Released Pokemon Gym Trials (V1.2)

Pokemonninja · Feb 23, 2023

This game is so good

AenaonDogsky · Mar 11, 2023

Hello, I'm playing through the game, haven't finished yet- will leave a review later, but here is an important bug you need to fix: none of the PCs in the Pokemon Centers work, only the very first PC in Kenzo's room. This makes the process of changing a member of your team tedious, requiring the player to backtrack to the respective Taxi of each location, warp back to the city, then go to the league building, then go back again. Alongside this, many of the pokemon sprites disappear when the PC is being used - either when placed in the Party, or in any of the boxes - but this isn't as important for now.

Two other very significant things to note, that I would highly recommend you implement asap:
1) PC box should be accessible via a key item, from the bag, making swapping your team a breeze
2) A healer should be available in every gym. Preferably at the start and end of the Gym (prep room and gym leader room). It's really time-consuming to have to go back to the Pokecenter after every couple trainer battles, not to mention the Gyms are spread all around a location.
3) Open a teleporter that warps you to the Gym entrance after defeating a leader. Some gyms take long to get through

Since this is a battle-focused game, the above will greatly improve the experience. For some people even, the game might not be approachable at all due to the backtracking.

Tigerhawk7109 · Mar 11, 2023

This game seems super interesting! Can it be played on Mac?

Enigma · Mar 12, 2023

Tigerhawk7109 said:
This game seems super interesting! Can it be played on Mac?

I'm pretty sure it should :)

AenaonDogsky · Mar 14, 2023

Am still in the process of getting through the game.

There is a major bug in the UFO gym. The move route event, right at the end before you transition to the final room, is trying to move the player 1 tile further back. But the player is blocked by furniture. The player is stuck there, unable to progress (and the fade to black hides the fact, so the player might think they have a blind puzzle to solve). This makes the gym impossible to complete. Use "ignore if can't move" to solve this.

Also, please consider my previous post, it is likely most people will be put off by the backtracking and other issues, unless you address them.
I will add to the aforementioned suggestions this 4) Make move relearner accessible via an item, as you also need to backtrack to the city to change your moves.

Enigma · Mar 14, 2023

AenaonDogsky said:
Am still in the process of getting through the game.

There is a major bug in the UFO gym. The move route event, right at the end before you transition to the final room, is trying to move the player 1 tile further back. But the player is blocked by furniture. The player is stuck there, unable to progress (and the fade to black hides the fact, so the player might think they have a blind puzzle to solve). This makes the gym impossible to complete. Use "ignore if can't move" to solve this.

Also, please consider my previous post, it is likely most people will be put off by the backtracking and other issues, unless you address them.
I will add to the aforementioned suggestions this 4) Make move relearner accessible via an item, as you also need to backtrack to the city to change your move

Thanks for the feedback!

I've fixed the gym issue in the latest patch, so it should all work just fine. It's kinda weird, as me nor any of my friends had that glitch. I've also fixed the glitch where the player can't access the PC in the Pokemon Centres. Hopefully that should make switching your team easier. During my playtests of the game, I didn't really find myself switching Pokemon around, but I've made it easier for now.
As for adding a key item that allows the player to access the PC or move relearner, I can't add content to the game until the Jam is over, but I can assure you that there will be a lot of QoL improvements in the final version.
I kept the name of the new version the same, so hopefully all progress should continue through.
Thanks for playing my game! I'll be sure to take all feedback into consideration! :)

AenaonDogsky · Mar 15, 2023

Alright, I’m done, here’s my review of the game:

“Gym Trials” is a battle-focused game whose strongest areas are visuals and gym leader presentation. There is a big selection of mons available to make your team from. Some of them don’t have the best movesets out of the box, but the relearner can help with that. Battles feature dynamax as the main gimmick. Story and setting are what you’d expect from a battle-focused game, but there is a lot of room for a sub-plot, or a more intricate general plot.

Battles felt balanced, although it seemed like enemy mons were a bit stronger than player mons, overall. Leaders use a variety of tactics, but I never ran into a Leader who used entry hazards. A speedup button would be highly desirable in a battle-focused game like this, but unfortunately it wasn't included.

Character sprites, including portraits, overworld, and trainer sprites have a lot of charm and personality to them. Some of the themes chosen for the designs feel like they’d belong to the official games, provided their palette was closer to what you’d expect from said games. Gym Leader presentation is top-notch, and while jam restrictions didn’t allow for complete fleshing out of all Gym Leader presentation and animations, it’s all a visual treat. A lot of care went into sprite movement and cutscenes. Many Gym Leaders are memorable, solely based on their “entrance” presentation and design, which says a lot about the art. There’s also nice little details, like crowds watching your battles.

Gym design is for the vast majority of Gyms very inspired, with some Gyms standing out as incredible unique experiences (e.g. the UFO Gym). The puzzles are generally good, although it feels like they would have benefited from deviating from your normal Pokemon Gym puzzles. Understandably, the sheer amount of Gyms makes it hard to come up with many unique puzzles. There are some Gyms that suffer from tedious puzzles, however.

Characterization and mannerisms are well done, and match the expected personalities of the Gym Leaders. NPC dialogue is funny, but could use some touching up as to not feel too meme-y. There wasn’t enough time to populate every interior, but with a little more work, the setting will feel much more lively and realistic.

Tileset art is wonderful, with great color choices accompanying the atmosphere of each unique location. Mapping is very compact and varied enough to make the locations stand out. Miscellaneous art, like that used in certain Gyms, and the sleek UI, makes for a rich visual experience. Building tiles are really satisfying to look at, something I cannot say for most fangames.

