Completed Pokémon Ethos

Thundaga said:

First! I heard this game was made by cool people, so I had to check it out!
Love all the new Pokémon designs, excited to see more!

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• Loved the 1px graphics throughout the game, it made it really unique!
• I loved the different difficulties!
• Loved that it was an original PokeDex, I mean almost 50 Fakemon... Wow!
• I liked the story and the little bit of a twist after the second gym!
• Howlight Harlequin is a really... Interesting character, lol! I love it! Very unique, and their battle theme is a BOP!
• The use of PMD music was amazing! I loved that nostalgia, and also... PMD has some of my favorite songs!
• I saw some of the CoH graphics you used, and because I love that game so much, that is definitely a pro!
• The team is like... The best of the best! Voltseon, ENLS, Thundaga, and NocTurn?! I mean... Heck yeah! (I don't know how I would really consider that a pro, but I mean... Great teamwork lol!)

• Although I loved the 1px graphics, the outdoor tiles and OW sprites reminded me of Gen 4 (which is good), whereas the indoor tilesets seemed like Gen 3. That is honestly like a personal opinion, but it just felt a little out of place.
• The Battle UI looked a bit messy, I mean it wasn't like "my original battleback for Pokemon Championship" messy (lol), but it wasn't even. Once again, a personal opinion.
• In the pause menu of the game, it says "Aug. 12, 1981." But on the card, it says "Adventure Begun: Aug. 11, 2021." Once again a personal preference, but shouldn't it say "Adventure Begun: Aug. 11, 1981?"
• (Sorry, it seems like all my Cons are opinions lol!)

King_Waluigi said:

Aight, I just beat the demo! Overall, it was a really awesome game! Great job Voltseon, ENLS, Thundaga, and NocTurn!!!
Here's my feedback, ok?
Pros:

• Loved the 1px graphics throughout the game, it made it really unique!
• I loved the different difficulties!
• Loved that it was an original PokeDex, I mean almost 50 Fakemon... Wow!
• I liked the story and the little bit of a twist after the second gym!
• Howlight Harlequin is a really... Interesting character, lol! I love it! Very unique, and their battle theme is a BOP!
• The use of PMD music was amazing! I loved that nostalgia, and also... PMD has some of my favorite songs!
• I saw some of the CoH graphics you used, and because I love that game so much, that is definitely a pro!
• The team is like... The best of the best! Voltseon, ENLS, Thundaga, and NocTurn?! I mean... Heck yeah! (I don't know how I would really consider that a pro, but I mean... Great teamwork lol!)

Cons:

• Although I loved the 1px graphics, the outdoor tiles and OW sprites reminded me of Gen 4 (which is good), whereas the indoor tilesets seemed like Gen 3. That is honestly like a personal opinion, but it just felt a little out of place.
• The Battle UI looked a bit messy, I mean it wasn't like "my original battleback for Pokemon Championship" messy (lol), but it wasn't even. Once again, a personal opinion.
• In the pause menu of the game, it says "Aug. 12, 1981." But on the card, it says "Adventure Begun: Aug. 11, 2021." Once again a personal preference, but shouldn't it say "Adventure Begun: Aug. 11, 1981?"
• (Sorry, it seems like all my Cons are opinions lol!)

Overall, it was a fantastic game! Great job all of you!
P.S.: Look what I found! Poggers!!!
View attachment 6173

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Also very nice shiny Dudger! I only have 1 shiny myself, and it's a Trappet I caught while playtesting.

Again, thanks for the lovely feedback, and for playing our game!
It really means a lot :)

DogzNDogz113 said:

A promising, well-written, and faithful-to-franchise-yet-original adventure, with a unique graphical style and a lot of fakemon to catch, backed by welcome little additions and changes. Version: 0.1.2


Thoughts:

Spoiler: Thoughts

- music choice is nice, but the battle themes are more traditional JRPG-sounding than Pokemon

- have you upscaled the player character sprite using a filter or algorithm? It looks neither pixel nor hi-res, and either would have been better in my opinion. Generally it seems to be inconsistent with the rest of the style. same upscaled graphics can be found on menu icons, with the berry trees and some tiles (e.g. mats) pokeball sprite is also upscaled, same with all trainer sprites. Understandably, this might be due to jam time constraints

