Released Project Vanguard (MASSIVE UPDATE RELEASE 5/24/2024)

Bump for v2 Release!

Version 2.3 released with necessary map revisions, encounter changes and additions, a few sprite updates.

Somnus said:

Although it looks cool, the UI is directly taken from Pokemon Infinity. AtomicReactor specifically said tiles are fair game but UI is off-limits.

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Though I would prefer if my UI were unique to my project, this game was using them before I changed my stance on allowing my stuff to be public, therefore they are grandfathered in to using them. I would encourage them to try to put their own twist and tweaks into them to make them their own, but again, they are allowed to use them since they were already using them before I restricted public use.

Somnus said:

Although it looks cool, the UI is directly taken from Pokemon Infinity. AtomicReactor specifically said tiles are fair game but UI is off-limits.

Click to expand...

At the time I was beginning to develop my fangame, which was around august, the creator of Pokemon Infinity did allow the use of their UI with credit to the public. However, I'm still already in the process of designing a new UI myself because I've been growing less and less fond of using resources from other games despite them being public. While I'm grateful for the allowed use of the amazing UI, I want my game to feel unique and I'm sure most creators feel the same way.

Hi! I just played the first hour of your game (I do intend to play more) as one of a few different games I'm checking out, and I wanted to drop my impressions on you while the iron's hot! As an FYI, I played on the hardest difficulty setting.


You can run on the desk in the bedroom.
I think the effect on the bed is cute.
Not sure about the instantly disappearing HP bars. Seems sudden. Whole battle system seems to run laggy, unsure why.
“At least” is displaying as “atleast,” and I’m not sure if it’s the font or a typo.
In the opening, there’s an “its” that should be “it’s” as in “it is.”
The shopkeeper clips over the roof of his shop.
Pokemon selection screen was really cool for picking your starter.
I like the tree that allows you to snag an encounter in the town for Nuzlocking.
The lady who’s dressed like a maid in the opening area says, “Independantly,” which should be “independently.”
Old dude in the house with two doors called me “Young man” when I was a lady.
Solid music all around. Love the trainer battle theme in particular. Seriously, every track is a banger. -Great- music selection. I love this soundtrack. The only exception is the victory theme, which is unaltered and could definitely benefit from a makeover.
In the father’s dialogue about the village, he’s missing a period at the end of more than one of his sentences.
I suspect but do not know that “Therain Winds” was meant to be “Therian Winds.” Also in the old man’s dialogue.
Bug catcher on route 1 has identical dialogue to one in the forest. Both also are missing periods on, “Maybe they are”
The right front corner tile on the platform with the healing tree on route 1 is walk-on-able. As is the tile directly right of the staircase on said platform.
I super like the little moving flowers. They make the world feel a lot more dynamic.
The attack Howl failed in spite of not seeming to need an accuracy check. Used with Fenniken v the Litleo on route 1.
Not sure if this is intentional, but Audino doesn’t give a large amount of exp as she does in the regular games.
The little girl in Crosstown says, “Yay Pikachu!” while being chased by a Torchic. Might be intentional.
Calvin’s got a few typos. “Aswell” appears to be one word, and he says “My names Calvin” as opposed to “My name’s Calvin.” Other typos as well. Might be a stylistic choice for his dialogue?
Calvin’s brutal. Made a lot more so by the fact his Pokes know moves earlier than usual. Magnitude in particular is savage. I -did- beat him, but it was definitely bashing my head against the wall for a bit.


In addition to that, having read the existing comments, I'd like to mirror what a fellow said earlier: Difficulty is -great- in my opinion. I love a difficult game. I'm not sure about the design decision of cheating to get that difficulty though. Things like evolving Pokemon earlier than is possible for your trainers and giving them moves they cannot learn yet -do- make the game more difficult, but feel a lot less fair than just speccing out the enemies to have good natures, IVs, EVs, and hold items. And they're things the player can replicate if they take the time to do so (bar the hold items early game, though you -can- steal those from enemies.)

That said, of the several games I've played lately, yours definitely stood out, especially in music design. I'm very much looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Keemonto said:

Hi! I just played the first hour of your game (I do intend to play more) as one of a few different games I'm checking out, and I wanted to drop my impressions on you while the iron's hot! As an FYI, I played on the hardest difficulty setting.


