Thoughts on the update

HELLO EVERYONE!!

As I promised, here is a metric ton of me yapping:

I'm not sure where to start from, so this will probably be a really confusing post.

First, what is and is not in V0.2:

-New scenes for bot Dawn and Sayoko, in the case of Sayoko after watching her new scene you can see a new variant of her first scene if you go and talk with her again.

-Braixen has been added, I was working on a scene for her, but I didn't liked how it was going, so I ended up discarding it, I'll remake it for the next update. So in my opinion grinding to evolve her isn't worth it, but you can still do it if you want to see the sprites and the portrait in game.

-I've added new sprites for the player, but I haven't added portraits for them in game yet, I'm not 100% into the one I've drew, so right now they're just hidden between the files, as I haven't properly implemented the different aspects yet I leave it as a "hidden option", you can change between a couple of options by interacting with the notepad in your room.

-For the body hair options you can change them by interacting with the characters, I wanted you to be able to change them using both any pc and a new item, but the game struggles to handle all the variables involved in the menus, I'll have to take a good look at it later.

-Interacting with the PC you can also look at the 10 dollars art reward from last month, I talk a little more about said rewards later in this post.

-As I said before I ended up discarding the Braixen art I wanted to add to this update, and I also didn't had the time to work in the Juniper scene I also wanted to add, I'll try my best to have them finished for the next update.

-I've expanded the map, with both a new "route" and city; in the new route you would find some trainers and a couple of useful items.

-In the city you should find all and any item related with stats and nature manipulation, so all the minmaxers should have something nice to put their claws on; I still haven't added the IV manipulating caps yet, but I'll add them later as easily accessible items too.

Plans for v0.3:

At the end Viola won by a huge margin the v0.3 poll, honestly it was a little surprising how quickly she took the advantage.

I'll add her and her sister in the update, cause why not.

I'm still pondering between doing a scene where the two are together or just one for Viola....

I'll also add the Braixen and Juniper scenes pending for 0.2.

And if at that point I still have time I'll add Serena and Grace, as they too won by a landslide.

As for map expansion, probably the only new area for 0.3 would be the gym.

General thoughts and stuff:

-The tier 3 benefits, I made the tier 3 benefits thinking that they would be 1 or 2 people willing to support me with that much money, maybe, and being generous 3, right now they're 12 of you.

So, for these 12 people already in said tier, I'll go one by one asking you for what you want, but I'll temporarily suspend said benefit for new people.

And one all 12 of you have your benefit properly fulfilled I'll rethink how to handle said benefit, I'm not 100% sure yet, but I'll probably move it to a higher tier.

And also a quick clarification of how I handle this custom scene benefit: My idea with it is for you to ask what you want, whatever it is, for example in the case of the one already in game, more than an scene in itself, what said patreon wanted was a pokemon design, so we worked in that; now, once you have said idea in mind and we reach a agreement on how I will make it, I'll draw it, and if the happening of said scene make sense in the current point of the story, I'll add it as such, and if it don't make sense and this particular moment, the art of said scene get saved in the PC gallery the same way the one already in it is, and once the story reach a point where the happening of said scene make sense, then I'll properly implement it in the story.

I know the way I'll handle it may not be of the preference of everyone, but I aim for the character to build a proper relationship with them player, and not just make the game a senseless fuck fest.

-Game speed

I've seen some comments of people complaining about the game speed, so here's my pov in the matter.

For battle speed, I honestly feels like it's ok, it is even much faster than the modern pokemon games; the majority of said complains seems to come from people who got accustomed to pokerogue, I haven't played, but for what I've seen, pokerogue goes apeshit fast, like too fucking much, and it makes total sense for a roguelike to make combat as fast as possible, but outside of said context I don't think that making the combat animations that fast is the best of ideas.

But one thing I should said in defense of said complains, is that the essentials combats animations do sin of being bland, so even when the combat isn't slow, seeing such basic animations could make you feels like nothing is really happening or that combat lacks impact; problem is, fixing that is not exactly the most quickest of works.

For movement speed, there's more nuance in the matter, in one hand I understand that moving around in the routes can feels slow, but the problem is that if I increase the movement speed, when you're moving in a more smaller space, like inside a house, you end up moving like a dunk monkey, and then movement end up feeling uncomfortable, a solution I can think about is just giving you the bike, so idk what you think about that.

-Tilesets

Right now one of the biggest limitations I feel I have is are the tilesets, for v0.3 I think I'll just try doing my own to use on the gym, but in general mapping is a little challenging to me with the tools I have in hand, I mentioned it before but drawing scenarios have never been my thing, since I was a child I just drew everyone just floating in the void.

I don't really want to use someone else tilesets in my work, I don't like the idea of taking someone else work and profit out of it; I'm not against the idea of commissioning tilesets in the future, once I'm in a better economical situation, but at the moment I think I'll just work with what I can do.

How I plan on handling the characters and story progression

In general I want every character to have their small storyline, where you get to know them, interact with them, and have some type of small quest and rewards with them.

As an example I can use the gym leaders of the last poll.

Viola will have a small quest related with photography from which you will end up getting an special bug pokemon, you can think of a bedrill with tits.

Roxanne will be involved in a small archeological themed quest from which you will get an special fossil pokemon, you can imagine a lillep with tits.

With Katy, being her a patisserie, I want to make her have a themed bakery where she sells special sweets, that are basically a combination of a citrus berry and an x item; so a pokemon can eat them when they're at half hp and alongside healing themselves they also get a stat boost, and to unlock stronger versions of said items you have to develop your relationship with her.

Again, the fact that one character lose in a poll doesn't mean that they won't be added in the future, it just mean that they won't be added right now.

For the story progression, the amount of relevance a character will have in the "main plot" is with complete honesty what I feels like at the moment, I do have a general plot line planned, but as any other creators, I don't have all the details in mind, so things will just happens, and I'll just hope that the story won't get completely derailed in the process,

But you can more or less get an idea of which characters are more relevant for the plot, Dawn is obviously most centered in the plot, while Sayoko just have her own plot and the world just happens around her.

The always imposing presence of the great N

We all know what I'm talking about, and I have mentioned it a couple of times, but, at the moment I don't really see the mythical cease and desist as a real threat, but in 2 or 3 years, not so much.

We can spend as many hours discussing the legality of the project, if it should count as a parody, if it doesn't stand any harm to the well being of the original product, etc. etc., but we all now that if they want to obliterate the project, there's nothing I can do to fight against a conglomerate of multimillion companies.

We just have to live knowing that.

So, what if they kill it, well, I just have to move on, I'll probably go on doing another project, maybe another parody, maybe an original work, either way it would have the same vibe this one have.

Closing statements

I think I talked about all the important stuff...

If something more come to my mind, I'll just save for a next post.

I will post a couple of polls soon, one for the v0.3 pokemon and a general one, also, general polls are for stuff I'm not sure at what point I will add.

Saves from v0.1 should be compatible with v0.2, but I changed the way the game keep track of certain variables, so you may find small logical inconsistencies, nothing serious thou.

Special thanks to DasHZ for helping me proof reading the game!

Everyone here probably already have a complete save, but he also helped me fixing the v0.1 spelling mistakes.