The game got a bit overambitious with implementing so many Gyms – it is likely that character designs were made first, and the gameplay and scope considerations were taken into account second. Scope creep, if managed, could have led to a better overall experience, and perhaps would have provided the developer with more time to polish, and focus on quality rather than quantity. However, this can be dealt with post-jam, given that certain backtracking and healing issues are resolved.

If every Gym gets a unique treatment, with art and puzzles on the level of the UFO Gym, and there is something more to the plot and the NPCs, this game will have fully achieved its aim. It's likely that the existing number of Gyms isn't necessary, but that could also be a subjective thing.

It's preferrable to avoid political references to the real world, especially as stark as that one NPC's line
all the buildings are pretty similar on the upper right-hand side of the starting city, you could use 1 more variation
many interiors are empty
Portraits are a really nice touch, you can use fewer black outlines to make them blend better
Flying-Type gym leader event should inform you that you need to interact with the statues to answer questions after defetaing all trainers. Reason being, if you interact with the statues before defeating them all, you dont get any prompt
Character spritework, including portraits, might benefit from colors more closely matching those of the official games
It would be better if the game communicated to you that there's more than 1 box containing Pokemon
Taxi transfer time is a bit long, wait should be shortened
indication that all gyms in a location have been cleared would be good to have
remove last resort from eeveelutions, the AI doesnt know how to use it. Same with Kenzo's dragapault
gym leader's Roserade shouldnt have absorb
having to rebattle trainers upon answering wrong in the normal-type gym is also very tedious. Especially when the answers depend on outside or trivial knowledge (it would be better if the answers were derived from the gym interior itself, e.g. number of statues or bookshelves)
It feels like most of the gym trainers are fodder at this point - since all your mons are level 100, it doesnt feel like they serve a purpose. They do make the whole experience slower. Especially considering the amount of gyms you have. However Gyms without Gym Trainers isn't the best thing either - perhaps just reduce their numbers
memory test asking you to remember number of letters in a sentence is just not a well designed thing. This puzzle suffers from improper design. The questions are outrageous, not to mention outdated - for instance, move PP does not match changes in PP in recent years anyway, and there is scarcely any time to memorize details on the last slide. Especially when the game does not allow you to heal between questions
it feels weird that some maps have wild encounters in grass, but others dont
Earth type gym leader's nidoqueen has very weak moves
claps and crowd cheers after a victory where applicable, would be a nice little addition
spawning the player back in the first room of the Abandoned Hotel if they step on the wrong teleporter, instead of the same room, is very tedious. There's already an example of how to do that in official games; saffron gym. It's also exacerbated due to the slow teleporting animation
not certain but I believe Kenzo first mentioned "22" badges, then "21" then 19?
you should make the final arena where you fight Kenzo smaller, so that the camera pan doesnt obscure the characters from view, when they talk
post-jam, it'd be nice if you could see your gym leader choices. That would probably require duplicate maps of the locations, though

No opening music?
Kenzo isnt interactable after the intro
His warning after trying to leave without a mon isnt showing his portrait
Pokemon do not appear in the party box even after placing them there, from the PC. In fact, many sprites vanish after being placed
The show watching family should turn to face the TV after being talked to. Same with bosses pep talk guys
In some interior maps, the reflection void is visible, especially near the exit
Eva says "simple spectacular" instead of simply
you havent used direction fix for the science class doors that are locked, making their sprite disappear upon interaction
Cafeteria personnel aren't interactable - this is the case for almost every NPC behind a counter. You must have either forgotten to use the counter tile setting in the tileset tab, or, you never gave those npcs dialogue
Camper Chris in Maths class says "impecable" instead of "impeccable"
memory text "punchuacion" should be "punctuation"
Chef! That the order? instead of Chef! that the order?
almost all interior maps dont have music - you should set the music of the interior maps to a lower volume version of the respective town BGM
wait time on the rock gym when pushing buttons is longer than needed
Bolt: You're really strong, k'now that? (should be ya know that?)
Rouge: anyways challenger line no full stop/comma
Taxi driver when asked about dunes - comma and full stop missing in many places
Taxi driver in water city is farther away from the checkpoint entrance than normal
Guy who says yaaaaaaaaawn, no full stop
dragon gym ledge stairs that come out from basement dont lead back to it
reflection of player is visible in the dark gym, at the entrance. defeating the leader does not restore your line of sight radius, neither does going back to the first room (gym advisor room)
you can run away from wild encounter battles in the Abandoned Hotel (and their OW sprite stays there), possibly in the figthing gym too.
Kenzo "I'm certain that was difficult" line, no full stop. (upon getting all badges)

Yonderd · Feb 6, 2024

There is one issue I spot while playing using Toucannon. Whenever you use Beak Blast, instead of the opponent getting burned if they hit you with a contact move, Toucannon gets burned instead, which is way backwards from how the move is suppose to work. Granted, funny, but impractical. :'D

mikethemaster2012 · Feb 8, 2024

How far does this demo go

Released Pokemon Gym Trials (V1.2)

211.38 MB file on MEGA

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Pokemonninja

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AenaonDogsky

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Tigerhawk7109

Rookie

Enigma

Certified lonely

AenaonDogsky

Arbiter of Doggos

Enigma

Certified lonely

AenaonDogsky

Arbiter of Doggos

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Yonderd

Rookie

mikethemaster2012

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