- colored fonts on a dark brown background might make it difficult to read for some people. Also, nice font

- since you are an experienced team, considering you already have games and experience under your belt(s), why did you choose to begin the game with an expositionary lesson? Was it because of the jam's time restriction? the same expositionary style of dialogue can be read during your discussion with mom when you're eating pancakes

- well done on the overall pixel art, 1x1 graphics isn't easy to do. However, I'm not sure if the chibi OW sizes are concordant with a 1x1, 32x64 template, at least not without a lot of effort

- characterization and character presentation is very good, and the way you get your first mon is rather unique

- the "go save your dad" thing shouldn't appear unless the prof. has knowledge of something having happened to dad (or the MC for that matter), or, if the dad disappeared to force the MC to go find him. Else it works as a bit of an out-of-place joke (unless I've missed something?)

- why no running shoes from the start? to make the start slower or the adventure feel bigger?

- MC front walking animation flails his hands around (easier on the eyes when walking up, but it should be a bit more reserved for the front)

- the battle background perspective is front/flat (like in first-person rpg battles) I understand it's rather difficult to make such a big 1x1 background, but generally, perspective rules should be the same

- is dissidine's backsprite too small or is it me?

- general dialogue quality is good

- I mean yeah mr. normal gym leader, but that actually felt less expositionary than the beginning...

- the color brown, which is used thematically everywhere, especially in the UI, seems to be more indicative of an older era, perhaps up until 1920, though this is a very subjective nitpick (and seeing as this has already been used in various assets, there's no point in addressing it in the first place)

- The fakemon design ideas are really good. The sprites are generally heading towards the right direction, however they need to maintain a good balance between realistic animal proportions and cartoonish proportions (this is generally, Pokemon's design pinnacle). Understandably, nailing that down in 1x1 density is a difficult task, and fakemon design is perhaps the most challenging thing to do when it comes to these games. But you can certainly do it later down the road. A good example of this is Surgin. The idea behind Surgin as well as the overall design really looks like it could fit in an official Pokemon game. But its proportions as well as the camera angle need a bit more work.

- is there a reason for the IV/EV summary page not to list the stats in the same order the Skills page does?

- pokedex stating when mons evolve is a hit or miss for certain people, especially when fakemons are involved

- forest entrance is not easy to spot, you should have the shadow cover a bigger part of the two tiles used. Same goes for forest exit

- nitpick: pager call takes too much time till someone picks up

- I can't recall if there was any mention of finding the equivalent to Cut in a random house (which was the only one I didn't check too), have I missed that? It made me backtrack a bit but this is mostly on me. If there was no mention of this (and where to find it), it'd be a good idea to add it.

- what role does the pager market serve, from the moment you cant get instant access to the items you've bought? (I understand that instant access might have gameplay implications, but otherwise, how exactly does it differ to a standard mart inside a pokecenter?)

- shouldn't I be able to use scale replenish outside combat?

- mon variety and availability before each gym and dungeon is well designed and balanced

- you could do away with consecutive repel usage calling the bag screen

- rough skin on dudger might make early areas easier than it should

- the mapping really is top-notch especially considering gen V proportions in some tiles (like the trees)

- the money you get and the overall economy feels balanced

- fd exorcise might be steering away from the usual Pokemon image, despite how "soul" might be defined later, assuming there is a thematic reason for this

- nitpick: consider making the guy (gym leader?) stopping you from visiting the island pre-gym move a bit more naturally (you have enough space to make him move towards only 2 directions I think, one going right and one up for the first event activation tile, and one extra dir for the center and right tile)

- classic GF roadblocking made funnier, though it'd be much better if you could cut down on the roadblocking past a certain gym in the future. Of course this might be necessary for story reasons at first

- the little details, such as piano notes for the piano, and for each single movement during the second gym are awesome

- shouldn't 2nd gym leader's OW sprite have short/pulled up sleeves like his trainer sprite?

- QoL: nurse heal animation post-defeat isn't necessary after your first loss (only a "we hope you excel")

- QoL: gym leader dialogue skip post- 1st loss

- QoL: autoheal after gym-win?

