Released Pokémon Star Prodigy

Vivethen · Feb 18, 2022

UltimateNPC said:
I've played Star Prodigy up to just after the third gym, and I'd like to give some thoughts and criticisms on my experience so far. I understand that you're aware of many of the flaws with the early game, so I'll try not to nit-pick every little problem I have and just to quickly point out the things that really bothered me. Most of these points will be subjective criticisms, but still criticisms that I feel are quite important.

The story is probably this game's saving grace. I really enjoy the concept of regional variants being created by force and utilised by the enemy team. The Pokémon all look well-thought-out and interesting, and variants are always fun as a whole. I chose my starter to be Squirtle because it's very rare for a fan-game to offer Squirtle without Charmander or Bulbasaur, and I was overjoyed when I saw its variant in the final form. When regional variants were first introduced in S&M, I would make up variants on my own because I found the concept so fascinating, and one of my favourites variants to consider was a Water/Electric Blastoise, because of how great it would be, so I can't tell you how pleased I was with that. I also enjoy that you utilise a variety of environments, and revisiting the home-town and reusing basic characters like the player's mother in the story was something I rarely ever see in other fan-games, it was a lovely touch. Looker is as great as ever, of-course.

Now, as for the gameplay, rather than a paragraph I'm just going to quickly list off my major issues with it.
1. Battles are rather tedious, the lack of any real interesting items at first gives me no incentive to search, and grinding is very unenjoyable as a whole. These could be fixed by improving the quality or quantity of rewards, and giving people more to do in each area, rather than one or two quests that seem to be locked in a specific order. As for tedious battles, I'm not really sure how you could fix this, nothing comes to mind, though using the newer battle system definitely doesn't help. As I mention later in this 'review', the speed of the game is a big contributor to my tolerance of these issues.
2. Level-scaling is all over the place. In one route the wild Pokémon will be under-levelled compared to my team, and in the next they'll be over-levelled. I never felt any real incentive to build up my team aside from my starter, and when I DID finally acquire an EXP Share, it took me ages just to level up one of them because of the inconsistencies of encounters and trainers to grind with. Having the item version of the share rather than the EXP All only deterred me further, and even now, after the third gym, only half of my time is anywhere near the right level to be utilised against trainers. If an EXP All is not added, I recommend tweaking the levelling of various trainers, and possibly adding some specific trainers in towns/cities which you can battle repeatedly and who are relatively easy to defeat for a high amount of EXP in order to grind. If this knocks the game's balance off, you can add a price to battling each of these trainers.
3. There is a distinct lack of direction after the second gym, and at the point where I've currently stopped playing, I find myself clueless as to where to go between the two directions. At the very least, some hints as to where to go or what each place is would help greatly. Maybe a sign at each turning point?
4. The sprites are infuriatingly inconsistent, with some being ripped straight out of later games for no apparent reason and being shoved into the Generation 3 environment, while others are meticulously designed for the art-style. Comparing Vera and Tyson's sprites, it is night and day, and I find myself incapable of taking the latter seriously. There's no real solution I can provide for this one, only that they REALLY need work, though I'm sure you're aware of that.
5. I'm sure you're not INTENTIONALLY making grammatical mistakes, so I won't nit-pick them, but I will say that especially earlier on, it makes things very difficult to read and understand. Perhaps you could get a proof-reader. Additionally, the use of coloured text for gender is very inconsistent, and throws me off a lot, this could use some work too, though it's not as big of a deal.
6. The music is all over the place, as well as the volume mixing. Some tracks I have to actually turn down the volume on my computer for. The worst case of this is the battles with Sai (I think that's his name), where the music is so loud that it makes my ears hurt. The only advice I can give on this is to simply tweak them and to be very careful with volume mixing, as some people have sensitive ears. My volume is consistently low, and I truly think that if I wore headphones in the moments I'm complaining about, I would have a headache every time.

