Discussion Feature Jams

[MGriffin]

Hi all,

I was wondering if there's any appetite here for something I'm calling a "feature jam", similar to a game jam, but instead of trying to build a complete experience we focus solely on prototyping and/or brainstorming a single feature or concept.

Off the top of my head that could be something like:

• Legendary encounters that feel like boss battles.
• More interesting NPC trainers.
• Favor/relationships with NPCs.
• Systems for an open-world.
• Overworld puzzles.
• Alternative catching mechanics.
• Co-op overworld mechanics.

I'd love to see things like Mr. Gela's ditto idea and possible (partial) solutions to "The Open World Dilemma" come out of the process.

 

[Dragonite]

HM-only game when.
Extremely tentative maybe, I barely manage to work on my primary projects without getting distracted by everything else. (Hopefully it'll be better after next week.) I do really want to see Pokémon used in ways besides the usual though.

 

[Vendily]

Honestly, I would be interested in this. Playing with mechanics is one of my favourite things to do.
I might even be able to complete a project.

 

[Marin]

I think this is an interesting idea personally. You'd have to make a very small game focused entirely on one specific feature or mechanic. The suggestions you made are good for the most part, but it does need to be relatively easy so everyone can join in.

I considered a Resource Jam in the past, where you'd try to enhance your game with a new resource in some way. I think this could be pretty similar. You get a topic and with that in mind you have to enhance your game and provide a short game experience.

 

[Bazaro]

Single-Pokemon Bosses: (non-catchable)

Spoiler

The first of my 2 main issues with this is Pokemon is that battles are so short. One Pokemon is rarely satisfying enough to square off against a full team of relatively-even-leveled Pokemon. The apparent solution would be to make the Boss higher leveled to make it more challenging, but it grows to become quickly unfun and unfair when the Boss outspeeds and one-shots everything.

Ideally, you want the Boss to be tanky, so that it takes a while to go down. You want Speed to be about even, so that the player's various Speed Tiers actually matter, and you want Attack to be high, but not overwhelming. Each attack should be a threat that needs to be planned around, not a simple one-shot (but it's doable, I'll come back to this).
Only a few Pokemon have valid stat spreads to match this, but EV's can be applied to fix this (maximizing bulk while keeping attack power respectable). For others, it's probably best to make custom Base Stats for them.
With high HP and Defense, the Boss will take a while to knock out, which makes the fight more intense. Attack and Speed power can be balanced around with the bulk to make different kinds of fights.

If the Boss has too much Attack, they can end up one-shotting the player with little ways to act back. Typically for bosses like this, you want to make them slow and have low bulk (for a Boss), making it a race against time to defeat the Boss. These kinds of battles are ended much faster than normal, but are usually much more intense to compensate.
If the Boss is too fast, then the player won't even get a chance to act before they get blown away. If they're too tanky, then the player won't be able to defeat them before all of their Pokemon get knocked out.


The second, and biggest reason, is that the Pokemon Battle Engine has SO many ways to cheese through a fight. To players, it may feel like ingenuity, but to Developers, it becomes a nightmare to appropriately balance. There should be at least some element of control to the fight's battle mechanics in order to make the lone Boss feel like a fair, yet genuine threat.

Some of these include:
- OHKO
- Indirect Damage (Poison / Sandstorm / Leech Seed / Ghost type Curse / etc)
- Stat drops / raises (especially Evasion / Accuracy)
- PP Stalling
- Type Effectiveness - aka Weaknesses (4x especially)
- Catching Mechanics (for catchable fights, like Legendary Pokemon, if you wanted to do so)

Personally, I'd make a special "Boss Mode Setting" almost coded like an Ability. It would have specific interactions with several of these (I'll ignore catch mechanics for now).

• Immune to Perish Song, Destiny Bond, and OHKO Moves.

This should be a given. No proper Boss should ever get OHKO'd like this.

• The Boss has infinite PP.