You can run on the desk in the bedroom.
I think the effect on the bed is cute.
Not sure about the instantly disappearing HP bars. Seems sudden. Whole battle system seems to run laggy, unsure why.
“At least” is displaying as “atleast,” and I’m not sure if it’s the font or a typo.
In the opening, there’s an “its” that should be “it’s” as in “it is.”
The shopkeeper clips over the roof of his shop.
Pokemon selection screen was really cool for picking your starter.
I like the tree that allows you to snag an encounter in the town for Nuzlocking.
The lady who’s dressed like a maid in the opening area says, “Independantly,” which should be “independently.”
Old dude in the house with two doors called me “Young man” when I was a lady.
Solid music all around. Love the trainer battle theme in particular. Seriously, every track is a banger. -Great- music selection. I love this soundtrack. The only exception is the victory theme, which is unaltered and could definitely benefit from a makeover.
In the father’s dialogue about the village, he’s missing a period at the end of more than one of his sentences.
I suspect but do not know that “Therain Winds” was meant to be “Therian Winds.” Also in the old man’s dialogue.
Bug catcher on route 1 has identical dialogue to one in the forest. Both also are missing periods on, “Maybe they are”
The right front corner tile on the platform with the healing tree on route 1 is walk-on-able. As is the tile directly right of the staircase on said platform.
I super like the little moving flowers. They make the world feel a lot more dynamic.
The attack Howl failed in spite of not seeming to need an accuracy check. Used with Fenniken v the Litleo on route 1.
Not sure if this is intentional, but Audino doesn’t give a large amount of exp as she does in the regular games.
The little girl in Crosstown says, “Yay Pikachu!” while being chased by a Torchic. Might be intentional.
Calvin’s got a few typos. “Aswell” appears to be one word, and he says “My names Calvin” as opposed to “My name’s Calvin.” Other typos as well. Might be a stylistic choice for his dialogue?
Calvin’s brutal. Made a lot more so by the fact his Pokes know moves earlier than usual. Magnitude in particular is savage. I -did- beat him, but it was definitely bashing my head against the wall for a bit.


In addition to that, having read the existing comments, I'd like to mirror what a fellow said earlier: Difficulty is -great- in my opinion. I love a difficult game. I'm not sure about the design decision of cheating to get that difficulty though. Things like evolving Pokemon earlier than is possible for your trainers and giving them moves they cannot learn yet -do- make the game more difficult, but feel a lot less fair than just speccing out the enemies to have good natures, IVs, EVs, and hold items. And they're things the player can replicate if they take the time to do so (bar the hold items early game, though you -can- steal those from enemies.)

That said, of the several games I've played lately, yours definitely stood out, especially in music design. I'm very much looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Click to expand...

