Released Pokémon Synthetic

TANGOCOYO · Feb 22, 2022

wow this game looks so good and such cool names the creators have. especially that tangocoyo guy.

TheDogDad · Feb 22, 2022

Just finished and wow am I in awe!!! The synthetic Pokemon look incredible (My favorite is Munchlax) and I can't wait to check out the other ending!!!

futuresushi · Feb 23, 2022

tfw

your only pokemon left facing mewtwo is a specs typhlosion whose only move with PP remaining is extrasensory

all the sprites and animations look INCREDIBLE btw, which i'd expect given the folks involved

Armin · Feb 25, 2022

Hello! I thought I'd share some of my sentiments after playing the game!

Synthetic Pokémon
I'm sorry, but... the synthetic Pokémon are the cutest things ever??? Literally the most unbelievable thing about the story is that no one will fund their creation, because I TOTALLY WOULD. Like... how do you see this thing and its cute little smile and not want 20 of them???

Seriously, I'd give anything to see a world where every single Pokémon is replaced with their synthetic versions! ~~(Ethics? What are they?)~~ One thing I absolutely love is how inspired and creative their designs are - it's easy to just take a Pokémon and make them metallic and robotic and call it a day, but you guys went even further, taking parts of a Pokémon that resemble a real world item and making them the item, which lends so much uniqueness and charm. My favorite designs are helicopter Yanma, wheel Donphan, flying speakers Noibat, UFO Shuppet, missile Sharpedo, satellite dish Spiritomb and ice dispenser Eiscue (I'd add more but I'll probably end up listing down the whole roster lol). The fact that they're animated - and the adeptly intricate way they're animated too! - really demonstrates how much effort you guys put into endearing them to the player and making them feel alive.

I find it easy to relate to the professor, the scientist at the mercy of the investors who do not realize that research requires time and patience, the scientist who has no choice but to fulfill their inane (and immoral) requests or risk seeing his life's work go down the drain. I wonder if the "weaponization" of the Pokémon in the second-to-last room (missile Sharpedo, tank Octillery etc.) is meant to be a reflection of the professor slowly succumbing to evil? ~~Someone, please fund this poor man.~~

Some suggestions
I would love so much for the synthetic Pokémon to be more involved in the game. The mandatory "stage bosses" are great fun, but for the rest of the Pokémon, the player could just flee from them, which means it's entirely possible to go through the game without getting to know what the synthetic Pokémon are like in battle. (It's probably the wiser option too, given the limited healing resources). Perhaps using trainers rather than wild encounters might be more effective? (The player might find it less of a hassle to get through the mazes too) Though, I admit this may be just my personal preference so please take it with a grain of salt. ^^

To the team, thank you so much for making the game! I had a lot of fun playing it!

Haunted Ditto · Feb 27, 2022

Had alot of fun playing this. Here are my thoughts:

After seeing the screenshoots, I started the game with high expectations and I'm not disappointed!
The synthetic Pokemon are such a neat idea and I love every single one of them!
Instead of just making metallic Pokemon and calling it a day, you replaced certain stuff with real life objects.
Sometimes completely ridiculing certain Pokemon like Donphan which is a wheel now (And I love it).
Tbh based on the quality of the sprites + animations, I expected alot less synthetic Pokemon (maybe like 10), but you totally delivered. Through the variety I never saw a synthetic Pokemon too often.
The small lore bits in the dark room were also great and gave me Pokemon Mansion vibes.
Only negative would be the playtime, I guess (I was done after 20 minutes).
But since the game is super polished, I can forgive this ; )

All in all I have to say this is a great game jam entry and I hope you expand this concept even more (I would totally play a full game with only synthetic Pokemon).

Evan · Mar 6, 2022

TheDogDad said:
Just finished and wow am I in awe!!! The synthetic Pokemon look incredible (My favorite is Munchlax) and I can't wait to check out the other ending!!!

I (on behalf of the team) am so glad you enjoyed it!! My personal favorite synthetic Pokémon is Drampa, and Munchlax is definitely in my top 5!

futuresushi said:
tfw

your only pokemon left facing mewtwo is a specs typhlosion whose only move with PP remaining is extrasensory

all the sprites and animations look INCREDIBLE btw, which i'd expect given the folks involved

Oh no! You were backed into a corner there at the end, eh? I'm glad to hear you love the sprites and animations, we all worked really hard on them! (Well, Antiant was the only one who did the animations, but the rest of us worked hard on the sprites!) Thank you so much for playing!

Armin said:
Hello! I thought I'd share some of my sentiments after playing the game!

Synthetic Pokémon
I'm sorry, but... the synthetic Pokémon are the cutest things ever??? Literally the most unbelievable thing about the story is that no one will fund their creation, because I TOTALLY WOULD. Like... how do you see this thing and its cute little smile and not want 20 of them???

View attachment 9120

Seriously, I'd give anything to see a world where every single Pokémon is replaced with their synthetic versions! ~~(Ethics? What are they?)~~ One thing I absolutely love is how inspired and creative their designs are - it's easy to just take a Pokémon and make them metallic and robotic and call it a day, but you guys went even further, taking parts of a Pokémon that resemble a real world item and making them the item, which lends so much uniqueness and charm. My favorite designs are helicopter Yanma, wheel Donphan, flying speakers Noibat, UFO Shuppet, missile Sharpedo, satellite dish Spiritomb and ice dispenser Eiscue (I'd add more but I'll probably end up listing down the whole roster lol). The fact that they're animated - and the adeptly intricate way they're animated too! - really demonstrates how much effort you guys put into endearing them to the player and making them feel alive.

