Completed Pokémon: Technology

AnonAlpaca · Mar 15, 2021

Is. Is your playable character a walking CPU chip
I love it

TechSkylander1518 · Mar 18, 2021

I'm having a lot of fun with this so far! The shapeshifting mechanic is really fun, and I love the whole aesthetic of the testing facility! (And I LOVE that it was the "Technology is incredible!" guy developing it, haha)

Unfortunately, it seems like there's a game-breaking bug at the start of Stage 7-

The title screen seems a little buggy- it displays displays the Winter Jam text quite a few times
In the intro text, the player has to scroll a lot, even when it's just one word left on the line
- My solution to this would be to use \l[n] at the start of each message- it'll set the textbox to n lines, which should be lots of space to display the whole thing at once without any scrolling!
There's a few empty lines in Nology's dialogue, too
Picking the Cheri Berries involves an awful lot of dialogue scrolling- "There's X Cheri berries," "Pick the berry? Y/n", "You picked the cheri berry," "You put the Cheri Berry in your berries pocket", "The soil returned to its soft and earthy state". That's five messages per berry, meaning I have to scroll through a total of 60 messages to finish the stage. My suggestion would be to switch the event to just say "You picked a Cheri Berry!", use $PokemonBag.pbStoreItem(:CHERIBERRY,1) to store the berry, and display the total- it'd go a lot faster that way!
Some music and sound effects seem to be missing- I didn't hear anything when levelling up, defeating Brock,

boris_morris · Mar 18, 2021

@TechSkylander1518 Thanks for playing! And great points of feedback. I fixed the game breaker with the help of @Golisopod User the other night. Patch to follow tomorrow. I’d love to incorporate your other suggestions in future updates as well.

👵👵👵 · Mar 18, 2021

Playing as a little cpu who can transform is super fun! My favorite part is the bug exe part, but I did find a way to cheese it a little. If you choose not to pick a berry the counter still goes up by one and the bush stays there too, so you can repeat that and not have to find them all.

Hope this helps and I just got to the crash at stage 7 so will continue playing when the patch comes out

boris_morris · Mar 19, 2021

is up. I've fixed a fair number of things, and I don't thiiiink there are any more game breakers. I really appreciate the feedback so far. Warning: the game only gets weirder. Have fun!

ThatWelshOne_ · Mar 20, 2021

Hi there! I'm loving this game so far. So much character and lots of funny references. I think I'm on the last stage (at least that's what the announcer said). There's a softlock after taking the first portal (see picture). There are a few other things I've noticed so far, nothing major though.
Definite spoilers ahead!

1. The signs in Pallet Town don't have any text when you interact with them.
2. The tea sprite doesn't reappear if you "lose" in the Day Care room (yes, I Iost in that room).
3. Ditto remains shiny if you "lose" in the following room after interacting with the jam.
4. In the floor sliding room, the one where you can turn into Nidoqueen, the machine in the top left of the room respawns boxes on the machine, so you can't reach it if you mess up.
5. In the explosions room, you know the one, the guy guarding the fifth jam doesn't explode until after you pick up the jam.

This game is really polished given you made it alone. Well done! I think I clocked in at around 20 losses (crashes) before the softlock (room 07 destroyed me). I look forward to finishing the game.

TechSkylander1518 · Mar 25, 2021

Aw beans I had a draft here that got deleted so hopefully I don't forget any of my notes

Anyways, I think I finished the demo? The final challenge didn't do anything after I picked up the last piece, and I poked around and it didn't seem like there was anything after that? Either way, it definitely continued to deliver on the fun!

The portals and generating the friendship cube worked beautifully, and really offer a lot for creating new puzzles!

I didn't pick up on the theme as much in the first few stages, but seeing it in full, I really love how the settings have this motif of touring Kanto! It's funny, because I'm usually the sort to complain about going over common Kanto points again, but when done to create new experiences in the same locations, I'm having a blast!

All the puzzles and new mechanics were really fun! The Meowth mechanics in the arcade were some of my favorite!

In Stage 7, you can kind of already see the next rooms at the start-

I know it's kind of obvious that there's more, given the stage name, but it does feel like it breaks a little illusion to have them so clearly there.

I should have expected it given the Portal references already there, but for some reason I was expecting the portals to be like, blue to blue, orange to orange, etc. and was a little confused at first- I think it might be helpful to have a little dialogue explaining that. (Especially for players who are unfamiliar with Portal)

I'd also really appreciate a checkpoint before the Charmeleon section- it was a little frustrating going through all the puzzles again after being caught.

This is minor, but this block right here in the Rocket Hideout is kind of annoying lol. To be able to push the Friend Cube down, I have to walk all the way around the machine after accessing it, instead of taking the shorter path counter-clockwise.

A lot of your puzzles involve you pushing events, but you already have Strength when you get to them. I'd suggest changing the events to just be pbPushThisEvent rather than pbPushThisBoulder- that way, the player doesn't have to go through the whole thing about "Look like you can use Strength! Use Strength? You used Strength!"

I totally avoided the battling in Stage 8 by just getting the Shiny first- I'd personally suggest making the shiny a battle too, just so that the choice of starter has some guaranteed relevance.