Optional. It prevents things like Pressure and Spite from being used to remove options from the Boss. They still only have 4 moves, some of which can be more powerful, thus have less PP. Forcing the Boss to Struggle could be a valid strategy in some cases, I suppose.

• Immune to Stat-Downs, and ignore Evasion (keep Accuracy checks for itself)

This prevents things like Intimidate, Sand Attack, or Double Team from being spammed and forgoing the fight entirely. The scaling for in-battle stat changes is way too insane to be balanced for a fight like this.

• Takes 50% damage from any effect that would deal a % of the Boss's HP (Poison & Burn, Leech Seed, Ghost-type Curse, weather, Super Fang, Rough Skin) as well as effects that reflect dealt damage (Counter, Mirror Coat, Metal Burst, and Bide)

This one's more of a personal preference. It would prevent players from resorting to sole defensive options. The player should fight back with proper attacks, rather than use the Boss's own HP against it, without removing their impact totally.
The inclusion of Counter etc. is because of the sheer damage that gets returned if the Pokemon survives from max HP (ie: Metal Burst Sturdy Bastiodon, or Wobbuffet with its massive HP)

Another option / amendment / idea is to have it so the Boss cannot be affected by ANY kind of status for more than 2 turns (including Sleep, Poison, Curse, Perish Song, and Leech Seed, etc), and only halve Counter-moves and Super Fang instead, since the damage-per-turn is limited. Just an idea.

• Some kind of resistance to Statuses that prevent movement (Sleep, Freeze, Paralyze)

Total immunity is somewhat unfun. See above paragraph.

• 4x Super-Effective against Bosses are only 2x.

This is another preference, totally optional. It would make Pokemon that are normally crippled by 4x weaknesses still a large threat if used as a Boss. It's always been a little silly to me how much 4x damage really is, it keeps the Boss's longevity intact.

---

With all of these intact, you're left to beat down the Boss as quickly as you can, while the fight still goes on for a decent while (hopefully...) Longer fights are usually more satisfying to win, as long as the fight isn't repetitive and drawn out, in my experiences.

Hopefully I've said everything I wanted to and it makes some kind of sense. Will write thoughts on other stuff tomorrow.

 

[MGriffin]

Alrighty! So we have a bunch of maybes and that means it's time to move on to working out some specifics of how this might work.

How does a four-week jam with a single topic sound? I think we'll want to keep the topic pretty broad so that people are able to do their own things, and ideally not something that requires too much programming background so that people don't feel scared to contribute (thanks @Marin!), and I'd also like to stress that I'm perfectly happy to help anybody who'd like a hand with coding, and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this thread who will.

I'm thinking that for the topics we'll have a sentence or two that describes the idea, and then (if relevant) references to other projects that might provide some inspiration. Please feel free to suggest topics, I think we should spend a week or so discussing the available options, then if there's a clear favorite we'll do that, and if not we'll vote.

Here's the ideas from the OP that seem to match the criteria:

Boss battles. This could be "wild" Pokémon like @Bazaro has described in great detail, or maybe a gym leader/team admin, or even something like the overworld Zangoose battle from @Eevee's Space Porygon.

Overworld puzzles. This could be an entirely new kind of puzzle, and interesting spin on an old favorite, or anything in-between. If you're mode code-oriented then maybe you'd like to write something that generates puzzle maps automatically. Maybe one using Strength, or on ice, or like in Sootopolis Gym (thanks @Vendily).

Alternative catching. This could be something like @Mr. Gela's Ditto idea, or @Mantager's Ditto Edition. Maybe it's like the Safari Zone, or maybe you're N and have to befriend Pokémon. Or maybe you can't catch other Pokémon, but your starter can transform like in @raonak's Super Pokémon Eevee Edition.