You can run on the desk in the bedroom.
I have fixed this like 4 times idk why it wont work ;-;
I think the effect on the bed is cute.
ty :)
Not sure about the instantly disappearing HP bars. Seems sudden. Whole battle system seems to run laggy, unsure why.
thats just an essentials issue
“At least” is displaying as “atleast,” and I’m not sure if it’s the font or a typo.
In the opening, there’s an “its” that should be “it’s” as in “it is.”
my grammar sucks sorry ;-;
The shopkeeper clips over the roof of his shop.
In the process of fixing
Pokemon selection screen was really cool for picking your starter.
ty, I liked the concept of every starter being available
I like the tree that allows you to snag an encounter in the town for Nuzlocking.
In the next update every outside location will have encounters so that will make nuzlocking more fun
The lady who’s dressed like a maid in the opening area says, “Independantly,” which should be “independently.”
my grammar sucks sorry ;-;
Old dude in the house with two doors called me “Young man” when I was a lady.
oh crap gotta fix that lol
Solid music all around. Love the trainer battle theme in particular. Seriously, every track is a banger. -Great- music selection. I love this soundtrack. The only exception is the victory theme, which is unaltered and could definitely benefit from a makeover.
TYSM! You're the first person to truly compliment the music. I won't lie I spent so much time finding tracks to fit perfectly with each area/battle.
In the father’s dialogue about the village, he’s missing a period at the end of more than one of his sentences.
my grammar sucks sorry ;-;
I suspect but do not know that “Therain Winds” was meant to be “Therian Winds.” Also in the old man’s dialogue.
Intentional
Bug catcher on route 1 has identical dialogue to one in the forest. Both also are missing periods on, “Maybe they are”
oops
The right front corner tile on the platform with the healing tree on route 1 is walk-on-able. As is the tile directly right of the staircase on said platform.
there's a number of tile errors that will be fixed in the next update
I super like the little moving flowers. They make the world feel a lot more dynamic.
ty, I liked putting them everywhere :D
The attack Howl failed in spite of not seeming to need an accuracy check. Used with Fenniken v the Litleo on route 1.
Not sure if this is intentional, but Audino doesn’t give a large amount of exp as she does in the regular games.
I'm gonna kinda assume both of these are essentials issues as I havent touched either of those but yeah I'll look into it
The little girl in Crosstown says, “Yay Pikachu!” while being chased by a Torchic. Might be intentional.
Intentional
Calvin’s got a few typos. “Aswell” appears to be one word, and he says “My names Calvin” as opposed to “My name’s Calvin.” Other typos as well. Might be a stylistic choice for his dialogue?
my grammar sucks sorry ;-;
Calvin’s brutal. Made a lot more so by the fact his Pokes know moves earlier than usual. Magnitude in particular is savage. I -did- beat him, but it was definitely bashing my head against the wall for a bit.
Expert mode >:)
also you can catch a few water types in an area to the right of route 1
In addition to that, having read the existing comments, I'd like to mirror what a fellow said earlier: Difficulty is -great- in my opinion. I love a difficult game. I'm not sure about the design decision of cheating to get that difficulty though. Things like evolving Pokemon earlier than is possible for your trainers and giving them moves they cannot learn yet -do- make the game more difficult, but feel a lot less fair than just speccing out the enemies to have good natures, IVs, EVs, and hold items. And they're things the player can replicate if they take the time to do so (bar the hold items early game, though you -can- steal those from enemies.)
I kinda suck at balancing and competitive pokemon in general so I'm glad expert mode held true to its name, but yeah I guess I did go a bit overboard regarding pokemon having moves before the level the can learn them. Regarding cheating I could honestly care less if people cheat or not (Considering the fact that there is a public debug version), its their choice to do so. In my opinion, if you're cheating on hard mode then what's the pointing in playing hard mode :P.
That said, of the several games I've played lately, yours definitely stood out, especially in music design. I'm very much looking forward to seeing where it goes.
I'm glad you've been enjoying it so far! The main focus of the game is it's story so I hope you enjoy that aspect aswell as you keep playing :)

Ayrei said:

[...]my grammar sucks sorry ;-;[...]

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No worries! I pointed 'em out so you'd know exactly where some were, not because they really bothered me. Overall, your grammar's definitely not the worst, and typos are pretty much unavoidable with that much typing.

Ayrei said:

TYSM! You're the first person to truly compliment the music. I won't lie I spent so much time finding tracks to fit perfectly with each area/battle.

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It's really good. Like, graphically the game doesn't super stand out (it's nice, but not exceptional), but musically it's probably my favorite. I love your tracks and your sense of mood. Like, hands down the most epic Route 1 of any game I've ever played lol Love your musical design.

Ayrei said:

there's a number of tile errors that will be fixed in the next update

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This is the same as the grammar errors for me. They didn't really bother me–I just wanted you to know where they were so you could fix 'em without hunting 'em all down yourself.

Ayrei said:

I kinda suck at balancing and competitive pokemon in general so I'm glad expert mode held true to its name, but yeah I guess I did go a bit overboard regarding pokemon having moves before the level the can learn them. Regarding cheating I could honestly care less if people cheat or not (Considering the fact that there is a public debug version), its their choice to do so. In my opinion, if you're cheating on hard mode then what's the pointing in playing hard mode :P.

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Oh, I definitely meant that the enemy trainers were cheating, not that the player was cheating lol Yeah, if the player cheats, I don't know what they're doing. I'm a competitive Pokemon person for sure, so I think in those terms. I -did- beat the man, and without going back to catch more mons (I play by my own rulesets for challenge, which limits how much mon catching I can do and prohibits grinding for the sake of grinding), so he's definitely not insurmountable. I just had Taillow, Shinx, Fennekin, and Ralts, so he was a monster with those moves. One-shot my whole team except for Taillow, who he two-shot with Flameburst. That problem will buff out over time anyway–using exclusive movesets for difficulty only works until the player's got access to all of the moves they need to counter it. But yeah, I -did- beat him with my own challenge ruleset, so it sounds like he might be at the difficulty level you were shooting for.

