Released Gym Manager 2023 - A Roguelike Pokemon Experience

SidraF · Oct 10, 2023

This idea is awesome. Thanks!
I hope you add the next generations

pwinter · Oct 13, 2023

Hey everyone, I'm very happy with the feedback and reception so far. Over 200 people tried the first beta; thank you all for trying it out!

Here is the download link for Beta Version 2: link.

Beta Version 2 Release Notes:

Code:

New features
------------
- Combat King, a new vendor, sells a random held item every day in Twig Forest starting on Day 20
- Selecting a Pokemon in the party menu now has the "Evo Info" option, which will tell you how it evolves (if there is a possible evolution)
- New Ultra-Rare and Legendary Upgrades
  - Hire a named trainer from RSE
    - Ultra-Rare: Roxanne, Wallace, etc.
    - Legendary: Phoebe, Steven, etc.
    - These trainers come with full parties, skill level 4, and have a boosted chance to have rare or legendary Pokemon
    
Minor stuff
-----------
- Reworked the mailbox system to not be spaghetti code, letter text is a bit more orderly and readable

Balance changes
---------------
- Reduced rates of finding powerful upgrades. Part of the issue of running out of things to upgrade is that rates were just too high
- Adjusted difficulty curve to make days 35-54 easier
  - Previously day 35 was a massive difficulty spike with predominantly evolved Pokemon, dialed the rate of stage 1's back a bit
- Increased odds of hiring a trainer of your gym type from 33% to 66%
  - Gym type didn't seem to matter, as it was difficult to actually get Pokemon of your gym's type
- Added additional species to Juggler lineups (still favors Voltorb)
  - 6 Electrodes with Static and Self-Destruct became more annoying than funny

Bug Fixes
---------
- In Beta v1 you could release your Gym Leader when hiring a new trainer while already having a full party
    
What's next
-----------
- Fill out the late game with more progression options, once you get full teams it's hard to find useful upgrades
- Add variety to the battle format. Possible options include
  - Double battle days
  - Player-controlled battles

pwinter · Oct 31, 2023

Over 1,000 people tried the second beta, thank you all! The third beta has been released, and can be found here.

New features -

New battle modes: double battle and gym leader only. Each day will either contain single battles (66%), double battles (16.5%), or player-controlled battles with only your gym leader. (16.5%)
Double battle days are the same as single battle days, except that every battle is a double battle. This should add some complexity to your team building, as moves such as Helping Hand now actually have value (and Earthquake is a LOT riskier).
Gym leader only days are fairly self explanatory. Instead of being AI controlled, YOU control the moves of your gym leader against opposing trainers. The number of Pokemon and difficulty are obviously adjusted to account for only having one team to use.
Days that you face a boss (Day 14, 24, 34, etc.) can only be single or double battle days.

Minor stuff -

Removed text boxes from battles that require confirmation (pressing the 'A' button). This allows for full auto-battling, in theory all the way through an entire day. Pokemon evolution and learning moves still requires user input, but this should be a pretty nice change overall.

Freemount · Nov 2, 2023

It would be nice if you could start a new game after a loss without needing to close down the game and start it back up.

pwinter · Nov 2, 2023

Beta 3 had several bugs related to "gym leader only" days. The hotfix for this can be found here.

RegalSword · Nov 3, 2023

Oh hey, you're the creator of Pokemon Winter! It's nice to see you back with another banger!

Yonderd · Nov 7, 2023

These gym trainers even at max level are both entertaining and a major disaster. 10/10

The discord link doesn't work though. :(

pwinter · Nov 7, 2023

RegalSword said:
Oh hey, you're the creator of Pokemon Winter! It's nice to see you back with another banger!

Thanks so much!

Yonderd said:
These gym trainers even at max level are both entertaining and a major disaster. 10/10

The discord link doesn't work though. :(

Yes, the AI is unfortunately not perfect. I updated the Discord link if you want to retry, thanks for playing!

pwinter · Nov 23, 2023

Beta version 4 is out now! Here are the changes.