Please give your own ideas, expand on my ones, reference similar Pokémon and non-Pokémon games to help inspire others, and all that other good stuff! Thanks! :)

 

[Hollow_Ego]

I personally find the three options quite narrow. But maybe that's because when I think about stuff that you could implement I only think of variations of the same thing. Except for the overworld puzzle which already gives quite some room for different things

Maybe we could have the themes a bit broader, someting like "(Alternative/Additional) Battle Mechanics". That would include alternative catching but also maybe additional battle options. That way would have some variation in what people come up with.

Other topic ideas could be "Overworld - Roadblocks and Secret Paths"; "Overworld - Terrains and Movement", or simply new Items or menus (would include PokeDex and Pause Menus alike)

 

[MadDeodorant]

This is a very interesting idea and would make a nice addition to the community events.

I actually had an idea for the usual Relic Castle Game Jam that was really a Feature Jam: it was a game taking place in a small yet open world space where the player goes through a few side quests. I was trying to go for a smaller scale in which quests could be intertwined in each other and in the few places they take place in. Narratively, the quests were meant to make the places and the people feel real and alive, cohesive.

It's not strictly like the Feature Jam entry examples you wrote, but it worked in a similar. After all, it was originally made for the regular Game Jam.

 

[Bazaro]

now i understand how this works, oops

I agree the topics should be more generic to start, as @Hollow_Ego brought up. We should start broad, and go over various aspects of that bit, then work our way more and more specific when we find something that catches our eye, then figure out how it would properly be implemented.

Some categories I'll throw in are "Game Difficulty" "Roadblocks" "Level Curve" and "Alternate Catching Mechanics"

 

[Hollow_Ego]

Also what just came to my mind would be the topic "Skill Trees"... damm I should have thought about that earlier....

 

[HollowGap]

If the goal is to come up with public resources, I'd say the Jam should be about:

- Who can come up with the most clever puzzle mechanic
- Who can come up with the most exciting, brand new held item
- Who can come up with the most creative use of [insert resource here]

 

[ranko]

Interested.

 

[MGriffin]

I personally find the three options quite narrow. But maybe that's because when I think about stuff that you could implement I only think of variations of the same thing. Except for the overworld puzzle which already gives quite some room for different things

Yeah. It's unclear to me whether broader or narrower is better. Broad might convince more people to participate, but narrow might make it more likely that we'll be able to have discussions about what we're thinking of. Also, if we want to have a competition (although personally I don't think we do) then it will be a little easier to judge things if they're all roughly the same kind of idea.

Maybe we could have the themes a bit broader, someting like "(Alternative/Additional) Battle Mechanics". That would include alternative catching but also maybe additional battle options. That way would have some variation in what people come up with.

Other topic ideas could be "Overworld - Roadblocks and Secret Paths"; "Overworld - Terrains and Movement", or simply new Items or menus (would include PokeDex and Pause Menus alike)

I like all these.

I actually had an idea for the usual Relic Castle Game Jam that was really a Feature Jam: it was a game taking place in a small yet open world space where the player goes through a few side quests. I was trying to go for a smaller scale in which quests could be intertwined in each other and in the few places they take place in. Narratively, the quests were meant to make the places and the people feel real and alive, cohesive.

It's not strictly like the Feature Jam entry examples you wrote, but it worked in a similar. After all, it was originally made for the regular Game Jam.

There's lots to explore in the open-world-ish space, so I'll make sure to include it as a theme. My opinion is that it might be a better choice for a future feature jam rather than this one, because I'm not sure how much we can get done in the time limits, and it would be good to have an idea about that before biting off something that has the chance of being particularly big.

now i understand how this works, oops

I agree the topics should be more generic to start, as @Hollow_Ego brought up. We should start broad, and go over various aspects of that bit, then work our way more and more specific when we find something that catches our eye, then figure out how it would properly be implemented.

Some categories I'll throw in are "Game Difficulty" "Roadblocks" "Level Curve" and "Alternate Catching Mechanics"

I actually really like the idea of letting people loose on whatever they want, and then as a community choosing to polish the ideas that excite us the most.

Also what just came to my mind would be the topic "Skill Trees"... damm I should have thought about that earlier....

