Released Pokémon Coda

Ekat · Aug 27, 2023

Hey there! I was browsing across the forums and I came across your project. So, I thought I'd check it out.

Bugs

I took a lot of screenshots, so here's a link to the imgur album:

Things I Liked

In the intro, I liked your use of moving around text boxes to reflect the crowd speaking
Good use of camera movement/scrollinng to make things more dynamic in the intro
Loved the details in the bookshelves in the café. I like how you picked different kinds of sources. (Tabloid, interview, etc.)
I'm excited to see and hear more about berry science in this game. It's a fun angle for the professor.
I got my ass kicked at first, but the themes with the battle center are fun.
I like that there's reasons for Ray's original team not being around.

Mapping

Your maps are way too big. There is no reason for them to be as large as they are. Not only is it bad for performance, it drags the gameplay down with navigating lots of empty space. In the images linked, I have quick, reduced version of what your town could be, for example. I've also got some additional resources towards the end of this comment, which includes links to some mapping tutorials. You should also just browse around and look at people's fanmaps to see what works, doesn't work, etc.

Tilesets

Your outdoor tileset is also WAY too large. My laptop can (mostly) handle it, but you're going to cause major performance issues for other people. There are 999 tileset slots, that's one tileset per map. They don't need to be 75,000px. To avoid lag, the longest your tileset should be is 16,384. Long tilesets are also just a pain to maintain. It's also just a pain to maintain. (Changing assets, scrolling that much to find something, setting collision, etc.)

Cut out all the extra stuff you're not using. Fill in the small spaces with things you will use, instead of extending the set's length.

In addition, you need to work on figuring out a consistent style for your game. There's a mish-mash of outline types, shading, textures, etc.

Meta

I think you should revisit some of the Pokémon the trainers have. Go for more lower or mid-level mons.

ie: Even though there's a trainer with a low-level Milotic, it's still super bulky. It also kept spamming aqua ring and life dew, making it very difficult to take down despite the levels of my team.

You may also want to bump down the levels of the scripted wild battles, especially because:

It's a forced 1v3 (From a story perspective, why is that, btw?)
You're giving these mons improved EVs and held items

Overall, I think a high 20s to level 30 range would be better for them.

You should also review some of the items and TMs you're giving out to the player so early on. I was able to get a Heracross with Focus Punch, a 150 base power move with STAB at the start of the game. That's insane.

Speaking of Heracross, you may also want to review some of the earlier Pokémon choices as well. (Dratini, Tynamo, Rotom, and Zorua, for example.) I'm not saying there needs to be nothing but weaker Pokémon around. However, you shouldn't just throw out very strong mons such as these like candy, either.

Writing

I like the direction of the story so far, I'm interested to see where it goes
I like the little flashes to memories Ray has with Eli
You should have NPCs who focus on things other than the champion and battling. It'll fee more natural. Let them talk more about the world, their own experiences, etc.
If you're going to have a talking NPC, you should take full advantage of that. Let them talk back to NPCs. It doesn't have to be with everyone just once in a while is fine. But it adds more to their interactions and gives a better sense of their character.

Misc. Suggestions

When you have a character's inner thoughts coming out, it might make more sense to do brackets or italics instead.
You should store the player's nickname for Kirlia to a variable. So, if they're discussing it in the overworld, they'll call it that instead. (And maybe just set things so the name rater can't renickname it, or have a check so if that specific Kirlia is being nicknamed, the revised nickname for it will be stored.)
Headbutt trees should be visually distinct from the ones you can't headbutt
Shellos should come with its stats (nickname and gender) already defined. See - https://essentialsdocs.fandom.com/wiki/Editing_a_Pokémon

Good Practices to Keep in Mind

You'll see a screenshot for this at the end of the image list. Don't make long lines of events to trigger a cutscene. You just need one event with Size(x,y) included in the name. Not only will this save you time, it will increase the game's performance. See - https://essentialsdocs.fandom.com/wiki/Events
When you add a new tileset and map everything out, you should be running into every object possible to test your collision & priority.
Clear out all the base essentials data (maps, characters, common events, and tilesets). Just keep a separate, clean version of Essentials handy if you ever need to reference something. This keeps your actual game smaller, and makes organization easier, because you're not sifting through a bunch of stuff you don't use.

Some Resources to Help You Out

Here's a game with a subway tileset - https://www.mediafire.com/file/tl26xes8p74llrq/Chasing_Glory_Resource_Pack.7z/file
Here's a spreadsheet with a lot of Pokémon fangame-specific resources -
-You should especially check out The Artistic Corner. This is a collection of tiles, characters, etc. They're for public use! - https://mega.nz/file/UN8WhLDb#l-5Amk4XeOBuk1BHXHdIgXT_BV0TiDesTBB0ma13K8s

Overall
There's a lot more polish needed, but I see the potential in this game. Especially with the story. I know I have a lot of feedback, but you should absolutely be proud of the work that you've done so far!

Tilesets, mapping, eventing, and mapping are a specialty of mine. If you want to discuss more in-depth, don't hesitate to send me a DM here or on Discord. (@ekat_erina). You should also check out Relic Castle's Discord if you're not in there already. It's very active, and great for community feedback.

Cheers!

summer_hero · Aug 28, 2023

Ekat said:
Hey there! I was browsing across the forums and I came across your project. So, I thought I'd check it out.