- The 2nd gym leader says he's using two types (elec and fighting), yet one of his mons is grass too? His coverage might make it harder for players who don't train more than 2/3 mons until the late-game, or dont catch the early birds, especially when combined with the leader buffs

- consider reworking the white pokemon selection outline on the party screen, it's too contrasting to the brown background, and its upper part is cut

- due to the fact that you have writing skill, some of the conversations feel too write-y, in the sense that they do not imitate everyday conversations in the usual verbal manner. 2nd leader's remarks when first entering the island is a good example. Also the utilization of puns and lingo plays seems to be done just a bit more than what would be expected at certain points. It feels a bit "writer-happy" (put there as a result of the writer's tendency to express wit in written form, or more artistic writing, rather than focusing on making dialogue flow in a conversational manner, or depending on the plot situations and context)

- cutscene direction and animation is well-handled, good job!

- judging by the boy in the photo and the implications in the story, it seems we're in for a particular twist. Having watched the warehouse cutscene, I think I understand why you've chosen "ethos" as the title. You're playing with quite heavy themes in the background if that's the case, and handling the motivations behind nova and their moral arguments won't be a very easy task I reckon. This is also in quite stark contrast to the aforementioned puns outside, and inside the warehouse where these same events take place. Also, the game neither poses itself as a parody, nor as a stronger thematic-driven game, so both of these at the same time (and either of them in excess) feels out of place

- eexpent can learn drill peck? xD what drill? and what peck? Also, kinda expected it to be a bit stronger, or is it like a defensive gyarados?

- very interesting mini-additions like the EXP capsule. But it shouldn't be on by default once you receive it! It might be the best way to "force" the player to "see" the mechanic but it might take some players a good while until they realize their mons aren't directly taking any EXP!

- you get all the gym puzzle originality points you can get

- is feverat's sprite supposed to be this big?

- not sure if fakemon cries are original but they sure are fitting

- Laura's OW sprite gives off the impression of an older trainer, whereas her trainer sprite does not

- fighting the last gym battle and looking back at it, the gym leaders seem to have mons prepared for your starters' evos. While this is fairly challenging, the added buffs might make it a bit harder than what most would expect from this kind of game. Nevertheless, I think it's well-balanced

- nice job on the new moves, they're quite interesting and seem like something the official games could have done, or could do, in the future

Bugs:

Spoiler: Bugs

there is no door enter/exit sound (rooms inside player's house at least)

- Some of the berry trees' animations (the orange one in particular) is glitching out (some of the frames have extra pixels on the sides)

- you can see the void if you walk to the sand patch all the way to the south

- you can begin walking before the camera finishes its panning when you're done interacting with the last plushie (at least with the water plushie)

- resetting crashes the game (conflict with luka's scripting utilities)

- pager panning the camera "mart-style" might cause the camera to reach black borders in non-connected maps and other funny stuff (such as scouting ahead for trainers or passages)

- leechet evolved post-defeat

- is mud slap's SE working correctly? (sounds like a shine/healing attack)

- when climbing down/up stairs in the Dept. Store, the player moves one tile further than they should

- losing in route 3 without having visited the pokecenter first, spanws you where the gym leader event post-warehouse raid concludes, and the player character lets out a question-mark emoticon

Strong Suite: Writing, Graphics, Cutscene Direction, Event Animation, Charm
Feel: Adventure, Oldie, Official-like

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Everyone refers to you as male even if you play as the female character.

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NocTurn said:

Hey Dogz, I'm glad you really enjoyed our game! As the lead writer, I'm interested to hear more about the specifics of the writing style. What could I have done better? If you could bring up some specific examples, that would be way appreciated!! Not to challenge you or anything, I'm just curious in which specific instances the "writer-y" issues came up. Looking for as much feedback as I can get here, since so far we actually haven't gotten that much writing critique.

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NocTurn said:

As for the very expositional opening cutscene, that's on me! I couldn't think of a better way to introduce the player to this vastly different world than to have someone directly explain it to you. Any other way I could have conjured would have required too many graphical resources, and I didn't want to overload the team with too much to start off the game with. Considering that we made every single asset (basically), I think that's a fair enough trade-off! I could have absolutely shortened things, so that's something I know I could have done better. We probably could have also implemented some more instances of eventing!