I kept playing this game despite having so little fun earlier on that I found myself being genuinely enraged by things that were happening, and not in a 'gamer' sense, in a genuine dislike way. I took into account your points about lack of experience, and trusted that things would improve as they progressed, and you were right, they absolutely did become more tolerable as I moved along. The game is still riddled with flaws, some that I didn't even mention like random invisible walls, but at the time of writing this, I am enjoying the game and by no means do I think it is BAD, it is simply flawed, in my opinion. I have no intention of discouraging you from continuing, I truly believe this game has the potential to be remarkable, and the glimpses of greatness I've seen are exactly that - great. My one biggest piece of advice for you would be to add a speed-up key. The early game is a real slog, and even as things become more enjoyable I found myself becoming intensely impatient with everything from wild encounters to dialogue. A speed-up key would help resolve so many of these issues, as the ability to make things move faster would absolutely make the negative aspects of the game more tolerable.

Overall, I hope you don't consider this to be aggressive criticism or hate of any kind, you deserve to have a successful fan-game as much as anyone else, these are just some things that I personally feel need a lot of work. If you weren't previously aware of any of these things that needed fixing, then I hope that I've helped. If you are aware of every single thing I've already said, then I apologize for wasting your time, and either way I wish you good luck with this game going forward. I will follow its development from here on out.

Wow! This sure is something. I really appreciate you taking the time to deliver this feedback. Here are some of my thoughts on the things you mentioned.

Battles I can heavily see as tedious, and the rewards are quite lacking early-game. I plan to at some point revamp the early game to make better items available as well as improve quality of life changes.

Sprites, oh boy what can I say... Yes, they are extremely inconsistent and can be very off putting, like Tyson and Vera as you said. Most of the early game sprites were chosen by 16 yr old me and I never took the time to update them, (which I plan to do at some point).

Level scaling is a huge issue in my game, and I understand that. I only really have 4 play testers, myself included who all seem to fight every wild pokemon they battle sometimes, and other times not (leading to inconsistent difficulties). I plan to add some sort of exp balance (like Audino trainers) to help with it but I'm not really sure how to individually balance since my play testers are limited. With more feedback, I can focus on specific routes and such but otherwise it takes too long for me to analyze the level of a team for each route. So far the level scaling has been completely off of my thoughts and my 4 player tester's thoughts. Speed up is also something I will probably add down the line. It was not a priority before publishing since all my testers wanted to experience "it all" but I understand everyone not feeling that way.

Music inconsistency. This is somehow the first time I've gotten that complaint, maybe because I always play my game on low volume. I can tune down Sai's volume as well as any other ones that come to your mind if you want to list some.

Grammar grammar, haha I've never been good at English. Especially early game. 16yr old me never expected it to make it this far haha. I plan on making it better as I move on and I hope to revisit some of the old text and update it as well in the future.

Ah yes, invisible walls were my old tactic to funnel players, (In Sproit City if I recall it was the most overused). I think I stopped using them completely after the 4th gym but correct me if I'm wrong on that.

I'm glad you enjoy the story, my tester praise me for it as well haha!

Well I think that covers everything you said, I really appreciate the constructive criticism, and I encourage it because it helps me grow as a developer as well. It may be some time before my next update, and who knows how many changes will even come whenever it drops, but I appreciate you taking the time to write this. I can tell you put some good thought into it instead of outright flaming me. If anything else ever comes to your mind, more issues to fix, or good qualities I should keep up, I am open for suggestions whenever. Thanks for playing, and I hope the rest of my game (that you have not finished yet) gets even better as you continue playing! You rock! (:

UltimateNPC · Feb 18, 2022

Vivethen said:
Wow! This sure is something. I really appreciate you taking the time to deliver this feedback. Here are some of my thoughts on the things you mentioned.

Battles I can heavily see as tedious, and the rewards are quite lacking early-game. I plan to at some point revamp the early game to make better items available as well as improve quality of life changes.

Sprites, oh boy what can I say... Yes, they are extremely inconsistent and can be very off putting, like Tyson and Vera as you said. Most of the early game sprites were chosen by 16 yr old me and I never took the time to update them, (which I plan to do at some point).