Bugs

I took a lot of screenshots, so here's a link to the imgur album:

Things I Liked

In the intro, I liked your use of moving around text boxes to reflect the crowd speaking

Good use of camera movement/scrollinng to make things more dynamic in the intro

Loved the details in the bookshelves in the café. I like how you picked different kinds of sources. (Tabloid, interview, etc.)

I'm excited to see and hear more about berry science in this game. It's a fun angle for the professor.

I got my ass kicked at first, but the themes with the battle center are fun.

I like that there's reasons for Ray's original team not being around.

Mapping

Your maps are way too big. There is no reason for them to be as large as they are. Not only is it bad for performance, it drags the gameplay down with navigating lots of empty space. In the images linked, I have quick, reduced version of what your town could be, for example. I've also got some additional resources towards the end of this comment, which includes links to some mapping tutorials. You should also just browse around and look at people's fanmaps to see what works, doesn't work, etc.

Tilesets

Your outdoor tileset is also WAY too large. My laptop can (mostly) handle it, but you're going to cause major performance issues for other people. There are 999 tileset slots, that's one tileset per map. They don't need to be 75,000px. To avoid lag, the longest your tileset should be is 16,384. Long tilesets are also just a pain to maintain. It's also just a pain to maintain. (Changing assets, scrolling that much to find something, setting collision, etc.)

Cut out all the extra stuff you're not using. Fill in the small spaces with things you will use, instead of extending the set's length.

In addition, you need to work on figuring out a consistent style for your game. There's a mish-mash of outline types, shading, textures, etc.

Meta

I think you should revisit some of the Pokémon the trainers have. Go for more lower or mid-level mons.

ie: Even though there's a trainer with a low-level Milotic, it's still super bulky. It also kept spamming aqua ring and life dew, making it very difficult to take down despite the levels of my team.

You may also want to bump down the levels of the scripted wild battles, especially because:

It's a forced 1v3 (From a story perspective, why is that, btw?)

You're giving these mons improved EVs and held items

Overall, I think a high 20s to level 30 range would be better for them.

You should also review some of the items and TMs you're giving out to the player so early on. I was able to get a Heracross with Focus Punch, a 150 base power move with STAB at the start of the game. That's insane.

Speaking of Heracross, you may also want to review some of the earlier Pokémon choices as well. (Dratini, Tynamo, Rotom, and Zorua, for example.) I'm not saying there needs to be nothing but weaker Pokémon around. However, you shouldn't just throw out very strong mons such as these like candy, either.

Writing

I like the direction of the story so far, I'm interested to see where it goes

I like the little flashes to memories Ray has with Eli

You should have NPCs who focus on things other than the champion and battling. It'll fee more natural. Let them talk more about the world, their own experiences, etc.

If you're going to have a talking NPC, you should take full advantage of that. Let them talk back to NPCs. It doesn't have to be with everyone just once in a while is fine. But it adds more to their interactions and gives a better sense of their character.

Misc. Suggestions

When you have a character's inner thoughts coming out, it might make more sense to do brackets or italics instead.

You should store the player's nickname for Kirlia to a variable. So, if they're discussing it in the overworld, they'll call it that instead. (And maybe just set things so the name rater can't renickname it, or have a check so if that specific Kirlia is being nicknamed, the revised nickname for it will be stored.)

Headbutt trees should be visually distinct from the ones you can't headbutt

Shellos should come with its stats (nickname and gender) already defined. See - https://essentialsdocs.fandom.com/wiki/Editing_a_Pokémon

Good Practices to Keep in Mind

You'll see a screenshot for this at the end of the image list. Don't make long lines of events to trigger a cutscene. You just need one event with Size(x,y) included in the name. Not only will this save you time, it will increase the game's performance. See - https://essentialsdocs.fandom.com/wiki/Events

When you add a new tileset and map everything out, you should be running into every object possible to test your collision & priority.

Clear out all the base essentials data (maps, characters, common events, and tilesets). Just keep a separate, clean version of Essentials handy if you ever need to reference something. This keeps your actual game smaller, and makes organization easier, because you're not sifting through a bunch of stuff you don't use.

Some Resources to Help You Out

Here's a game with a subway tileset - https://www.mediafire.com/file/tl26xes8p74llrq/Chasing_Glory_Resource_Pack.7z/file
Here's a spreadsheet with a lot of Pokémon fangame-specific resources -
-You should especially check out The Artistic Corner. This is a collection of tiles, characters, etc. They're for public use! - https://mega.nz/file/UN8WhLDb#l-5Amk4XeOBuk1BHXHdIgXT_BV0TiDesTBB0ma13K8s

Overall
There's a lot more polish needed, but I see the potential in this game. Especially with the story. I know I have a lot of feedback, but you should absolutely be proud of the work that you've done so far!

Tilesets, mapping, eventing, and mapping are a specialty of mine. If you want to discuss more in-depth, don't hesitate to send me a DM here or on Discord. (@ekat_erina). You should also check out Relic Castle's Discord if you're not in there already. It's very active, and great for community feedback.

Cheers!

Hi! Thank you so much for playing through the game and giving such extensive advice! I'll definitely look through it and make changes.

Released Pokémon Coda

Pokémon Coda 2.0

Credits

Ekat

That One Guy's GF

summer_hero

Rookie

Released Pokémon Coda

Pokémon Coda 2.0

Credits​

Ekat

That One Guy's GF

summer_hero

Rookie

Credits