Hey guys, sorry, I've been very distracted with what's been happening in the world lately and my immediate affairs (job-related woes, heh) so the game has progressed no further..
I've got about another week of forklift training and then I'm free to concentrate on the new demo for a while. I would like to take this time to ask people if any of the text and cut-scenes in the game should be removed/reduced to make the game more enjoyable and increase the pace a little.
I've had a few people agree with me that it's coming off a bit text-heavy, so I'd like to ask people which parts they think are the least necessary, and what ideas they have to make certain scenes more interactive. If you have any ideas just post them here.
I've already come to the conclusion that some cut-scenes will have to have something random in them that makes it bearable to watch more than once. I had planned the npc's would do this (certain pokemon will populate the map and they will alternate randomly through the list of catchable pokemon in that zone(eg. if a pidgey has been in one zone too long, it will fly away and a spearow will fly in. Non-airborne pokemon will disappear into the tall-grass/water to be replaced))
Now to the storyline.. The vagueness of how accurately I will be following this might change if I'm not following the script nearly to the letter.. For example, you may have access to pokemon/moves that were unavailable to ash in the show at certain stages.. But I don't know if I should do that, because it gives a much deeper storyline having so much said. Remember that the show was a bit slow to start, but once it got going, there was very little said in some towns.. I'm also thinking about changing the layout of how you play, something like warnings stating that you will not be able to return to an area for a long time, "halo's" to represent the map square that (when stepped on) will trigger the next main quest (side-quests will have a different colour) to start. With the "halo" system, there are many other applications such as boss-battles, trades, shops, etc. which will give a colour-coded representation of activities to complete. What does everyone think?
Guy who tried to catch the spearow flock, you were just wasting your health lol.. I made an exception so that pokeballs will never catch that pokemon, same thing with the single spearow. I wanted an error message to come up before the pokeball was thrown, but I think I remember being in a rush and having a multitude of other things to worry about (certain cutscenes were being constructed, other errors, etc.).. Really it's a small issue, but I was wondering how many people would be sitting there throwing pokeballs at it wondering why nothing was happening. :p
Ok thanks for reading, don't forget to give me some feedback and help shape this game! Also, I've stumbled across something modern in the experimental department and have seen MGC posting recently, I'm becoming very excited with what I see. Anyone who might be able to help me dismantle the starter-kit (or at least take out the battle system) and port it to this new engine, please offer your assistance (I'm looking at you, advanced starter-kit users -.-)
But don't take my word, judge for yourself: