Released Pokémon Tengai [v1.5.1]

omega · Aug 11, 2021

Excited to play Tengai, watching you work on this in the Relic Discord's VC was fun and I bet it will be even better to play.

ShinyMissingno · Aug 11, 2021

Decided to give this a try, and found 'Malfunctioning Rogans' inability to fight with Cubone due to a real actual error somewhere, absolutely hilarious. Name on point, lol. Enjoying it so far, though.

Days · Aug 12, 2021

this looks amazing

Mashirosakura · Aug 13, 2021

Quick patch to fix a problem with the story being unable to progress after the first maze. Just extract it into the main folder, and make sure you're either below the stairs in front of the Inn after the first maze, or to the right of the Inn.

NocTurn · Aug 13, 2021

Just finished my playthrough up until the game isn't letting me progress further. As a pre-warning, my review is going to look mostly negative through the much longer con list. That isn't the case- I think this is a very well put together and pretty game that is absolutely worthy of your time.

Pros:

The mapping. I mean, it's gorgeous, what else is there to say? Everything felt so organic and lively, Ekat's tiles were absolutely used to the fullest here. That being said, I wasn't a fan of just how much snow there was. It would be nice to see a bit less of it.
Balancing was on point, I never felt too weak or strong. The levels even scaled after certain story events which was a welcome change. My only moment where I felt off balance was at the beginning, where most things were either Ice, Grass, or Ground type and couldn't really stand up to most Outskirts Pokemon.
Twizzler! I mean, he's charming, what else is there to say?

The story is always intriquing, and I like the semi-dystopian cyborg/robot era you have going on. I was particularly struck when we first leave the ruins maze and Elia turns to reveal her cyborg half- I was really caught off guard, and it's a moment that stuck in my head and kept with me for the rest of my playthrough.
Open worlds are always nice, so I approve here.

Cons:

The game design. This is where most of, if not all of my points are stuck. I recognize this is a new type of game for Pokemon, the open world thing isn't really done a whole lot. However there were too many issues for me not to take note of it here. Things of note include:
Trees being passable from behind and how often that was used for normal progression. I found this very distracting, I was constantly looking through trees to find the next section of route I could actually travel through.
The runes. The game teaches you through tutorial that they're on giant walls at the start, which I thought was pretty noticable. However past that first rune, they're all found on very easy to miss small 1-wide pillars, and don't have any visible indicators besides a slight green coloring that wasn't too dissimilar to vines. This was made worse by me playing during night-time.
Vines. During the forest maze, the game clearly taught me that vines = cuttable object. So, logically, I tried to cut all the vines. Some weren't, some were. This was very distracting, and most times disappointing, for me as a player.
NPCs. All of them were named, and it was very hard to keep track of them. Sometimes they would change their dialogue between story events, too, with little to no physical indication of this. So every time a story event occured, I had to go around and re-check every single house and every NPC. It was tedious.
Finally, there was the sidequests. Side quests has two words in it, side and quest. These quests were neither side nor were they quests. They were all mandatory to game progression, and I found them all a bit exhausting. None of them even really required anything challenging of me. A good example of how to do sidequests well would be Nightshade, Ekat's game from the last jam. There were a large variety to pick from at any given time and also tied into the story itself with her park ranger-esc duties. Here, these feel like long chores given to you by NPCs that you're forced to do... Because. They don't tie into the story, and they certainly aren't very engaging.
The music is really distracting. Both the battle music tracks and atmospheric tracks are nice in their own ways, but constantly switching between the super high energy battle themes and the super low energy (basically lo-fi at some points) overworld themes is a bit overwhelming.

Overall, I think this is a game that's worth playing. However, there are very too many game design issues for me to highly recommend it until these things are fixed, unfortunately. After the game design is improved a bit, though, I'm sure this will be an awesome game for everyone to play! Even if they don't get fixed, it's still worth playing through to experience all of these issues on your own and see how they can be fixed/avoided in your own games.

Mashirosakura · Aug 14, 2021

Quick patch to fix a problem with the story being unable to progress after the last maze. Just extract it into the main folder, and make sure you're outside of the Mirai Cave Depths.

Mashirosakura · Aug 15, 2021

Quick patch to fix a softlock that can occur in Mirai Cave, and someone not showing up near the Tower. Just extract it into the main folder, and make sure you're at least 4 tiles below the steps of Tengai Tower.

Mashirosakura · Aug 22, 2021

Quick patch to fix tile passability errors, an inability to talk to everyone for the "neighbour talking" section, and the prices of DanDan's shop being higher than they actually were (along with actually showing which move the TMs are)

KennyCatches · Sep 4, 2021

Hi there! I just finished Tengai, and I really enjoyed it!