The jokes about getting caught by another Pokemon in the Day Care felt... really gross to me. I think it'd be better to change the dialogue so that instead of getting forced into it, the joke is that the chip is trying to resist its urges as a Ditto, rather than... fleeing a sexual predator.

While I love seeing Triple Triad getting some use, it seemed like there wasn't really any benefits to using it in the Arcade. (Unless I missed something) I'd personally suggest giving some Coins for a victory, it'd work nicely with the stage's goal!

Having the whole door animation seemed a little excessive for just moving one tile forward in the Game Corner. With a bit of tweaking, you could set it up where it looks like this instead!

-Set the upper tile of the wall to passable, with a priority of 2
-Make the borders of the door Always on Top
-Instead of becoming the black square of the door, make the bottom middle event turn into the floor tile

This map in the Tower is super easy as Gastly, since you can pass through the graves.

I honestly had no clue I needed to break all the ice tiles in Victory Road to get the rocks to vanish, I only figured that out by looking at the files.

I noticed some events have a lot of commands in them, usually for setting up/resetting a stage.

I'd suggest just making this a common event- it'd make it easier to update them all at once, and you wouldn't have to worry about losing anything in all that clutter!

The intro cutscene in the Game Corner doesn't have an A Switch, meaning the player can step back on the tile to replay it.

A couple minor typos with Agatha-

know OAK do you?- comma after OAK
Oh what am I saying! - comma after Oh

The VIALs in the Power Plant are set to Player Touch, not Event Touch, which means that if they bump into you, you can actually just step away from them- they're only triggered if the player bumps into them.

And speaking of the Power Plant- was that line about not knowing how to make the player faster just a goof, or were you genuinely wanting to put that in? Because if it's the latter, I think I know a solution to your problem! The command $game_player.move_speed = 6 works like a "Set Move Route" command, but the game just resets the player's speed after any Move Route command. So to get around this, you'd make it a parallel process event, so it sets that speed command all the time!

Conditional Branch- Switch 92 (IS JOLTEON) On
$game_player.move_speed = 6
End
Parallel Process

The rocks on the upper part were passable here (from the raised section to the machine)

There were definitely a few times here and there where, after crashing, I'd still be in the form of whatever .exe I had managed to get- I think that's just a matter of setting the graphic again after a crash! (I know I had this happen in the Day Care Maze and in Victory Road!)

Stage 15's title is so long that it looks off if you start a save on that map-

boris_morris · Mar 26, 2021

@TechSkylander1518 Fantastic feedback as usual!

- Stage 7: I’ll probably add a checkpoint. That part is 100% a pain.

Diglett Stage: probably needs to be reworked. You can basically just wait in front of whatever hole and whack the shiny when he pops up. There’s no real point to teleporting through the holes yourself. I agree with incentivizing choice based on mandatory battles.
Game Corner: All triad cards can be sold for game corner coins rather than money, so it’s probably the easiest source of income to complete the levels objective. Perhaps some NPC dialogue could make that more clear. Agree on the door too.
Rocket Hideout is getting a small facelift. I shifted the map and ended up missing the fixes on a few coordinate based events. I’ll kill that block too.
Day Care: Honestly, I hate this level. I may cut it entirely or just turn it more into a menacing run from the monsters thing rather than a gross thing.
Power Plant: good call on the player touch vs event touch (didn’t know the difference). And I tried so many things to make the Jolteon speed work and just couldn’t, so if that works, THANK YOU.
Final Stage: After collecting the tiles, you can go through the left portal (if the cube is on the push button) and it’ll teleport you to the end of the puzzle. There’s currently a soft lock if you go through the left portal without first moving the right portal using the cube, but that’ll be fixed soon.
Miscellaneous: Thank you for the great feedback and nice points of advice. V1.2 soon.

TechSkylander1518 · Mar 26, 2021

boris_morris said:
Game Corner: All triad cards can be sold for game corner coins rather than money, so it’s probably the easiest source of income to complete the levels objective. Perhaps some NPC dialogue could make that more clear. Agree on the door too.

Ohhhh, I see! That's a great setup!

boris_morris said:
Day Care: Honestly, I hate this level. I may cut it entirely or just turn it more into a menacing run from the monsters thing rather than a gross thing.

If that's your two options, my vote's for the run from the monsters! I like the mechanics a lot, it's just the story setup that bothers me! I'm trying to think of what settings in Kanto lend themselves to that easily... maybe someone fleeing from Team Rocket? But that's kind of similar to the bug catching contest... Or maybe just being somewhere and running out of Repels?

boris_morris said:
Power Plant: good call on the player touch vs event touch (didn’t know the difference).

Me neither for the longest time! I always thought it was like, if another event touches this one lmfao

boris_morris said:
Final Stage: After collecting the tiles, you can go through the left portal (if the cube is on the push button) and it’ll teleport you to the end of the puzzle. There’s currently a soft lock if you go through the left portal without first moving the right portal using the cube, but that’ll be fixed soon.

Miscellaneous: Thank you for the great feedback and nice points of advice. V1.2 soon.