Level scaling is a huge issue in my game, and I understand that. I only really have 4 play testers, myself included who all seem to fight every wild pokemon they battle sometimes, and other times not (leading to inconsistent difficulties). I plan to add some sort of exp balance (like Audino trainers) to help with it but I'm not really sure how to individually balance since my play testers are limited. With more feedback, I can focus on specific routes and such but otherwise it takes too long for me to analyze the level of a team for each route. So far the level scaling has been completely off of my thoughts and my 4 player tester's thoughts. Speed up is also something I will probably add down the line. It was not a priority before publishing since all my testers wanted to experience "it all" but I understand everyone not feeling that way.

Music inconsistency. This is somehow the first time I've gotten that complaint, maybe because I always play my game on low volume. I can tune down Sai's volume as well as any other ones that come to your mind if you want to list some.

Grammar grammar, haha I've never been good at English. Especially early game. 16yr old me never expected it to make it this far haha. I plan on making it better as I move on and I hope to revisit some of the old text and update it as well in the future.

Ah yes, invisible walls were my old tactic to funnel players, (In Sproit City if I recall it was the most overused). I think I stopped using them completely after the 4th gym but correct me if I'm wrong on that.

I'm glad you enjoy the story, my tester praise me for it as well haha!

Well I think that covers everything you said, I really appreciate the constructive criticism, and I encourage it because it helps me grow as a developer as well. It may be some time before my next update, and who knows how many changes will even come whenever it drops, but I appreciate you taking the time to write this. I can tell you put some good thought into it instead of outright flaming me. If anything else ever comes to your mind, more issues to fix, or good qualities I should keep up, I am open for suggestions whenever. Thanks for playing, and I hope the rest of my game (that you have not finished yet) gets even better as you continue playing! You rock! (:

I really appreciate your response to my post, and thank you for taking the time to read and consider all of my feedback even if you've seen what I've said many times. I'll just quickly respond to a few things for clarity to see if I can help make your life a little easier:

1. Route 204 (I think that's the one) is actually quite alright in terms of balanced level-scaling, though it is a little long on the far right side, trainer-wise. It feels rather claustrophobic, while the other side is wider with less trainers and feels more empty. The main area I was alluding to with the issue of level scaling was the route right next to the second gym's town, and in my head I was comparing the wild Pokémon there to the wild encounters in the forest immediately above it; See, my starter was around level 36 prior to taking on the gym, while my other Pokémon were all between levels 10 and 17. With the EXP share, I wanted to grind up at least my second and third team members, especially given that I was about to be taking on a grass-type gym, and they both had the advantage, while my starter did not. I had already beaten every single trainer that I could find, because that's simply my playstyle, and I couldn't progress any further due to the abundance of cuttable trees. So, I had to depend on the wild encounters, but in the route next to the town, the encounters were all under-levelled and gave little to no experience, while the encounters in the woods were over-levelled and I had to beat them with my already-high-levelled starter, which only made EXP grinding take even longer. This isn't the sole example, but it is the most prominent one and I spent a good 2-3 hours just in that segment of the game (as in up to and after the gym) alone, so it really reduced my motivation to keep going.
ADDENDUM: In the fan-games that I see without EXP All, there are usually two EXP shares which can be used in tandem. I can't put into words what difference this makes, but it does make grinding a tad bit more interesting. As for balancing, perhaps have the Audino/Chansey Trainers show up once in every major location with a Pokémon Centre, and have them grow by 5-10 levels each time, depending on how many of these trainers there would be.