If you ever want input on making challenging sets or builds without relying on exclusive moves or early evolutions (which'll run dry by around level 40-50, generally), feel free to hit me up. That's one of my strengths, and something I enjoy doing.

I'll let you know my take on the story as I work through it! I think I'm on the precipice of diving in.

Holy frickin' cow, Dareth lol Dareth on Expert is no joke. You did just fine on the competitive end of things, no worries there. Holy crap.

Anyhow, final impressions on this demo (I think. It said this is the end of version 1?). But first! Notes:


Destiny has some typos in her introduction.
Also! You can run into the middle of the lake in Crosstown.
On route 3, you can walk all over the mossy rock.
The “I’m a girl so you should let me win” girl appears both before the forest with the Team Defiance in it, and on route 3 guarding a bridge.
The hidden grotto was fun.
In the house with the mom and son in Arlen, you can run straight through the walls and into the great reflective beyond.
Unsure if this is a feature or a bug, but even after using the Pokemon Center in Arlen, I could teleport back to “the last used healing spot in Crosstown.”
So, I’m willing to assume my boy Calvin’s just a liar, but in the Defiance hideout, he says he’s never seen anything like the incubator-looking machines, but there’s one in his living room.
Kieth says they’re going to “Unluck" the door.
In dialogue, you want to use words instead of numbers. “Two” instead of “2”, for instance.
The gym is -hard-. You did just fine on making it tough as nails. Nothing visibly has moves or evolutions it shouldn’t have, and I don’t think the Gym’s possible without a team of six–causing me to break one of my rules and go back for a Bulbasaur I passed up earlier. Probably literally impossible to Nuzlocke, but I'd be interested in seeing someone try.


The story is definitely interesting. You could probably use an editor or a couple of proofreaders to go through and clean up the grammar (grammar definitely impacts how a story comes across), and on the writing end you probably want to make the characters a bit more distinctive (Calvin being the exception–he's very distinctive), but in spite of those critiques, the story comes across well and is very intriguing. Nice use of cutscenes, and fantastic use of music.

I dig the Pokemon variety. You mentioned previously that there were water-types available before the Calvin fight, but I scoured the area and couldn't find any. I double-checked the PBS file for encounters to be sure, and it states there are some on Route 1. That makes me wonder if they are supposed to spawn in the area with Bulbasaur, or if they spawn past the cuttable trees, because I could not find them to save my life, and I was pretty darn thorough in clicking everything and going everywhere and checking all the grass (I really wanted a Water Absorb Quagsire lol)

Dareth is a monster. Not unbeatable–I beat him. I just had to throw myself at him like, a couple dozen times to do it, and break my general rule concerning using items in battle. And get a team of six, and get them all to the level cap (mostly by throwing myself at Dareth). Fun fact: If your Pokemon evolves at 20 and hits that level, but then you lose the battle, it will not evolve and cannot be evolved. My poor Ralts lol


I took Dareth down with Magician Braixen, Intimidate Luxio, Synchronize Ralts, Growth Ivysaur, Guts Taillow, and Iron Fist Pancham. Pancham, Taillow, and Ralts were there for switch fodder and heal fodder; they'd come in to give me a free switch (in Ralts' case) or to stall and let me throw down some healing items (especially Pancham). Ivysaur was responsible for absorbing Toxic Spikes, and using Leech Seed, Sleep Powder, and Razorleaf to dunk on Mareanie, Wailmer, and Marshtomp. Braixen was there mostly to steal Eviolite from Mareanie, and to fire off a few Psybeams for the confuse chance and because it's a decent chip move. Luxio handled Quilfish (and led the party), Relicanth (with help), and Gyarados. Most of my healing was patching up Luxio between his fights and getting rid of poison on him (he was poisoned by Poison Point every single time.)


Savage difficulty, but I liked the gym a lot, even if I spent a while beating my head against it before I worked out how to use the pieces I had to win. And it probably wouldn't have been -as- hard if I'd broken down and custom-built a team with the available pieces to bring it down. Or if I'd picked a different starter, though Braixen -did- have some unique utility in the fight.