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NocTurn said:

Regardless of the writing issues, I do hope that you had a good time playing through Ethos and continue to look forward to the full release :D

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NocTurn said:

Hey there! Do you remember the specific instances in which this happened? I was really careful not to include any mentions of the player's gender/pronouns as to leave it ambiguous, so I'm kinda surprised I missed some.

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Sailorxraven said:

Spoiler

The female NOVA grunt on the island makes a comment about it after you beat her

I vaguely remember there being another instance, but I'm afraid I can't recall it off the top of my head...

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DogzNDogz113 said:

Yes of course, I'd need to go through the game again, so I can be as specfic as I can though, as going by memory alone wouldn't be very helpful. So apologies if I don't manage to get around it soon enough. I'll try to present a couple of examples off the top of my head:

Going by memory alone, the one place where it's pronounced would be gym leader 2 dialogue during the warehouse events. One line off the top of my head (excuse me if I can't recall it correctly) would be: "hey what was that jumping over the gap, not even the fittest guy in the region can do that" (sorry if I butchered it). Consider the events transpiring, and put yourself in the shoes of a gym leader literally witnessing some exceedingly dangerous stuff going on in front of him, watching the building get unstable, realizing a teenager is ready to rashly act in order to reach his father on the other side, getting pumped with adrenaline - and with his attention divided, he proceeds to stop the player, and then he says that line, while the building looks like it's gonna collapse at any moment.

While, as writing in and of itself, it's absolutely fine and could serve to further explicate this particular character's traits, it's not something that someone would say or hear under those circumstances. The overall humorous tone of the gym leader doesn't cease to be such, when the circumstances demand it, as a result the character's responses to the world feel "written" and not "organic". Assuming you have created a character with specific traits from the start, and you are writing for that character under the guidance of those traits, it's tempting to maintain that role instead of putting yourself in the shoes of said character, and assume a behavior appropriate to the context and the events transpiring.

By no means is this indicative of the writing being bad, rather, it's usually the side-effect of writing inclination. A patchwork approach to this is to compare said character to someone you know, and think about, or observe, their reaction to "similar" events (well, you get what I mean, I bet a friend who's had experience preventing someone from nabbing a silver medal in long-distance jumping during an explosion wouldn't be your average friend)

Another example is his dialogue on the bridge, before the raid begins, which I can't recall right now. Assuming I remember correctly, I felt it had a theatrical quality to it. As if it's taking place on a stage. Again this isn't criticizing the "style" in itself, it's that, to me at least, it feels more pronounced a behavior than what it'd usually be. Now that I think about it, I do believe this is an overarching quality in some of the dialogues, they are accompanied by this feeling of a "show" (as in, an entertainment event) that I can't really explicate at the moment. Otherwise the literal quality of the dialogues is excellent, and I would say it's their context during story events that might need attention the most. Slice-of-life dialogues and NPCs don't need any kind of improvement tbh. Many lines are witty in good fashion.

Exposition during the 1st gym leader introduction is actually good exposition in the sense that the same thing would happen if it was a real-life situation where an X bureaucratic organization's representative starts telling you the specifics of how said org functions. (not to mention all the legalistic jargon and the disclaimers) So the joke there was unneeded xD




Yeah, it's perfectly understandable given the jam, don't think about it too much, besides you all know that better than anyone. An """"""easy"""""" fix post-jam would be to transfer the player post sock-donning to the actual place where trainers get their license, watching people in line saying "hey I wanna be a Tamer" or an event where two officials use the historical terms of the age. Then, when you are about to take your boring test, an event happens where Pokemon actually attack (since you explicitly state at the start of the game that pokemon can be dangerous at least two times, possibly more). With the pokemon attacking, the professor who just happened to be there to go grab a hammer to solve that problem with his computer, simply loses his s*** and drops the bag. Whereas most applicants panic, the player character can move and apprehend one of the mons that got out of the professor's balls (please don't question the phrasing), and use it to fight the attacking mons. Now you have established a couple of things without exposition, with player input involved, and with a justification to give a license even though your actions weren't really legal (you can even throw in a penalty to show how different this era was, and all the necessary requirements to really be a trainer, and all that).



I think it's obvious I never raised these as issues per se, but given that the game's writing is a focal point, (unless you didn't really intend it to be) it'd be improper of your players not to state how they received it. And I'd be the last person to raise such issues, especially on exposition, since I'm doubly guilty of them myself :P

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