I find it easy to relate to the professor, the scientist at the mercy of the investors who do not realize that research requires time and patience, the scientist who has no choice but to fulfill their inane (and immoral) requests or risk seeing his life's work go down the drain. I wonder if the "weaponization" of the Pokémon in the second-to-last room (missile Sharpedo, tank Octillery etc.) is meant to be a reflection of the professor slowly succumbing to evil? ~~Someone, please fund this poor man.~~

Some suggestions
I would love so much for the synthetic Pokémon to be more involved in the game. The mandatory "stage bosses" are great fun, but for the rest of the Pokémon, the player could just flee from them, which means it's entirely possible to go through the game without getting to know what the synthetic Pokémon are like in battle. (It's probably the wiser option too, given the limited healing resources). Perhaps using trainers rather than wild encounters might be more effective? (The player might find it less of a hassle to get through the mazes too) Though, I admit this may be just my personal preference so please take it with a grain of salt. ^^

To the team, thank you so much for making the game! I had a lot of fun playing it!

My thoughts on your thoughts!

Thank you so much for your kind words about the Synthetic Pokémon! When JW first drew them up we saw their charm and potential, and we're thrilled that it was able to translate into the sprites and then into Antiant's animations so well. Clearly this professor should get his funding, I agree.

As it relates to your suggestions, I think you're spot-on with all of them. Especially once we were watching some playthroughs and seeing people run from the Pokémon (which due to our rushed schedule had truly not dawned on us), we were trying to think about different ways we can get the synthetic Pokémon more involved without making things feel annoying or forced--Currently what we're looking to do is similar to what you're saying--treating them like "trainers" that you cannot run from, but can (if you're able!) sneak around. We'd probably open up the rooms a bit more if we did this.

I appreciate the comments and suggestions a lot! Thanks for playing!

Haunted Ditto said:
Had alot of fun playing this. Here are my thoughts:

After seeing the screenshoots, I started the game with high expectations and I'm not disappointed!
The synthetic Pokemon are such a neat idea and I love every single one of them!
Instead of just making metallic Pokemon and calling it a day, you replaced certain stuff with real life objects.
Sometimes completely ridiculing certain Pokemon like Donphan which is a wheel now (And I love it).
Tbh based on the quality of the sprites + animations, I expected alot less synthetic Pokemon (maybe like 10), but you totally delivered. Through the variety I never saw a synthetic Pokemon too often.
The small lore bits in the dark room were also great and gave me Pokemon Mansion vibes.
Only negative would be the playtime, I guess (I was done after 20 minutes).
But since the game is super polished, I can forgive this ; )

All in all I have to say this is a great game jam entry and I hope you expand this concept even more (I would totally play a full game with only synthetic Pokemon).

Some thoughts for your thoughts:

Reading praise for the synthetic Pokémon does not get old! Thank you for your kind words, they really were the anchor that held this game together. In the final few days we weren't sure if we'd have to cut some, but the team came together and got the sprites and animations done RIGHT UNDER THE WIRE! It was a real close one.

I think in future editions of this game we'll do some things to have the runtime extend a little bit (in a way that's hopefully not too intrusive) and will get the synthetic Pokémon even more time to shine!

Thanks for playing and for sharing your thoughts!

I appreciate everyone's willingness to share feedback on this game! We've been having a great time as a team watching playthroughs and reading through feedback. Giving us lots of ideas for v1.1 (once we can get out of the post-jam slump, that is)

Evan · Mar 30, 2022

In case anyone is curious, JWNutz put his concept art for the Synthetic Pokemon on his twitter! I'll link it here:

Tomix9tomix · Apr 15, 2022

Wow, first of all, I can't even begin to imagine all the work that went into these synthetic pokemon. THERE WERE SO MANY?!?!?!? AND THEY WERE ALL SO GOOD! Absolutely amazing stellar work!

I've played 3 games tonight, and all 3 of them had great flavour text, it was really nice seeing that despite it being a battle focused game, the environment still had a bunch of nice detail put into it. And yes, I did check EVERY bin. But sadly I got nothing :( but who knows, maybe I missed one. However I did find it a bit odd that every area had flavour text except for the lab that you enter at the beginning of the game.

The only nitpicks I had were that I feel like the cave encounter areas had an encounter rate a bit high, but maybe that was nice in a sense because it meant I got to see more synthetic pokemon.

But yeah I had fun, I did both endings, and I'm honestly surprised to hear that it was rushed. It felt like a pretty complete package, I think any more rooms and it would've dragged on a bit, it was the perfect amount. I guess an expanded game with more time put into it would maybe step away from the gauntlet feel at parts, maybe there'd be AI trainers as well, or maybe the story would progress more and culminate in a battle against team techno. But yeah the game was super fun and please don't feel disappointed in the amount you made, the game did feel rather complete.

EDIT: One more thing I forgot! I loved the champion feel! It was nailed well, the intro really felt like the end of a completely new game, and I loved the pokemon choice! It was really cool!

WanderingTrainer · Sep 6, 2023

The game is decent but not amazing but these are the absolute best fakemon designs I have ever seen

Released Pokémon Synthetic

TANGOCOYO

coyote tango

TheDogDad

I love jam

futuresushi

Novice

Armin

☆★★☆

Haunted Ditto

Creator of Pokemon Pandora and Pokemon Climate

Evan

game director, Pokémon Sea & Sky

Evan

game director, Pokémon Sea & Sky

Tomix9tomix

The beetle is waking up

WanderingTrainer

Novice