2. With the speed-up key, I hope you didn't think I was one of those players who doesn't care about dialogue, I very much do, that was an example. My main issue is with the battle speed. Personally, I prefer the FRLG system because it's much faster and the lack of dynamic animations allows for a smoother flow, even in games which are more laggy as a whole - however, even in that system, it comes off as rather slow to me, which a speed-up key would fix. The last game I played before trying Star Prodigy had a speed-up key, and it also had the elite battle system (I'm not sure which generation is which, only that both are referred to as the Elite Battle System). I generally try to avoid games with that battle system because I'm VERY picky and the slow speed is rather intimidating to me. I have to admit, if I knew either of said games had the system, I probably would have avoided them too, but the other game's speed-up key made things much more tolerable and I beat the entire main storyline within 2-3 days. Now, this isn't to compare the two games, it's simply an example of how much of a difference the key makes - allowing players to play the game at their own pace and, if necessary, reap the consequences of not paying attention to more key moments, would bring this game up a good few points.

3. Aside from Sai, the next biggest example of obnoxiously-loud music I can think of is the gym themes - not the battles, the gyms themselves. There are a few other ones, if I recall correctly Tyson's theme was a little loud to me, but Sai and the gyms were the only times where the music got annoyingly loud. The first time I heard Sai's theme, I actually jumped in my seat.

4. If you ever need some help with proofreading, feel free to DM me! I'm no professional, but I know English pretty well and can identify smaller mistakes that others may nit-pick later down the line.

When I was writing the review, I definitely did carefully consider what I could say without being rude. There was a point that I wanted to make about why I actually complained about the early game in the first place, despite being aware that you were planning to improve it all, but I feel like there's no way for me to explain it without sounding harsher than I intend to be. The consensus is that a lot of people are not going to read what you said about your lack of experience earlier on, and will play the game expecting consistent quality the whole way through, and won't put several hours-worth of trust in to see it improve two gyms later. I can't control your development process, and I understand that you are probably very busy all the time, however if I were you, I would honestly prioritise fixing up the early game before moving forward, so that people who play the game in its early releases get the best-quality experience and enjoy it as much as possible while you work on the later segments. This in turn gives the game more attention, appreciation, etc. and will net you more people who give the game a chance while you progress with its development, rather than hoping they can sit through the rocky beginning. It's up to you whether you take this advice or not, but I really do think that the first impressions people get of this game are one of if not the most crucial part of building a reputation and leaving an impact.

I'll leave it at that - once again, I hope I didn't come off as too harsh; thank you again for responding, and please take your time with future updates. I'm sure this game will get the recognition it deserves eventually. Have a great day!

Vivethen · Feb 18, 2022

UltimateNPC said:
I really appreciate your response to my post, and thank you for taking the time to read and consider all of my feedback even if you've seen what I've said many times. I'll just quickly respond to a few things for clarity to see if I can help make your life a little easier:

1. Route 204 (I think that's the one) is actually quite alright in terms of balanced level-scaling, though it is a little long on the far right side, trainer-wise. It feels rather claustrophobic, while the other side is wider with less trainers and feels more empty. The main area I was alluding to with the issue of level scaling was the route right next to the second gym's town, and in my head I was comparing the wild Pokémon there to the wild encounters in the forest immediately above it; See, my starter was around level 36 prior to taking on the gym, while my other Pokémon were all between levels 10 and 17. With the EXP share, I wanted to grind up at least my second and third team members, especially given that I was about to be taking on a grass-type gym, and they both had the advantage, while my starter did not. I had already beaten every single trainer that I could find, because that's simply my playstyle, and I couldn't progress any further due to the abundance of cuttable trees. So, I had to depend on the wild encounters, but in the route next to the town, the encounters were all under-levelled and gave little to no experience, while the encounters in the woods were over-levelled and I had to beat them with my already-high-levelled starter, which only made EXP grinding take even longer. This isn't the sole example, but it is the most prominent one and I spent a good 2-3 hours just in that segment of the game (as in up to and after the gym) alone, so it really reduced my motivation to keep going.
ADDENDUM: In the fan-games that I see without EXP All, there are usually two EXP shares which can be used in tandem. I can't put into words what difference this makes, but it does make grinding a tad bit more interesting. As for balancing, perhaps have the Audino/Chansey Trainers show up once in every major location with a Pokémon Centre, and have them grow by 5-10 levels each time, depending on how many of these trainers there would be.