Overall, very intrigued to see where it goes! Definitely interested in the story, and as before, I feel like the music really emphasizes everything. Though on the musical end, I will add that for the Gym you definitely want a track that loops–that sucker stopping and going cut into the experience a bit, and there's no way you walk out of that fight without it looping at least a few times lol

Keemonto said:

Holy frickin' cow, Dareth lol Dareth on Expert is no joke. You did just fine on the competitive end of things, no worries there. Holy crap.

Anyhow, final impressions on this demo (I think. It said this is the end of version 1?). But first! Notes:


Destiny has some typos in her introduction.
Also! You can run into the middle of the lake in Crosstown.
On route 3, you can walk all over the mossy rock.
The “I’m a girl so you should let me win” girl appears both before the forest with the Team Defiance in it, and on route 3 guarding a bridge.
The hidden grotto was fun.
In the house with the mom and son in Arlen, you can run straight through the walls and into the great reflective beyond.
Unsure if this is a feature or a bug, but even after using the Pokemon Center in Arlen, I could teleport back to “the last used healing spot in Crosstown.”
So, I’m willing to assume my boy Calvin’s just a liar, but in the Defiance hideout, he says he’s never seen anything like the incubator-looking machines, but there’s one in his living room.
Kieth says they’re going to “Unluck" the door.
In dialogue, you want to use words instead of numbers. “Two” instead of “2”, for instance.
The gym is -hard-. You did just fine on making it tough as nails. Nothing visibly has moves or evolutions it shouldn’t have, and I don’t think the Gym’s possible without a team of six–causing me to break one of my rules and go back for a Bulbasaur I passed up earlier. Probably literally impossible to Nuzlocke, but I'd be interested in seeing someone try.


The story is definitely interesting. You could probably use an editor or a couple of proofreaders to go through and clean up the grammar (grammar definitely impacts how a story comes across), and on the writing end you probably want to make the characters a bit more distinctive (Calvin being the exception–he's very distinctive), but in spite of those critiques, the story comes across well and is very intriguing. Nice use of cutscenes, and fantastic use of music.

I dig the Pokemon variety. You mentioned previously that there were water-types available before the Calvin fight, but I scoured the area and couldn't find any. I double-checked the PBS file for encounters to be sure, and it states there are some on Route 1. That makes me wonder if they are supposed to spawn in the area with Bulbasaur, or if they spawn past the cuttable trees, because I could not find them to save my life, and I was pretty darn thorough in clicking everything and going everywhere and checking all the grass (I really wanted a Water Absorb Quagsire lol)

Dareth is a monster. Not unbeatable–I beat him. I just had to throw myself at him like, a couple dozen times to do it, and break my general rule concerning using items in battle. And get a team of six, and get them all to the level cap (mostly by throwing myself at Dareth). Fun fact: If your Pokemon evolves at 20 and hits that level, but then you lose the battle, it will not evolve and cannot be evolved. My poor Ralts lol


I took Dareth down with Magician Braixen, Intimidate Luxio, Synchronize Ralts, Growth Ivysaur, Guts Taillow, and Iron Fist Pancham. Pancham, Taillow, and Ralts were there for switch fodder and heal fodder; they'd come in to give me a free switch (in Ralts' case) or to stall and let me throw down some healing items (especially Pancham). Ivysaur was responsible for absorbing Toxic Spikes, and using Leech Seed, Sleep Powder, and Razorleaf to dunk on Mareanie, Wailmer, and Marshtomp. Braixen was there mostly to steal Eviolite from Mareanie, and to fire off a few Psybeams for the confuse chance and because it's a decent chip move. Luxio handled Quilfish (and led the party), Relicanth (with help), and Gyarados. Most of my healing was patching up Luxio between his fights and getting rid of poison on him (he was poisoned by Poison Point every single time.)


Savage difficulty, but I liked the gym a lot, even if I spent a while beating my head against it before I worked out how to use the pieces I had to win. And it probably wouldn't have been -as- hard if I'd broken down and custom-built a team with the available pieces to bring it down. Or if I'd picked a different starter, though Braixen -did- have some unique utility in the fight.

Overall, very intrigued to see where it goes! Definitely interested in the story, and as before, I feel like the music really emphasizes everything. Though on the musical end, I will add that for the Gym you definitely want a track that loops–that sucker stopping and going cut into the experience a bit, and there's no way you walk out of that fight without it looping at least a few times lol

Click to expand...

I'm glad you're enjoying it :) also I feel a bit embarrassed but I guess I forgot to take out the event that tells you that its the end of version 1 (oops). The game still goes on until the second gym so you can keep playing.