Thoughts:

The mapping was the best part of the game! I really liked the map designs and the way you used Ekat's tiles. The areas felt organic, and it was fun to explore them.
The puzzles were great! My favourite would be the strength puzzles.
I liked the quest system, but some of the quests weren't very fun to do (e.g. Cary and Ilsya). It was also difficult to remember everyone's names.
The balance was spot on! It was challenging and I blacked out a few times, but it wasn't too bad.
The Pokemon selection was pretty good, especially for a game that's mostly made of snowy areas!
I appreciate the teleport pads and healing pillars, they were very convenient.

Overall, I had a great time playing Pokémon Tengai and I will certainly play any future content. Great work on this!

Mashirosakura · Sep 21, 2021

Quick patch to fix a problem that wouldn't let you finish the demo.

Quentix hope · Oct 6, 2021

How far does it go?

Mashirosakura · Oct 8, 2021

Quentix hope said:
How far does it go?

With how the game is structured that's a little hard to say, but if we're talking completion for Chapter 1, it's about 3/4ths done.

Fe = Iron · Jan 4, 2022

Is there a Discord server for this game?

Mashirosakura · Jan 5, 2022

There is not unfortunately

Mashirosakura · Mar 18, 2022

The game has been updated to v1.0
The game now has a finished Chapter 1, and 80% of the interlude leading up to Chapter 2 complete. There will be 4 chapters in total, eventually.

Below is the changelog, with all the changes since the initial jam release. When posting bug reports, please provide an accurate description of the error in question, and screenshots if possible, so that the bug can be found and fixed as soon as possible.

Jam save files are not compatible with v1.0 due to various changes with story progression.

Enjoy the game!

CHANGELOG V1.0

Story:
- Revamped side quest system (Actually side content instead of forced content now; Exceptions: Nancy, Feye)
- Slight dialogue reworks to make the story more coherant
- Additional events to flesh out the existing story

Gameplay:
- New Battle UI
- New bag menu
- New animation frames (Twizzler, Juno, Elira)
- New indicators to show someone has a quest
- Updated icons for Functions (on walls, in badge slots, in bag)
- Move tutor in the Ch1 Interlude
- Certain Pokémon evolve earlier than normal (Deerling, Venonat, Amaura, Binacle)
- Certain Pokémon evolve differently than normal (Chingling(lv20 night); Snom (lv25 at night))

Maps:
- Areas around Soarington have been expanded (Frozen Underwoods, Aural Tunnel, Glazed Lakeside)
- New areas have been added (Cavern of Unseeing(4 entrances),Tengai Tower (entirely), Hidden Maze, Concealed Forest Path/Underground Pool, Aural Hollow)
- Function/Healing walls more visible (now with their own mini-tutorials)

Music:
- New battle music to fit the cold snowy wilderness
- New extra tracks to enhance mood

There's also this survey if you want to help give feedback for future releases.

Mashirosakura · Mar 23, 2022

The new v1.1 is here with a few bug fixes.

CHANGELOG v1.1

- Fixed an issue where you would be able to get Functions early by talking to specific events.
- Fixed an issue where egg icons would be too small.
- Fixed an issue where the blacking out text would say "Pokémon Center" instead of "Healing Rune" (will not change for existing saves)
- Fixed an issue where talking to Randy outside the Watchtower at a specific direction would make you walk through walls temporarily.
- Fixed an issue where Snom, Venonat, Binacle and Chingling evolved at the wrong level.

Simply extract the patch into the main Pokémon Tengai folder to update.

Mashirosakura · Apr 2, 2022

v1.2 is up.

CHANGELOG v1.2

- Fixed an issue where the hidden ability obtain percentage wasn't being set.
- Added Frostbite into the game; It acts like a special attack dropping burn.
- Removed Freeze chance from the game.
- Fixed a issue where the player wouldn't walk to the right spot when walking up to the first Twizzler event.
- Fixed an issue where the mart wouldn't play its own music.

Mashirosakura · Jun 11, 2022

Updated the main post to include Changelog details and the Patch link.

Mashirosakura · Jun 13, 2022

v1.3 is up!

CHANGELOG v1.3

- Revamped the exp gain system (still relatively untested).
- Fixed positioning for Galarian Mime egg/enemy sprite.
- Added fogs to all caves.
- Made Galarian Yamask evolve at v28

Released Pokémon Tengai [v1.5.1]

Jam Team:​

Notes:​

Credits:​

Attachments

The Pilkining is Soon. . .

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Hoothoot enthusiast

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can he catch his w's?

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Jam Team:

Notes:

Credits: