the end of the game gets overridden by weather guy, and the second lighthouse event doesn't seem to have a huge impact.

The evolution wasn't really a problem on my subsequent runs (even figured out the Houndoom capture), since I understood you needed two fights (or one+Janine training), but I just wanted to point out it's perfectly possible to get through the entire game with like, one fight and get most of the clues. I think it'd be good to have a comment about Beldum evolving soon, because it's easy to run into one fight, barely win by having Beldum spam one move (especially at the lighthouse), and think "okay, I'm useless in battle, better focus on investigation stuff". The fighting in itself was good (this is a VN after all), I just feel there was a bit of a disconnect between it and the narrative.

I didn't know you needed four clues, but I suppose this is linked to the TM stuff? I think there should be a bit of a change here as well. If I'm getting this right, my first run had me get the two clues at the Pokecenter, the one in the lighthouse, the one at the bar, plus the Gyarados thing during the last day. I didn't get the TMs, however. The only change I had in my next run was learning about Mightyena after the Houndoom fight, which triggered the TM scene. The problem here is that this last clue shouldn't really be the trigger to obtain thunder punch, I feel. I mean, it's what makes you win against Mightyena, but if you just know you're going against Team Aqua, you'll know they have water pokemons, so that should be enough to get thunder punch.

I dunno, I just feel like there should be a better explanation as to why you don't get the TMs, or a change in the number of clues. It doesn't make a lot of sense to know they have 6 Gyarados(es) and a few more water mons, yet still be locked out of thunder punch.

I honestly think this is really good for a first game, don't worry about that! It's just that, as a player, it felt a bit weird to have the MC be unable to come to the same conclusions as I did, and have Cynthia do the work instead. Although, I guess this can be handwaved by him having a defined past already.

Anyway, again, thanks for answering! This is actually one of the first Pokemon fangames I've ever played; most of them often bore me before I even reach the halfway mark, but this one kept me hooked for a bit. So, good luck to you, and keep up the good work! Can't wait to see what the next update looks like!

itch.io

Viewing post in Next version comments