Code:

Beta Version 4 (B.4) Patch Notes
================================
- Huge adjustment and balancing patch
  - The game is now 63 days instead of 100. 100 was just too many; players were running out of things to upgrade and it got very repetitive
    - Bosses visit the gym every 7 days, starting on day 7 with Brock and ending on day 63 with Champion Blue
    - Events and shop unlocks occur at relatively the same time as they used to, but scaled to occur earlier due to the abbreviated day schedule
  - The difficulty of the game was toned down across the board. Slightly fewer Pokemon to battle against every day, and slightly lower level
    - Legendary rate from enemies was toned down as well

- Wacky Wizard
  - A new NPC in Pebble Town will give your Pokemon their hidden ability or turn them shiny... If you can find him
    - A new item, Stump Key, can be aquired via random item drops from upgrades or sold by the shop toward the end of the game. This item can be used on the magical stump south of town
    
- Ability Capsules were added to the Item Shop list, starting to appear around the halfway point. They switch your Pokemon's ability to the other ability that they have, if they have one
  - Useful for giving your Scizor Technician instead of Swarm, for example

BubbattMax · Dec 3, 2023

Loving the game just got a quick question. Do the changes in background color of boxes in upgrades or adoptions mean anything? Or is it just flavor to show how rare that selection is?

pwinter · Dec 3, 2023

BubbattMax said:
Loving the game just got a quick question. Do the changes in background color of boxes in upgrades or adoptions mean anything? Or is it just flavor to show how rare that selection is?

Thanks! You're correct, it's a rarity border. The rarity order is Gray->Blue->Purple->Red->Orange for both upgrades and adoptions.

AkaCornelious · Dec 5, 2023

pwinter said:
Download:
Beta Version 4
Save every day! Just in case you run into a game-breaking bug.

The Story:

A humble small town seeks help managing its brand-new Pokemon Gym. After accepting the offer, you are tasked with hiring a Gym Leader and managing a roster of Gym Trainers each day. The ultimate goal of the gym is to fashion itself as a reputable gym and attain accreditation.

Each day, competitors will line up to challenge the Gym and its trainers. Upgrades to the gym are made after every successful day, and prize money can be used to improve the teams of the Gym Trainers through multiple methods: buying items and TMs, or adopting Pokemon to add to your trainers' teams.

Everything about the progression of your gym is completely randomized, from the Pokemon type of your gym to the trainers that you face each day. In my own experience testing the game there is a significant amount of skill that goes into making the best decisions with available choices, and being adequately prepared for each day's challenge.

Your gym trainers are AI-controlled in battle. All trainers start with a skill level of 1 that can be improved with random "Skill Ups" from the daily upgrade selection. Improved trainers will start hunting type mismatches, while beginner trainers will make many more mistakes.

If all of your Gym Trainers are defeated in a day, the game is over. It wouldn't be a true roguelike without permadeath! The game will continue infinitely, but the "final boss" is on day 100.

Other Features:

Multiple save files.

Elite Battle system from Luka SJ

Speed up script, press Q to toggle game speeds (1x, 2x, 3x, 4x).

You CAN turn off AI-controlled allies and issue commands for their Pokemon, but I don't recommend it. The difficulty is balanced around the auto battle mechanic.

Other Screenshots:

Discord:

Join our Discord community here!

Credits, Scripts:

"Pokemon Essentials", by:
Flameguru
Poccil (Peter O.)
Maruno

With contributions from:
AvatarMonkeyKirby
Luka S.J.
Boushy
MiDas Mike
Brother1440
Near Fantastica
FL.
PinkMan
Genzai Kawakami
Popper
help-14
Rataime
IceGod64
SoundSpawn
Jacob O. Wobbrock
the__end
KitsuneKouta
Venom12
Lisa Anthony
Wachunga
and everyone else who helped out

Ekat
Mashirosakura
http404error
Luka S.J.
Manurocker95

Thanks in advance for giving it a try!

Hey this game looks really fun and such. Good idea would it be ok if i did a lets play in my youtube

pwinter · Dec 5, 2023

AkaCornelious said:
Hey this game looks really fun and such. Good idea would it be ok if i did a lets play in my youtube

Of course!

AkaCornelious · Dec 5, 2023

pwinter said:
Of course!