2. With the speed-up key, I hope you didn't think I was one of those players who doesn't care about dialogue, I very much do, that was an example. My main issue is with the battle speed. Personally, I prefer the FRLG system because it's much faster and the lack of dynamic animations allows for a smoother flow, even in games which are more laggy as a whole - however, even in that system, it comes off as rather slow to me, which a speed-up key would fix. The last game I played before trying Star Prodigy had a speed-up key, and it also had the elite battle system (I'm not sure which generation is which, only that both are referred to as the Elite Battle System). I generally try to avoid games with that battle system because I'm VERY picky and the slow speed is rather intimidating to me. I have to admit, if I knew either of said games had the system, I probably would have avoided them too, but the other game's speed-up key made things much more tolerable and I beat the entire main storyline within 2-3 days. Now, this isn't to compare the two games, it's simply an example of how much of a difference the key makes - allowing players to play the game at their own pace and, if necessary, reap the consequences of not paying attention to more key moments, would bring this game up a good few points.

3. Aside from Sai, the next biggest example of obnoxiously-loud music I can think of is the gym themes - not the battles, the gyms themselves. There are a few other ones, if I recall correctly Tyson's theme was a little loud to me, but Sai and the gyms were the only times where the music got annoyingly loud. The first time I heard Sai's theme, I actually jumped in my seat.

4. If you ever need some help with proofreading, feel free to DM me! I'm no professional, but I know English pretty well and can identify smaller mistakes that others may nit-pick later down the line.

When I was writing the review, I definitely did carefully consider what I could say without being rude. There was a point that I wanted to make about why I actually complained about the early game in the first place, despite being aware that you were planning to improve it all, but I feel like there's no way for me to explain it without sounding harsher than I intend to be. The consensus is that a lot of people are not going to read what you said about your lack of experience earlier on, and will play the game expecting consistent quality the whole way through, and won't put several hours-worth of trust in to see it improve two gyms later. I can't control your development process, and I understand that you are probably very busy all the time, however if I were you, I would honestly prioritise fixing up the early game before moving forward, so that people who play the game in its early releases get the best-quality experience and enjoy it as much as possible while you work on the later segments. This in turn gives the game more attention, appreciation, etc. and will net you more people who give the game a chance while you progress with its development, rather than hoping they can sit through the rocky beginning. It's up to you whether you take this advice or not, but I really do think that the first impressions people get of this game are one of if not the most crucial part of building a reputation and leaving an impact.

I'll leave it at that - once again, I hope I didn't come off as too harsh; thank you again for responding, and please take your time with future updates. I'm sure this game will get the recognition it deserves eventually. Have a great day!

This is great feedback! I'll be considering it for sure.

I looked back at Route 204 and I see what you mean by both sides almost having a completely different style to them. When it comes to wild pokemon encounters, I also see what you mean by the jump of levels in the forest section. The reason I did this is because of how much exp pokemon get in double battle segments, so I often trained all my pokemon evenly during that section. This lead to my 4 pokemon at the time being around lvl 28-31 during the 2nd gym. Since I'm not a huge developer with many testers, my judgement is not prefect leading to awkward segments like so. Hopefully this does not discourage you but I think the routes past the 3rd gym actually become a bit longer (as requested by my testers), but I'll be sure to add smaller routes more often from now on to balance it out. (Also I'm terribly sorry you had to spend so much time grinding. I never intended it to be that annoying to level up.)

I'll definitely prioritize exp trainers and speed-up in my next update (granted I remember to). Now when it comes to early game, it really is an issue, and I do plan on fixing it up... but to be honest, I originally made this game for me to watch my friends play, so I enjoy watching them progress more then anything, and seeing them want more live is amazing. (Heck, some of them have streamed it discord together before which is amazing!) For this reason my priority will be adding content (for now), as views and popularity are not my main goal (long term maybe but not currently). I can confirm that a revamp of the beginning will come eventually though, and hopefully the addition of speed-up and exp trainers will make the beginning more manageable for new players.

I'll be sure to tone down the volume of Sai and the gym overworld theme, if any other ones come to mind just let me know.