If the goal is to come up with public resources, I'd say the Jam should be about:

- Who can come up with the most clever puzzle mechanic
- Who can come up with the most exciting, brand new held item
- Who can come up with the most creative use of [insert resource here]

I wouldn't say that public resources the primary goal. I think it's more to provide a way for people with cool feature ideas to get them out there without having to write a whole game around them (be that via discussion or demo). If those mechanics end up in a complete fan game later on that's just a bonus… although definitely a bonus I'd love to see!

---

So here's the proposal so far, I'm away with work until Thus so feel free to make any suggestions and/or comments and I'll create a poll for us to vote on what we want when I get back.

Four/five week jam that ends mid-February.
We'll vote on a suggested theme that's one of:

• Roadblocks/puzzles.
• Difficulty.
• Battles.
• Pokémon/catching.
• Progression/growth.

… but any entry is welcome, regardless of whether it meets the theme or not.

Just about to catch my flight, so if I missed off your favorite idea that was mentioned earlier in the thread that's almost certainly an oversight—please let me know! I think that both "Skill Trees" and "Level Curves" could come under progression/growth.

 

[MGriffin]

Hey there, just a reminder that the Relic Castle Archive is closing on the 12th Jan, but there's all sorts of wonderful ideas over there that might be worth looking at for inspiration. Here's some of my favorites from the Pokémon Fan Game Discussion section, and in some cases they're inspired me, so I've left any new ideas under the original posts.

An idea just occurred to me that I think I might try to do in my game! It may or may not apply to most captures (I'm thinking specifically Legendaries for now, but see the last paragraph for how it could apply to everything); even so, it's still about capturing, so I figured I'd offer it as an example here.

Basically, most canon Legendary encounters play out something like this:
> Weaken the Legendary across, like, three turns.
> Throw Balls.
> Catch it after a totally random period of time.
This is not really ideal. XP It really negates the Legendary's power/specialness when you're literally not even paying attention to it for most of the fight, just spamming Balls at it, and the fact that a reduced catch rate means more luck rather than more difficulty works fine in most cases but not here.

For a Legendary Pokémon, the usual implication for the version mascots that are easy to catch (DP, BW, XY, SM) is that you have already earned their respect and you are catching them on their terms (you saved Dialga/Palkia, you're the Hero of Reshiram/Zekrom, Xerneas/Yveltal needs your help, and Solgaleo/Lunala has abundantly clear reason for anyone who has played Sun and Moon). So why is it that the other Legendaries are captured at a low rate? You'd think that a Legendary would only allow itself to be captured if you earned its respect, not "try to resist" (low catch rate) and still be caught by just throwing a bunch of Balls.

So here's my solution! Instead of making Legendaries less LIKELY to be caught, make them require fighting for a set amount of time BEFORE being caught. In my game, until you've proven your worth by actually fighting them - "showing the strength of the Pokémon you've raised and showing the trust between you and your Pokémon" - you're not able to throw any Poké Balls in the first place.

To complicate this, I'm making all of the Legendaries pretty tough to fight through things like held items, decided movesets instead of the last four they've learned, and possibly a stat-boosting aura like Totem Pokémon and Ultra Beasts. This makes them more akin to boss battles than just another monster to get lucky and catch, the only twist being that you have to last a certain amount of time instead of winning the fight so that you can actually catch the Legendary when the time does come.

As compensation, the capture itself is quite easy; all of the Legendaries have a catch rate of 45 or higher (that's the catch rate of most of the easily-caught mascots, for reference). This emphasizes further that you're capturing them on their terms, not yours - you cannot capture them at all until they approve it, and then once you can catch them, it's because they are willing and they don't attempt to resist.

