AGJ Community Choice Pokémon Circular Knowledge

Aw heck.
Wormholes, Warped Time.

This game is pleasing to me, and I'll definitely try when I have the time~!

I was a critic during the April Game Jam 2019, and here's my personal review of the game.

Mapping

The maps were unique, lively and fun to adventure through. There was a lot of attention to detail and there were a lot of small hidden paths that took you to secret items. The boulders and rocks you had to move to be able to progress were also a very interesting mechanic and I quite enjoyed this concept. While strength puzzles can be rather dull normally, this type of puzzle was much more interactive and meaningful.


Gameplay

The territorial Pokémon concept had potential as standing out from the rest of the encounters, but every wild encounter was just as strong as - if not stronger than - territorial encounters. They did not stop when starting a battle or during dialogue though, which often resulted in two back-to-back battles because of their insanely accurate path finding. Some of them could also move through walls (flying Pokémon) which meant you were never safe.
The difficulty level of territorial Pokémon and wild encounters is high but doable, until you run out of Lemonade and or Poke Balls. Your party will die off one by one until you black out and get to restart. This gets so out of hand that the game becomes unbeatable at one point or another.
Having mentioned the difficulty, there's a lot of credit to be given to the puzzles on each map. They're unique and coherent, and you're likely to mess some of them up at least once, which means they're good puzzles.


Story

I was unable to complete the game due to its difficulty, but the bit of story I experienced showed a lot of potential for puzzles, adventures, characters and plot twists.


Inclusion of theme

Although the title is quite literally "Circular Knowledge", the way it was applied to the game was quite interesting. You'll end up going in circles if you make the same mistakes over again, whether in the shape of puzzles or type match-ups or traversing the world.

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Thank you for participating in the April Game Jam 2019! We enjoyed playing your game and hope that you had equal fun creating it!

I was a Critic during the April Fan Game Jam 2019, and this is my personal review.

Mapping
I do have to praise this game for its mapping style, as quite often it places something you don't have the ability to interact with yet in a place you can easily see, so when you do get the item needed, you know exactly where to go to try it.

Gameplay
I'm going to have to admit, I couldn't get very far in this game. It accurately describes itself as a difficult game. I spent a good portion of my time looking up type effectiveness, and every wild Pokémon is at approximately the same level as you and your team are.

I do have to praise the puzzles in this game though, like moving posts to be able to hop over short gaps. The game also telegraphs that a puzzle is in the area by putting small patches of dirt.

The territorial Pokémon concept is very cool, but they really chase you down and corner you easily, some with the ability to fly over blocking terrain, and you can't run from these encounters. Losing means the game ends, and you have to go back to the last save you made. I restarted a few times to fix my team layout but it's still very punishing. The biggest part that bothered me with the concept is the fact that the Pokémon can continue to move when you interact with an object or person, so you know as soon as you close that text box that a battle (or two) will start.

Story
Not much of the story is revealed in the early game, just questions that drive you forward. We start with a cutscene of a Celebi trapped in a stone, and a second cutscene where the main character wonders if the disappearance of everybody in Tempo Town is caused by Celebi. Some of the inhabitants of the town are trapped in the past as well.
I'm sure that the story would be very interesting and I did want to see where it goes, but unfortunately, I just couldn't progress.

Inclusion of theme
The portals used to travel back and forth in time are circular in shape. In addition, the opening cutscene alludes to having to learn history or being doomed to repeat it, but I don't understand what it's referring to.

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Thanks for participating in the April Fan Game Jam 2019! We enjoyed playing your game and hope you had fun making it!

I was a Critic during the April Fan Game Jam 2019, and this is my personal review.

Plot

Couldn't get past the wild galvantula! So there isn't much to say other than in this regard.

Mapping

While overall beautiful, the maps are a little overdone. The winding paths through the woods were fun, but the large patches of grasses and puzzles add only to the horror I'm feeling as I am trying to evade the territorial encounters. It was a little odd that you used B2W2 cliffs in an overall gen 4 space. It made it feel a little inconsistent.

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The town was very nicely built with a lot of details covered.

Gameplay

While I understand the game is to be a hard mode pokemon adventure, I could only capture a Nidoqueen with a quick ball because everything else would one or two-shot my Weavile. The healing provided: 5 lemonades, shell bell, and leftovers were simply not enough. I started running out of pp very quickly. There was no way to restore that or revive fainted pokemon.

This isn't a matter of being able to challenge mode your way through a challenge mode. You need to heal otherwise you'll just peter out.

Because of this, and having the wild overworld pokemon keep respawning after each rescue, made this game literally impossible to play. Because healing is so unavailable I can't risk grinding on the available wild pokemon around, lest I run out of pp.

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Relevance

Didn't get far enough to determine it.

Thanks to everyone who played!
Thanks to the judges for the opinions :)
And thank to the community that voted me! I am so happy that you enjoyed my dedition put in this game!
I am sorry that no one of the judges finished the game for its difficulty.. it is a pity. You probably saw just half of the puzzle types available.

