Completed Bill's Experiments: Episode 1

Voltseon · Mar 12, 2021

What a sick game!

Naclov · Mar 14, 2021

I got trapped in the bike shop during chapter 2. There is an invisible border when you try to move out of the door frame in the over world. The only place to move to is back to the other side of the door frame back inside the bike shop.

ENLS · Mar 14, 2021

Naclov said:
I got trapped in the bike shop during chapter 2. There is an invisible border when you try to move out of the door frame in the over world. The only place to move to is back to the other side of the door frame back inside the bike shop.

Thanks, I'll make an update soon with some of the fixes!

Ekat · Mar 17, 2021

Beat the game, here are my notes!

Aesthetic

The title screen and starting UI are nice. That's all I can really comment on, because the rest is standard FRLG. I wish that you had gone full out with the aesthetic, perhaps getting the UI to match... I know there are a few resources out there that could have made it possible. In addition, I think it would have been more fitting if you chose remakes of Kanto music for the game's OST, rather than Johto songs. But that might just be my personal preference.

The Gameplay

I'm sad that there isn't much to this entry. It's just a line of trainer battles, followed by running back and forth in the world. Also, like with Quantum, I did come across a few locked areas and blank NPCs. There's not much else I can comment on.

The Writing

I feel like this game had a lot of untapped potential to be an interesting story. Perhaps it was just my expectations going in, but I was expecting something more compelling than I got. While some parts of the story and its jokes were fine, others were a bit off-putting. (The text speak, the informal language from people like the Fanclub Man and Silph Co. President.)

Bugs

1. No sound as I exit.
2. No battleback.
3. No dialogue.
4. This is the most important bug I came across. You should either disable Teleport's overworld effect, or find a way to make it so that the player can't use it to reach old maps. (I was able to do this to reach the old Cerulean City map, and thus softlocked myself out of continuing the story. Honestly, you could just use the same route, and have the events switch around once some time has passed. I think that'd be the easiest way of going about things.)
5. This hiker has a fantastic costume.
6. No dialogue.
7. Collison.
8. I've.
9. Didn't catch a screenshot, but there's a lowercase I in the discussion Bill and Lanette have while making the machine.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Overall
I have my criticisms of the game, but I can see that the time crunch definitely influenced how things played out. I really do believe you have the potential for an interesting story here, though. The story behind the creation of Pokémon Storage, and the more general themes around it could make for an interesting fangame.

ENLS · Mar 17, 2021

Ekat said:
Beat the game, here are my notes!

Aesthetic

The title screen and starting UI are nice. That's all I can really comment on, because the rest is standard FRLG. I wish that you had gone full out with the aesthetic, perhaps getting the UI to match... I know there are a few resources out there that could have made it possible. In addition, I think it would have been more fitting if you chose remakes of Kanto music for the game's OST, rather than Johto songs. But that might just be my personal preference.

The Gameplay

I'm sad that there isn't much to this entry. It's just a line of trainer battles, followed by running back and forth in the world. Also, like with Quantum, I did come across a few locked areas and blank NPCs. There's not much else I can comment on.

The Writing

I feel like this game had a lot of untapped potential to be an interesting story. Perhaps it was just my expectations going in, but I was expecting something more compelling than I got. While some parts of the story and its jokes were fine, others were a bit off-putting. (The text speak, the informal language from people like the Fanclub Man and Silph Co. President.)

Bugs

1. No sound as I exit.
2. No battleback.
3. No dialogue.
4. This is the most important bug I came across. You should either disable Teleport's overworld effect, or find a way to make it so that the player can't use it to reach old maps. (I was able to do this to reach the old Cerulean City map, and thus softlocked myself out of continuing the story. Honestly, you could just use the same route, and have the events switch around once some time has passed. I think that'd be the easiest way of going about things.)
5. This hiker has a fantastic costume.
6. No dialogue.
7. Collison.
8. I've.
9. Didn't catch a screenshot, but there's a lowercase I in the discussion Bill and Lanette have while making the machine.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Overall
I have my criticisms of the game, but I can see that the time crunch definitely influenced how things played out. I really do believe you have the potential for an interesting story here, though. The story behind the creation of Pokémon Storage, and the more general themes around it could make for an interesting fangame.

Oo thanks for playing, and for the feedback!

I made the game in 7 days, and I'm definitely not very proud of it hah. I was making Quantum with Voltseon, but I also wanted to do a solo entry so I came up with this great idea but I limited my time so much so I half-assed it (should probably have spent those 7 days only focusing on quantum)
So yeah, definitely not turn out to be what I imagined when I started, but I might do an entire redo of the story and do it right. (and not give myself a week)

ThatWelshOne_ · Mar 23, 2021

Hi there. I just finished your game. I know you said that you made this game in only a few days, but I thought I'd offer some feedback anyway.

1. I liked the concept of the game - the creation of the Pokémon storage system.
2. I enjoyed the music choice, particularly for the title screen.
3. The small tweaks to standard FRLG maps were nice.