To clarify, all of this will be explained to the player! I'm not gonna do something dumb like "before turn 10, you can throw Balls, but they'll all fail" - I'm actually leaning more towards messages along these lines:

"Rayquaza doesn't respect you yet! You can't throw a Ball now!" when you try to use a Poké Ball
"Rayquaza nodded in approval! You have its respect - you can catch it now!" at the end of whatever turn number

I just figured this would give more meaning/emotion to the Legendary battles while simultaneously giving a plot excuse for the fact that you can catch them (and eliminating the ever-present gameplay/story segregation between "these are all-powerful beings" and "they're actually trying to resist and you still caught them"). Does anyone think this will work? C:

(Actually, in theory, this really could be expanded to affect every Pokémon anyway - I might modify catch rates to be uniform across everything and replace species-based catch rates with species-based minimum turns of battle, the easiest Pokémon to catch starting immediately and the harder ones scaling up? That also cements the "it's not abduction; Trainer-Pokémon relationships are mutually beneficial" plotline quite nicely!)

---

I actually have a sort of game concept myself. It's called the Pokesword.
It's a key item one would get in the game. By itself, it does nothing.
But when you select it, you would get the options Equip, Register (for Y button), and Cancel.
When you press Equip, you go immediately to your items slot in your bag. You then choose one item, the sword will then transform to a form related to the item,and the sword is now active. Depending on the item, the sword now applies a general effect that applies in battle to ALL Pokemon (you and your opponents)!
Here's a list of what items give what effects:

Damp Rock, Heat Rock, Smooth Rock, Icy Rock = corresponding weather effect does not end after 5 turns after being activated (endless, unless when another weather effect is activated) (The abilities Desolate Land, Primordial Sea, and Delta Stream are not affected).
17 Plates = corresponding type has increased power during battle (Arceus' type does not change upon adding a plate to the Pokesword. It must hold a plate to change type).
Incenses - corresponding effect is applied to all Pokemon
Mega Stones = corresponding Pokemon can now Mega Evolve once regardless of their held item.
EXAMPLE: Pokesword + Garchompite = Any Garchomp on the field can Mega Evolve once.
Big Root = Boosts all HP draining moves.
Binding Band = Any move like Bind or Wrap now removes 1/6 of target's total HP.
Black Belt (FIGHTING), Black Glasses (DARK), Charcoal (FIRE), Dragon Fang (DRAGON), Hard Stone (ROCK), Sharp Beak (FLYING), Silk Scarf (NORMAL), Silver Powder (BUG), Twisted Spoon (PSYCHIC), Magnet (ELECTRIC), Metal Coat (STEEL), Miracle Seed (GRASS), Mystic Water (WATER), Never-Melt Ice (ICE), Soft Sand (GROUND), Spell Tag (GHOST) = corresponding type has increased power in battles.
Bright Powder = Boosts all Pokemon's evasion.
Scope Lens = Boosts all Pokemon's critical hit ratio.
Expert Belt = Increases all super effective damage done by any Pokemon.
Grip Claw = Duration of effects from moves such as Bind or Wrap increase by 5 turns.
King's Rock = All attacking moves has a 10% chance of causing the target to flinch.
Light Clay = The effects of Reflect/Light Screen persist for 8 turns rather than 5.
Amulet Coin = Doubles the prize money earned from defeating a Trainer (A Pokemon can hold another Amulet Coin or a Luck Incense to further increase winnings).
Lucky Egg = Increases the amount of Exp. Points earned from battle (A Pokemon can hold another Lucky Egg to further increase Exp. Point yield).
Metronome = Raises the power of any move used consecutively.
Razor Claw = Boosts all Pokemon's critical hit ratio (Does not evolve Sneasel into Weavile. It must hold the item and fulfill the conditions).
Razor Fang = All attacking moves has a 10% chance of causing the target to flinch (Does not evolve Gligar into Gliscor. It must hold the item and fulfill the conditions).
Ring Target = All Pokemon can hit the target regardless of type immunities (does not negate abilities like Levitate. Only type immunities, like Normal can now hit Ghost without Scrappy).
Soothe Bell = All Pokemon's friendship rise at double the normal rate (The only Pokesword form whose effects apply outside of battle).
Muscle Band = Boosts all physical attacks.
Wide Lens = Boosts all Pokemon's accuracy.
Wise Glasses = Boosts all special attacks.
Zoom Lens = Boosts accuracy when target moves before the user.