Alright! Wrapped the second gym and got the version 2 completion message. First, notes:


Lass Lia and the trainer before her (both on Route 1 past the cuttable trees) have identical teams.
You might want to give some direction as to where to head after the first gym. I checked the map to figure it out, but you’d be surprised at how many people might not do that lol
Wishiwashi’s Schooling ability doesn’t appear to be working.
This Blackbelt in the cave with the impossible Machamp though. Machop evolves at level 28, at least vanilla.
The kiddo in the cave with the sick mixed team has the same dialogue as some other kiddos earlier in the game.
During the scene between main and destiny on the mountain, main turns into a boy briefly if she’s a girl.
First bug catcher on route 5 has the same dialogue as earlier bug catchers.
Grandma says, “You wanted tp believe”
Pretty sure in the cutscene with Clarissa, Akemi was referring to me as a child with specterial force? If so, she referred to me as a boy when I was a girl.
After waking up in the Pokemon Center from getting wiped, I could not exit Quilex Village–the event stopped working. It never started working again–the town would be a deathtrap if not for Teleport.
In the forest on route 1, at the top of the stairs there’s a girl whose defeated dialogue is “I guess school doesn’t teach you shit.” That girl will give her dialogue if you step on any square in front of her after she is defeated.
The black bits of Mount Archon are reflective.
After entering Mt. Archon, the Teleport's location shifted to "Healing spot at Mt. Archon." That was the first time Teleport’s target has shifted since Crosstown. What that meant was that any time I used Teleport as a field move, it'd take me to the first floor of Mt. Archon (where there was no healing spot, by the by.) That lasted the rest of the story, and was how I got out of Quilex Village.
Weird graphical error on the grass on the slopes of Mt. Archon–the transparency doesn’t work on the grass circle on the player’s side during battles.
In the big conference about the spy, Calvin’s dialogue runs right over Destiny’s. Like, his line ends in her dialogue bubble.
When your main passes out and wakes up in bed, you should probably heal their ‘mons. Made for an awkward first fight when going after grandma lol
Beat Gym with Luxray, Pangoro, Carkol, Gardevoir, Ferroseed, and Swallow. I burned everything but my Pangoro taking out every threat that could hurt Pangoro, then steadily beat the remaining Pokemon down when they couldn't deal damage to me.
Howl is definitely broken. A enemy trainer attempted it and it failed.
Gardevoir doesn't have fairy-typing, which is weird given that fairies are in the game. Also, the gym's Gardevoir uses Dazzling Gleam, which implies you might have thought she was a fairy-type? Her learnset is also Gen V, which, holy cow. That's a terrible learnset. Pangoro's learnset is Gen VI, which is also a terrible learnset–he doesn't get a dark move at all until level 42. I don't know if these are just vanilla Essentials sets, or if you hand-picked them to be the worst learnsets, but they are -painfully bad-. Which I'll acknowledge did add to difficulty.
Similarly, there are apparently no TMs in the game except what the Gym Leaders give you? And getting Light Screen from the Psychic leader when my Gardevoir only has Confusion and Magical Leaf at level 35 was particularly harsh lol


Some of the bugs are potentially game-breaking, and definitely need to be addressed–if I had removed Teleport from my Gardevoir, I would have been trapped more than once, and if Teleport set location properly to the Pokemon Center you last healed at I would equally have been trapped. That's an important one to fix. The warp event at the exit of Quilex village disappears (I'm unsure if it was because I came back in through being KO'd by a trainer) and will just never reappear, no matter how you enter the village.

So, mechanics and bug/typo hunting aside, I really enjoyed it. The difficulty is -savage- on Expert. It took me 10 hours to beat those first two gyms, But you can tell I was enjoying myself, because I invested the 10 hours to do it. Money is a super scarce resource in the game, which is interesting, and you get hardly any found items, which is also interesting, and there are -no- TMs. All of that put together made it feel almost like a survival game? Like, I felt like resource management was essential to be able to win. If I hadn't been -certain- of victory when I started spending items in battle, there were battles I couldn't have won without -hours- of grinding up specific 'mons for the challenge. So that was a really interesting puzzle.