Yay! I'm looking forward to getting to see it!

boris_morris · Mar 26, 2021

Thank you to all of you players who have taken time to play my silly little game and provide feedback. You're helping me get better at game making, and I appreciate each of you!

luxdiablo · Mar 29, 2021

Yo! I was playing through the game, and it looks like I can't pass through here?

I'm not sure if I need to do something else in the chamber or if it's a bug, but I thought I'd report it.

boris_morris · Mar 30, 2021

TheLuxDiablo said:
Yo! I was playing through the game, and it looks like I can't pass through here? View attachment 3238

I'm not sure if I need to do something else in the chamber or if it's a bug, but I thought I'd report it.

Total bug. I missed a passability issue like a dingus! Fix will be in the next patch. In the meantime, you can just it in debug and keep playing if you like. Really enjoying Bushido by the way!

luxdiablo · Mar 30, 2021

boris_morris said:
Total bug. I missed a passability issue like a dingus! Fix will be in the next patch. In the meantime, you can just it in debug and keep playing if you like. Really enjoying Bushido by the way!

I'm glad you're enjoying Bushido haha! I didn't wanna debug without your permission out of respect, but I'll go ahead and do that. Great game so far, loving it!

luxdiablo · Mar 30, 2021

Alright! I finished the game, and here are my thoughts:

Gameplay is definitely where your game thrived. There were so many unique puzzles and ideas going on, I never got tired of it at all. The premise of being a microchip in a series of testing chambers was really neat, and I love how you formatted the levels as if you were progressing through the Kanto region. I loved the little Portal puzzles, and the stuff with the Game Corner was EXTREMELY creative too. I think my favorite room was probably the Game Corner room, just because I didn't realize Triple Triad was so fun. My least favorite room was probably the Pokemon Tower, just because of how easy it is. But, each puzzle was enjoyable and unique, and I loved it all the way through. Great job on this aspect!

There isn't really much to say on this aspect. I think I would've liked some kind of backstory to why exactly the guy is making a microchip and such, but that's fine. The dialogue was neat, and pretty humorous as well. I can tell that this game was meant to be more of a funny light-hearted puzzle game than a serious down-to-earth game. I don't think I noticed any specific spelling errors or grammatical errors either, so good job there.

There's not much to comment on in terms of visuals either. Pretty much all of the graphics were base Essentials stuff, outside of the microchip sprite. I think the microchip sprite was good, not much to say there. The one thing I would recommend is that you turn on Stop Animation for the player. In normal Pokemon games, OW Pokemon have Stop Animation on, so it looks like they're 'walking in place'. You should do this for the player at all times, as it looks FAR more natural. The level design was really solid overall, I think the only 'bad' map that I noticed was the Pokemon Tower one, that section felt kinda empty and obvious. Otherwise, everything here was pretty good. I think I would prefer to see some UI with a more 'technology' aesthetic, but I understand the time crunch.

Overall, VERY solid entry, I loved playing it and I definitely would recommend it. Good job!

KennyCatches · Apr 2, 2021

Hey! I just finished the game and I just want to say that I had a lot of fun with this entry! I loved the concept and overall theme of the game, and the puzzles were fun too! Great job with this!

boris_morris · Apr 4, 2021

Pokémon Technology V1.3

V1.3 change log - I fixed a door event that I broke with V1.2.

Voltseon · Apr 8, 2021

#BlameThundagang

Ngl I watched it from a stream and it's really interesting, it's a super unique game and it was well made! It's really nice, good job!
I'll def still play it for myself, looking forward to playing it myself and I'll leave some actual feedback for it!
Thanks for making this amazing entry and good job!

boris_morris · Apr 8, 2021

Voltseon said:
#BlameThundagang

Ngl I watched it from a stream and it's really interesting, it's a super unique game and it was well made! It's really nice, good job!
I'll def still play it for myself, looking forward to playing it myself and I'll leave some actual feedback for it!
Thanks for making this amazing entry and good job!

Thanks for the support, @Voltseon. I’ll clean up that last stage this week (maybe) and post a patch. Glad you enjoyed the stream! I was pretty excited myself!

boris_morris · May 7, 2021

V1.4 is uploaded. It features a few graphical fixes and clean up of the final stage. Everything shouuuuld work as intended now. If you are kind enough to give it a playthrough and have any feedback or find any gamebreaking bugs, please let me know!

Completed Pokémon: Technology

AnonAlpaca

Why Do People Call Me A GOAT

TechSkylander1518

Wiki Dweeb

boris_morris

Novice

👵👵👵

🌯🌯🌯

boris_morris

Novice

ThatWelshOne_

Champion

TechSkylander1518

Wiki Dweeb

boris_morris

Novice

TechSkylander1518

Wiki Dweeb

boris_morris

Novice

luxdiablo

Berserk Inferno

boris_morris

Novice

luxdiablo

Berserk Inferno

luxdiablo

Berserk Inferno

KennyCatches

can he catch his w's?

boris_morris

Novice

Voltseon

Don't read the first word

boris_morris

Novice

boris_morris

Novice