Wow, thanks for the proofreading offer. I'd love to do this but I honestly feel like it would be too much of a hassle for you. If anything, maybe I'll try to proofread it down the line but for now I'll just focus on having better grammar in the later sections of the game. I'm also in the thick of things for university, so I have not even touched my game in maybe a month now. I'll probably only start working on it once the semester ends in late April probably.

In summary, I actually only uploaded this game here because my friends said it would be cool to, and to be honest I never imagined I'd get even 100 views on it, and I'm amazed of how many people checked it out, and I'm grateful for it. Unfortunately, my priority will remain on new content, but I'll be sure to add general quality of life improvements in the next update. at some point, I will also fix the early game.

Thanks for the review! Some may find harsh words discouraging, I really do not mind, as long as the goal is to improve my game and not just dunk on it and leave. XD If anything else comes to your mind in the later sections that needs improvement (or praise lol) just let me know!

POkemonmaster123 · Mar 5, 2022

im stuck at the 3rd gym

Vivethen · Mar 5, 2022

POkemonmaster123 said:
im stuck at the 3rd gym

As in you are struggling with the gym puzzle?

Aquive · May 18, 2022

Great game! I've only played up to the 2nd gym so far and the game is good. As you said the beginning is pretty slow but I'm glad I stuck through it. I'm really enjoying the story as well as the small side quests as well. I can't wait to continue playing it!

SPOILERS BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Btw I really enjoyed the Mapleleaf Manor portion of the game. It really gives some nice lore and I loved how we could get the Altine Zorua as well!

FrogsAreCoolYes3 · Nov 14, 2022

I am really enjoing the game and really like the spike in difficulty!

Is there like some cheat codes or some trainers to get infinite exp in this game to cut out the grinding?

Vivethen · Nov 15, 2022

FrogsAreCoolYes3 said:
I am really enjoing the game and really like the spike in difficulty!

Is there like some cheat codes or some trainers to get infinite exp in this game to cut out the grinding?

Unfortunately no cheat codes of any sorts yet. I've gotten some comments about making exp easier to get (without grinding) and it's one of my priorities for the next update! So the issue will eventually be resolved and exp will become more accessible to everyone.

safr · Nov 23, 2022

Just wanted to say for anyone's who at first hesitate to play because of the billboard please give this a try because i also feel same at first very discouraged by the art on this page billboard, but you play you will feel at home, if you ever play fire red or Pokémon gaia rom hack the graphics will be familiar and pretty colourful, so give this demo a try

TheFabledOne · Apr 20, 2023

Is this still being worked on? Truly looks fantastic.

Vivethen · Apr 21, 2023

TheFabledOne said:
Is this still being worked on? Truly looks fantastic.

Yup still working on it. I have not made any updates here yet since I want to add somewhat decent chunks of game play per update. Currently I've made about 3-5 more hours of game play progress but I'm trying to add a bit more. I also need to add some QoL improvements from those who made suggestions in the comments! Life's been a bit busy as of late hence the slowing in production speed. But just know that it is still being worked on!

floodryan123 · Nov 3, 2023

how is development? Still being worked on?

Vivethen · Nov 3, 2023

floodryan123 said:
how is development? Still being worked on?

Yes development is still progressing. Life's been pretty busy so I have not had too much time but it's not abandoned by any means. I'm hoping to have an update by the end of the year but I can't make any promises. I'm hoping for the next update to have somewhere between 4 - 7hrs of content if a player does everything possible without skipping optional stuff. Did you finish what's in the game so far?

floodryan123 · Nov 3, 2023

Vivethen said:
Yes development is still progressing. Life's been pretty busy so I have not had too much time but it's not abandoned by any means. I'm hoping to have an update by the end of the year but I can't make any promises. I'm hoping for the next update to have somewhere between 4 - 7hrs of content if a player does everything possible without skipping optional stuff. Did you finish what's in the game so far?

I haven't, just was curious before I gave it a shot. Good luck with development!

Released Pokémon Star Prodigy

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