Even ignoring from gameplay considerations, the story is definitely interesting. I like your use of cutscenes, and I'm fairly invested in Calvin and Destiny as companion characters. I stand by my earlier note that everyone other than Calvin could use some work on distinguishing their speech (different diction, for instance), but even so, I like them. And even if the characters aren't super distinctive, the overall plot is intriguing. I think the multiple factions are a nice setup, and I like the sense that there are much bigger things going on.

There's a lot of terminology I didn't quite pick up this playthrough–like, I got what it meant, but the terms themselves didn't stick. I'm not sure if that's because the terminology isn't catchy, or if it's my own shortcoming. Like, I can tell you that Aspects are a thing and are apparently elementally-bound, that the Federation is a large political force with a great deal of clout, and that the team with the creepy masks (Team Dissent?) are a rival political faction that have been labeled terrorists, and may actually be so. The team is a good example of what I mean though–for whatever reason, the name just didn't stick even though the grunts themselves are -excellent- designs and very impactful.

That also followed through to the characters not named Destiny and Calvin. I remember Zeke's name–that one stood out. But I don't remember the names of anyone else. Something you might consider doing is getting some art done of the main cast, and flashing that up on screen when they're talking–background it to the text. I don't know if you've played Pokemon Xenoverse, but that's the sort of thing I had in mind. It'll make the characters a lot more memorable. Even if you just throw up their battle sprites as their portraits, it'd help distinguish them a little better. Put a face to a name, basically.

Regardless, I think it's a great start, especially given that you're working on this game solo. Once I get further along in my own game development, I wouldn't mind helping you on this game if you'd like–doing editing, maybe, on the in-game dialogue. I think that having an editor would help you a lot, because you clearly have great ideas and a lot of talent, but as you noted, grammar isn't your strong suit, and the flow of the writing does impact the delivery of an otherwise excellent story. I particularly like the political undertones in your narrative. It really feels like there are deeper currents going on here beneath the surface, which is a great feeling to walk away from a game with.

Addendum: Also! I don't know if you globally increased shinies or just around Mt. Archon, but holy crap. I caught four of them in and around that mountain: Geodude, Ducklette, Rolycoly, and Ferroseed. My final team there for the gym had two shinies on it lol I liked that, by the by–shinies are so hard to get in main series games, and that's actually kind of cool when you can do a lot of trading and move Pokemon from generation to generation, but it's -way- less cool in a self-contained game, because shinies just may as well not exist for the vast majority of players. I think all romhacks/fangames should either bump up shiny rates markedly or have areas where shinies are a lot more common.

Some of the bugs are potentially game-breaking, and definitely need to be addressed–if I had removed Teleport from my Gardevoir, I would have been trapped more than once, and if Teleport set location properly to the Pokemon Center you last healed at I would equally have been trapped. That's an important one to fix. The warp event at the exit of Quilex village disappears (I'm unsure if it was because I came back in through being KO'd by a trainer) and will just never reappear, no matter how you enter the village.
There are a few types of events and cutscenes I dove into without really thinking that far ahead causing them to be pretty game breaking. Just a really big oopsie I'm trying to fix on my part.

So, mechanics and bug/typo hunting aside, I really enjoyed it. The difficulty is -savage- on Expert. It took me 10 hours to beat those first two gyms, But you can tell I was enjoying myself, because I invested the 10 hours to do it. Money is a super scarce resource in the game, which is interesting, and you get hardly any found items, which is also interesting, and there are -no- TMs. All of that put together made it feel almost like a survival game? Like, I felt like resource management was essential to be able to win. If I hadn't been -certain- of victory when I started spending items in battle, there were battles I couldn't have won without -hours- of grinding up specific 'mons for the challenge. So that was a really interesting puzzle.
oh yeah, lack of items, totally not me accidentally forgetting to add more overworld item variety ahahahah..

Even ignoring from gameplay considerations, the story is definitely interesting. I like your use of cutscenes, and I'm fairly invested in Calvin and Destiny as companion characters. I stand by my earlier note that everyone other than Calvin could use some work on distinguishing their speech (different diction, for instance), but even so, I like them. And even if the characters aren't super distinctive, the overall plot is intriguing. I think the multiple factions are a nice setup, and I like the sense that there are much bigger things going on.
My main focus for the game is its story and I spend a lot of time putting it together. The characters are just as up there with importance as I'm trying to make each character unique in their own way. I have big plans for how I'm going to go about worldbuilding and story after the first arc (the starting island). One thing that does really bug me is that its hard for me to advertise the game's story without spoiling a large amount of it, I have so many plans for the future to just absolutely flip every table onto the players in what I feel could be one of the most unique stories in a fangame while still holding true to a lot of aspects that make a Pokémon game, a Pokémon game.