---

Hey guys, so for the seal(capsules) script im thinking of making it so you can choose to put 2 types of Seals on the capsule. All the seals represent a pokemon type. Depending on what seals you have it will boost those attack types. im also thinking of making it so you can have defensive seals that boost pokemon defence as well. the interface, for the most part, will reflect the way it worked in D/P/P but wont be touch screen.

I find this idea really interesting! It's kinda like having another way to give your Pokémon items. To be honest, I'd almost rather make it so that you have to make custom Pokéballs before catching the Pokémon. Mechanically this would be something a bit like how you give Kurt Apricorns, but you give (say) three at a time, and many (but not all?) combinations make a special ball with an effect on the Pokémon it captures.

I think the effects should be relatively small, maybe something like these:

• Heal by 12.5% when switched out/battle ends.
• Restore some PP when switched out/battle ends.
• Have "Endure"/"Safeguard"/etc effect active on the turn we are switched in.
• Reduce damage from a type on the turn we are switched in.

---

I'd love to see fan games come up with some more options, whether that be implementing more effects like Critical Capture, or just making more balls like type-specific ones, or some that gain effectiveness when the pokemon has endured a certain status effect for a number of turns. I'd also like to see things like adjusting existing balls to be more worthwhile; balls like Luxuryballs and Healballs have the same strength of a pokeball but are commonly available later on in the game or are just harder to get a hold of.

I have a couple ideas for some new Pokeballs.

1. Different Pokeballs that have a catch rate based on the weather. There's a dusk ball for when it's night, so why not weather balls.
2. A Pokeball that works well on Pokemon of different elements. Why do only water and bug Pokemon get a special ball?
3. Pokeballs with catch rates based on status conditions. IE a sleep ball, paralyze ball etc.
4. A custom made Pokeball that the player can design as part of the game. However, there are some limitations on the catch rates of these balls.

I've been toying with a similar concept [Shiny Ball in Pokémon Prism] in my game but implemented it a bit differently. You can buy as many of them as possible, but they have super low catch rates.
There are 6 of them. You also have to unlock them one by one by showing a pokemon that was caught with the previous ball to an npc.

These are the different balls I came up with (names are still likely to change):

1. Gender Ball: Makes the caught Pokemon of the opposite gender (catch rate the same as a Pokeball)
2. Trade Ball: Makes the caught Pokemon get boosted exp, as if it was obtained in a trade. (catch rate lower than Pokeball)
3. Ability Ball: Gives the caught Pokemon its hidden ability (catch rate even lower)
4. Virus Ball: Infects the caught Pokemon with Pokerus (lower)
5. Shiny Ball: Makes the caught Pokemon shiny (lower)
6. Perfect Ball: Gives perfect IVs to the caught Pokemon (lowest catch rate)

I really like these! And I have a related idea—balls that have an effect when they fail to capture the Pokémon, e.g.

• Ball that deals 1/8th damage (but cannot faint the wild Pokémon, like False Swipe).
• Ball that heals status effects (good for if you have poisoned/burned the Pokémon).
• Ball that (may?) put the Pokémon to sleep (or freeze, paralyze, etc).

---

There's a little known fact that SPEE has dynamic encounter rates.

Every time you run from a battle, the encounter rate falls a bit. It continues falling every time they run. If they enter a new area, the encounter rate resets back to normal.
It really does a lot to avoid making an area feel tedious. If a player is just gonna run from each battle, then it benefits them to spend less time in battle.