1. This will be my harshest criticism: I'm not entirely sure why this game had trainers other than to pad out playtime. I think this game should've focussed entirely on the story. I know you were pushed for time, but I guess this is something to think about if you work on this game after the Game Jam.
2. I agree with Ekat's comment about certain bits of dialogue slipping into being overly informal, especially set against all the other NPCs who had fairly standard Pokémon game text. That said, I did chuckle at the Fan Club lady casually breaking the fourth wall with regards to the bike voucher and Bill meeting Bill in Saffron City.
3. Do Bill and Lanette have a history? Otherwise, I felt like some of Bill's comments were a tad inappropriate. Maybe the comments were inappropriate either way thinking about it now.
4. "The door is locked" - the ultimate "I didn't have time to map the interiors for these buildings" line.

Man has no text after giving you his Ponyta.

Reflection in the void.

No diaglogue.

Reflection in the void + no BGM.

No map transfer to Saffron City in the gatehouse south of Cerulean City.

Reflection in the void.

The east and west gatehouses in Saffron city didn't have any background music.

Overall, I think this game could be really good with polish. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for whether you continue developing this game after the Game Jam.

Until next time!

ENLS · Mar 23, 2021

ThatWelshOne_ said:
Hi there. I just finished your game. I know you said that you made this game in only a few days, but I thought I'd offer some feedback anyway.

1. I liked the concept of the game - the creation of the Pokémon storage system.
2. I enjoyed the music choice, particularly for the title screen.
3. The small tweaks to standard FRLG maps were nice.

1. This will be my harshest criticism: I'm not entirely sure why this game had trainers other than to pad out playtime. I think this game should've focussed entirely on the story. I know you were pushed for time, but I guess this is something to think about if you work on this game after the Game Jam.
2. I agree with Ekat's comment about certain bits of dialogue slipping into being overly informal, especially set against all the other NPCs who had fairly standard Pokémon game text. That said, I did chuckle at the Fan Club lady casually breaking the fourth wall with regards to the bike voucher and Bill meeting Bill in Saffron City.
3. Do Bill and Lanette have a history? Otherwise, I felt like some of Bill's comments were a tad inappropriate. Maybe the comments were inappropriate either way thinking about it now.
4. "The door is locked" - the ultimate "I didn't have time to map the interiors for these buildings" line.

Man has no text after giving you his Ponyta.
View attachment 3081

Reflection in the void.
View attachment 3082

No diaglogue.
View attachment 3083

Reflection in the void + no BGM.
View attachment 3084

No map transfer to Saffron City in the gatehouse south of Cerulean City.
View attachment 3085

Reflection in the void.
View attachment 3086

The east and west gatehouses in Saffron city didn't have any background music.

Overall, I think this game could be really good with polish. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for whether you continue developing this game after the Game Jam.

Until next time!

Thanks for playing!
I will definitely be trying to redo the game (from scratch) after the Game Jam!
I'm glad you liked the concept, and I will be trying to do it better next time!
And also, thanks for the positive feedback! <3

luxdiablo · Mar 29, 2021

Hi ENLS! You watched me play this on stream, so I'll keep it short, but I wanted to drop a review anyways!

The gameplay was really neat! I think the main thing I enjoyed was the cutscenes, they were done pretty well. There were some instances where you could've made use of Following Pokemon EX's move route functionality, just for the sake of polish (and so Bill isn't standing on his Pokemon 24-7). Otherwise, there's not much to comment on here. The game was pretty standard and formulaic, which is understandable given your time constraints and such. I think it'd probably be better to make some of the encounters more interesting, like when finding the Ponyta, it was a simple grab-and-go type thing, which felt very bland.

Not much to say here either, lol. The only real comment I have is that the mapping was kinda boring throughout the game, but that probably doesn't matter to you too much. Everything else was really standard and used base Essentials graphics, which isn't bad per se, but it's not the best either.

Again, not much to say here. I think there was a VERY good premise to be had here, and I think if you had more time, you totally could've expanded on it. Maybe trying to craft the PC, trying different experiments as minigames, or something like that would be really cool. Being able to walk through Bill's process of making the PC would be really interesting and super cool.

Overall, it's definitely a solid entry. Not much to comment on outside of the interesting premise. I think this game has a huge amount of potential.

ENLS · Apr 30, 2021

Bill's Experiments: Episode 1 has been updated to version 1.1
Not much, just some bug fixes and stuff idk

Changelog:

Fixed some minor bugs.

Download Bill's Experiments: Episode 1 v1.1 (Mediafire)

Completed Bill's Experiments: Episode 1

Voltseon

Don't read the first word

Naclov

Rookie

ENLS

it is pronounced endless

Ekat

That One Guy's GF

ENLS

it is pronounced endless

ThatWelshOne_

Champion

ENLS

it is pronounced endless

luxdiablo

Berserk Inferno

ENLS

it is pronounced endless