Thank you

chonkmoment · Dec 9, 2023

the discord invite link doesnt work, any chance we could get a new one? really enjoying the game btw been heaps o fun

pwinter · Dec 11, 2023

chonkmoment said:
the discord invite link doesnt work, any chance we could get a new one? really enjoying the game btw been heaps o fun

Thanks for letting me know, I updated with a new link. (here)

Raj8 · Mar 3, 2024

Overall this was an interesting game, that I dumped 3 hours into, I think that their were a couple of personal problems I ran into, and I actually have a more detailed review then I'd normally give.

Funnily enough a big part of it, due to me writing up the majority while I wait for the AI to play itself, as watching grew progressively less and less interesting after an hour or two, and I just started typing this up while waiting for the music to change.

To begin, you call this game a rougelike but I can't really make the connection at all? Rougelike to me means, generally means making multiple attempts at something while making incremental progress along the way.

Pokemon Emerald Rouge is the premier Pokemon Rouge-like to me, but even official spin-offs like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon usually make more sense to claim the title as you may make multiple attempts, all the while growing stronger/collecting items.

Here, you basically are told to start over once you encounter your first loss and your not bringing anything save your memories with you, and considering this isn't really a skill based game, along with something that has a lot of RNG surprises me, if this fits a Rougelike then almost any game in existence would count.

That being said I had fun in the end, even if rougelike doesn't fit this game, it was an interesting thought process, below are some of my more unconnected thoughts from earlier.

Attempting to go all the way this run, and have a couple of thoughts on the game, I'd have appreciated having been given all the types at the start rather than choosing between 3 random ones, also I flatout think this is way to long between game-overs and I'd wonder what you even carry over exactly? Closest I could think of that would balance itself alright would be the boosts to your Typing, and you'd need to buff the difficulty then, but since it maxes out at 1.2 each...

Onto the next system money, it along with upgrades are the main choices to make while playing the game.

Early game this mostly just amounts to looking for TM's, as there isn't much point in adopting as your team is likely to be strong enough without it, and it spreads the EXP more thinly especially since you'll be wanting to stick to your type in the long run to take advantage of the buffs.

There's also always aggressively forgetting moves, unless it covers a weakness, and even then you really have to consider it due to AI stupidity, I really overestimated what max AI intelligence would look like after playing Pokemon games like Reborn and Unbound.

I think it'd help if they defaulted more to their first move listed if they were unsure at max intelligence if super effectiveness wasn't there, as even with Quad resistances and immunity it was still better to have have less moves, which isn't good when TM's are theoretically one of your main expenditures,

Similarly Hold Item guy is supposedly one of the people I'm looking forward to, but his items are 10K and are thinks like the Scope Lens, why buy it at all when you can grab King's Rock from the Evolution Store for 3K and have a generally more solid item if a bit more RNG heavy.

Might be better to give him better item, or remove King's Rock from the Store, and give Slowpoke a different evo method, you gave Pokemon like Lucario a Dawn Stone instead of friendship after-all.

I will say, rare TM man rarely made me excited either, and I think an easier way to manage it would be to give him Permanent TM's that don't break, in return for them being as high level as the general store, while being say 10 times more expensive, thus requiring at least 10 teaches to even break even.

Then you at least have the idea of considering coverage/more moves during the days the player has control especially if you up the difficulty on those days.

As a side note double battles were the first real time I got hit by having smaller team sizes than my opponent due to my gym trainers sometimes getting ganged up on, although at least sometimes when Enemies only had one Pokemon, they got to get the same experience.

Although Gym Leader fights during Double Battles were especially brutal.

Day 37 was the day I wiped, although Day 36 was very close against a Swanna with Roost where I basically attacked until he started struggling and won through that, and it's also when I discovered 1.2 is the limit to boosting your type.

Day 36 where we become declared the strongest gym is a giant boost to enemies LV's, to the point where all but my Ace was lower leveled then my enemies, and all my allies were closer to 10 levels lower.

Released Gym Manager 2023 - A Roguelike Pokemon Experience

SidraF

Rookie

pwinter

Trainer

pwinter

Trainer

Freemount

Rookie

pwinter

Trainer

RegalSword

Pokemon Itinerant Developer

Yonderd

Rookie

pwinter

Trainer

pwinter

Trainer

BubbattMax

Rookie

pwinter

Trainer

AkaCornelious

Novice

pwinter

Trainer

AkaCornelious

Novice

chonkmoment

Rookie

pwinter

Trainer

Raj8

Rookie