It's quite simple to implement as well. Would like to see more game with it. (especially official pokemon games- I just wanna get out of this damn cave ffs)

---

Something I'd really want to see in a game is the ability to customize moves. Just like PP UP increase move's PP, a variety of other items can be added to enhance other stats. (Shouldn't be too hard to implement)

If you really want to take this up a notch, you could give moves levels and exp bars as well. Leveling up moves would seem so awesome (though difficult to implement and balance). You start out with generic weak moves, and everytime you level up you get the chance to increase either power, accuracy or side effect chance. If you'd get your moves to a certain level, you might "evolve" them into other moves. (IE Absorb --> Mega Drain --> Giga Drain)

Some other thing I've been thinking about is the addition of Ability machines (AMs), or any other way to teach your Pokemon abilities they normally couldn't have.

Customizable moves is an awesome idea!

I was thinking of making a special Smeargle that could combine the move it Sketch-es with any other move it already has. So for example if it knows Surf and combines it with Lava Plume you might get something that works like Scald; or maybe Thundershock + Mega Drain = Parabolic Charge, but you also have the chance of getting a grass-type draining move that can paralyze.

---

We all hate the HM mechanic, and replacing them with key items in games has always been a cool thought. However I personally always found it underwhelming and once that point in a game comes it feels less important, but I love the idea so maybe we've just been using this solution in a cheap and easy way that can be changed. What if instead these HM items are single use and purchasable? On one hand it may seem like adding an extra step to an unneeded process that wastes the players time, but on the other hand it adds a new dynamic for item management as well as more value for the money you've earned within the game. It could be used for different puzzles in creative ways and gives a bigger meaning to the concept of HMs. I've been jotting down a couple examples, I think my favorite so far has been an Oil Lantern in lieu of Flash. You receive it in the same manner you would as one of the key HM items, say after your first gym battle, but in order to keep it going you have to buy Lantern Fuel that can die out after X amount of steps like a repel and darken the room you've found yourself in. Maybe between floors the oil runs out so and you have to refill, making the player need to opt for smarter exploration tactics or causing them to stock up heavily on fuel so they don't find themselves in a sticky situation. This type of concept could be used for nearly every HM, some more disposable than others, and it can create an environment where the player has to use this and learn where they'll need it, giving more of a puzzle solving feel to the over world like Pokemon has always had.

---

Recently I've been toying around with an alternate use for the HM Cut where instead of the tree just going away, it'll fall down in a direction (not sure if opposite of the trainer or to the side will work better for this yet) and use this as a form of puzzle. It could be used by having the trainer approach it from different routes so that when they cut it the correct new way to go will be opened up. Additionally it could be used next to a ledge to give you a different way up (which now that I think about it isn't as much of a puzzle mechanic in itself, but hey, just brainstoming). It seems like this has other uses that it could satisfy, I'm just not sure what yet. Would love to hear if anyone can expound on the idea, or just thoughts in general on it.

---

So we already have a few weather effects, but recently I came up with a couple more:

- Heavy wind: This could naturally occur on peaks of mountains. Heavy wind removes the levitate ability of all Pokémon (including FLying types), thus grounding them.
- Thunderstorms: They could potentially strike down once in a while on certain types maube.
- Rain: An upgrade to the rain effect. Electricity moves get a bit more dangerous, but might cause self-harm to the Pokémon using it (short circuit)
- Acid rain: This could occur near polluted areas an damages all types but Poison (and those resistant to it)

I think that Thunderstorm in particular could be cool because it ought to interact well with Lightning Rod (i.e. gives +1 SpAtk every time lightning strikes), Motor Drive and Volt Absorb.

I have an idea for a Cyclone weather that gives each Pokémon a 33% chance to be Whirlwind-ed out at the end of each turn (unless in Dig etc, or Ingrained etc). I was planning to use it for a flying-type gym leader whose team has a lot of entry hazards.