There's a lot of terminology I didn't quite pick up this playthrough–like, I got what it meant, but the terms themselves didn't stick. I'm not sure if that's because the terminology isn't catchy, or if it's my own shortcoming. Like, I can tell you that Aspects are a thing and are apparently elementally-bound, that the Federation is a large political force with a great deal of clout, and that the team with the creepy masks (Team Dissent?) are a rival political faction that have been labeled terrorists, and may actually be so. The team is a good example of what I mean though–for whatever reason, the name just didn't stick even though the grunts themselves are -excellent- designs and very impactful.
I can see how easy it would be for people to forget a lot of the team/faction names because I already introduced 3 while also having barely focused on them. "Team Defiance" didn't appear after the players encounter with them in the early game, and the other 2 were barely mentioned. My main reason for this is because I want to ease the player into the game in a way that doesn't throw everything at them at once. Groups like the Federation and the Aspects will be further re-introduced as the game progresses. My main 2 reasons for introducing both an evil team and a political force is because first off, all the official Pokémon games, and even most fangames, just have an evil team running around with no one to stop them but the protagonist and their friends. Secondly, I've always wondered what an actual Political Government would look like in a Pokémon world.

That also followed through to the characters not named Destiny and Calvin. I remember Zeke's name–that one stood out. But I don't remember the names of anyone else. Something you might consider doing is getting some art done of the main cast, and flashing that up on screen when they're talking–background it to the text. I don't know if you've played Pokemon Xenoverse, but that's the sort of thing I had in mind. It'll make the characters a lot more memorable. Even if you just throw up their battle sprites as their portraits, it'd help distinguish them a little better. Put a face to a name, basically.
I want to have a lot of characters in my game, but not all of them need to be important/remembered. It makes it easier to ɟɟo ɯǝɥʇ llı⋊ remove some when they may not be needed anymore, and just give more personality to the game overall. I've always been a fan of Movies/Shows/Games that introduce a large number of characters, even when I don't remember more than half of them, its still fun. Regarding your suggestion about adding character art or icons to the dialogue... I suck at art, and the only way I would want to go about doing so is to have detailed character emotion boxes like in the PMD series.

Regardless, I think it's a great start, especially given that you're working on this game solo. Once I get further along in my own game development, I wouldn't mind helping you on this game if you'd like–doing editing, maybe, on the in-game dialogue. I think that having an editor would help you a lot, because you clearly have great ideas and a lot of talent, but as you noted, grammar isn't your strong suit, and the flow of the writing does impact the delivery of an otherwise excellent story. I particularly like the political undertones in your narrative. It really feels like there are deeper currents going on here beneath the surface, which is a great feeling to walk away from a game with.
I mean I'll be honest I don't think my grammar sucks I just think I forget to add a lot of punctuation/spelling fixes. I appreciate the time you took to play my game and write this review, it took me a few days to respond bc I had work but I'm glad I can finish this response. I wanted to create a unique story with deep lore and twists.


Addendum: Also! I don't know if you globally increased shinies or just around Mt. Archon, but holy crap. I caught four of them in and around that mountain: Geodude, Ducklette, Rolycoly, and Ferroseed. My final team there for the gym had two shinies on it lol I liked that, by the by–shinies are so hard to get in main series games, and that's actually kind of cool when you can do a lot of trading and move Pokemon from generation to generation, but it's -way- less cool in a self-contained game, because shinies just may as well not exist for the vast majority of players. I think all romhacks/fangames should either bump up shiny rates markedly or have areas where shinies are a lot more common.
Shiny rate is 1/100 :P

Dax said:

Cool game

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glad u liked it :)

Beta testing for next update happening very soon! join the dc if you're interested :)

Just writing about an issue that would not come into play on most system, but is easy to fix.
When accented e is used in the names of BGM tracks, it:
1) Can be rendered as "B"
2) Makes Cyrillic-localized Windows (Russian, Ukrainian and such) to not play these tracks. Always.
Both of these issues happened on my computer, in fact.

v3 Released!

What I have do after the second badge?

lukario06 said:

What I have do after the second badge?

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go back to the beach house

look cool! how far those it go for now? just curious