---

So this is a decently old thread that I'd like to bring back up in light of generation 7 but probably not for the reason most are expecting. Sure the new games brought up some new classes and continued some things from gen 6 that we can probably call a pattern now. However, totem pokemon sparked an idea with me that might be interesting for anyone trying to make a more challenging game. Instead of trainer classes just having a theme to their teams, what if they had some sort of advantage as well? Easiest example might be that all youngsters get a speed boost because they're youngsters. Or maybe all breeders regain health each turn. There is a lot of room to be creative with it and can add a new dynamic to these random encounters that can otherwise become dry. Food for though!

 

[Dragonite]

Wonderful, I completely forgot about this. A lot of the threads I want to save from old relic aren't really good for a feature jam but since the thread about getting rid of the archive is locked I guess I'll just dump them here.

Planning
Themed Games (I'll get to the pokéathlon thing some day, I hope)
What makes a map good?
Patterns in official games to consider in fan games, apparently I still through strikethrough humor was funny in 2016
Art Direction is difficult when you get most of your tilesets from the deviantArt collection but
Planning
Starters are something I'm sure most of us are tired of hearing about by now
Breaking Conventions

Implementation
Sidequests
Puzzles and Puzzle-Like Things
Creating a Difficulty Curve
Trainer Classes
Event Pokemon
HMs and Obstacles, a perennial favorite of mine

Writing
Story vs Freedom
Riddles & Puzzles (non-mechanical)
Game Lore
Evil Teams, and A Fresher Take on Evil Teams, and How necessary is an antagonist?
Show vs Tell

Controversial
These could also just turn into complain boxes but
Multiple Regions
Pet Peeves and
What Turns You Off a Pokemon Game
What makes a map bad?

There were more good ones but I wanted to constrain myself, believe it or not.

edit: might as well go big or go home. These have nothing whatsoever to do with the thread, but I also saved the Project Showcase threads which still have working downloads as of my writing this.

Spoiler: big ol' wall of URLs

Earthbound Capsule Quest
(The) Holy Mountain
Operation Strike Back
Pokémon Alabaster
Pokémon Alchemist
Pokémon: Attack on Silph Co.
Pokémon Crimson and Navy
Pokémon Ethereal Gates
Pokémon Gaia Version
Pokémon Golurk Rising
Pokémon Insurgence
Pokémon Jeff
Pokémon: Legends of the Arena
Pokémon Marigold
Pokémon Plastic Pyrite
Pokémon Police Force
Pokémon Rose Gold
Pokémon Thyme
Pokémon Umber
Project S.P.E.C.T.R.U.M
(The) Secret of Cinnabar Mansion
Steve the Bibarel
Super Pokémon Eevee Edition

And Atomic Reactor's stuff, just for safekeeping.
Pokémon: Kanto Stories
Pokémon Obsidian

 

[Hollow_Ego]

Would you consider changes to Essentials, which makes setting up the game easier but or not noticed by the player, a feature? Like different way to set up wild encounters.

 

[MGriffin]

Would you consider changes to Essentials, which makes setting up the game easier but or not noticed by the player, a feature? Like different way to set up wild encounters.

Yeah, I think so. It's a little bit of a stretch, but if it affects the gameplay it should count. If I overhauled the EV/IV system I'd expect to be allowed to submit that even though the player might never notice.

 

[Hollow_Ego]

Well ppl might notice something about the EV/IV, since it is affecting the game. The wild encounter setup wouldn't neccassarily

 

[MGriffin]

Well ppl might notice something about the EV/IV, since it is affecting the game. The wild encounter setup wouldn't neccassarily

Well I'm sure you can use your judgment to decide if it's appropriate or not. I can tell you that I'm not going to be responsible for rejecting anything. Personally I wouldn't have any problems with people submitting projects that they've been working on long before the jam started.

---

Also I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't forgotten you! But I'm in discussions with @Marin about running the first jam as a RC event, and at the moment that's looking like it means it will happen after the next Iron Mapper. I'm afraid I don't know what the timeline for that looks like, so I can't give any estimates on what that means for our timeline, but I'll update you as soon as I know more (or Marin could post here).

If anyone feels strongly that we should run it soon then please get in touch or post here and I'll take it under consideration.