First of all, I thank you for the feedback on mapping! I always give importance to the mapping and, seeing that you enjoyed it, feels so good! Thanks again :D

Marin said:

They did not stop when starting a battle or during dialogue though, which often resulted in two back-to-back battles because of their insanely accurate path finding.

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I can implement a switch to stop territorial encounters while there is a dialogue. If it was such a difficulty, i could have fixed during the jam if someone wrote me about that.. I really want people to complete the story.
I write this for everybody:
Feedback is MUCH appreciated.

Vendily said:

I do have to praise this game for its mapping style, as quite often it places something you don't have the ability to interact with yet in a place you can easily see, so when you do get the item needed, you know exactly where to go to try it.

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Thanks vendily! I want at all cost that puzzles and rewards are intuitive and that they point the way to accomplish them each other.

juliorain said:

The healing provided: 5 lemonades, shell bell, and leftovers were simply not enough. I started running out of pp very quickly. There was no way to restore that or revive fainted pokemon.

This isn't a matter of being able to challenge mode your way through a challenge mode. You need to heal otherwise you'll just peter out.

Because of this, and having the wild overworld pokemon keep respawning after each rescue, made this game literally impossible to play. Because healing is so unavailable I can't risk grinding on the available wild pokemon around, lest I run out of pp.

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First:
The heals were present at the START of the game. There is a dormitory with a lot of beds.
Second:
If you really arrived to the galvantula, then you should have saved the Nurse in the first portal. From that moment you have infinite heals and the game won't restart upon black out. Obviously, you need to solve a puzzle to save her.
It wasn't mandatory, but it is a player's choice.


I am sure that you could finish the game like many beta testers did. I only had their opinions to calibrate the game difficulty, and they enjoyed the fact that it was challenging up to the point where you have to play strategically to succeed, using all the resources available.

I thank again everyone who played, and, if you have questions or suggestions, I am here :)

A big THANKS YOU to the wonderful community that voted this game! I hope that more will play and share their experience!

I have to say the game looks great i only have a kinda fear to start play it because of the difficulty i always feel like a noob playing Pokemon games if i have good places for heal and items i am good to go. Sorry for my English.

rekman said:

If you really arrived to the galvantula, then you should have saved the Nurse in the first portal. From that moment you have infinite heals and the game won't restart upon black out. Obviously, you need to solve a puzzle to save her.
It wasn't mandatory, but it is a player's choice.

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Oh the first NPC was a nurse? Shoot, I should have back tracked to the town after all instead of messing with the power gloves.

Now I have to give this yet another shot! I really want to see where the story goes.

OmegaBlazerX said:

I have to say the game looks great i only have a kinda fear to start play it because of the difficulty i always feel like a noob playing Pokemon games if i have good places for heal and items i am good to go. Sorry for my English.

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Don't worry!
No need to have fear, just remind few tips:
-Use the dormitory to heal up (come back to the town when you are in a bad situation)
-Build a team as soon as possible
-Save with a good frequency when you are not in danger. DON'T save when you are in danger.

Good luck ;)

Vendily said:

Oh the first NPC was a nurse? Shoot, I should have back tracked to the town after all instead of messing with the power gloves.

Now I have to give this yet another shot! I really want to see where the story goes.

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Yess, she's in the portal that you can see in my first screenshot (the one with the chansey near). After that you will be safe even in case of defeat :)
Glad to hear that you will try again!! :D

rekman said:

Yess, she's in the portal that you can see in my first screenshot (the one with the chansey near). After that you will be safe even in case of defeat :)
Glad to hear that you will try again!! :D

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Oh dear, that explains why I never saw a Nurse, I wasn't able to figure out how to get up there so I ended up unintentionally skipping her altogether.

So I should have had 3 people rescued by the time I reached the injured one that makes you backtrack.

If it wasn't clear that there was a healing spot early on, then that is equally bad as not having one altogether as it eluded all three judges.

Vendily said:

Oh dear, that explains why I never saw a Nurse, I wasn't able to figure out how to get up there so I ended up unintentionally skipping her altogether.

So I should have had 3 people rescued by the time I reached the injured one that makes you backtrack.

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Wow! You are getting far :D yeah the nurse is not mandatory. For example, I and one beta tester finished the game without her. Obviously is better by far saving her!

juliorain said:

If it wasn't clear that there was a healing spot early on, then that is equally bad as not having one altogether as it eluded all three judges.

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You can't play this game in a hurry and pretend to finish it. Or it won't be a difficult game.
As it was mentioned several times, you had your business to do and the time to play all the five game jam entries was few.
So, I am not surprised that the dormitory thing wasn't caught. In fact, 4/4 betatesters that played this game used the beds. It's not matter of attention but of time that you can dedicate to details. I don't blame you, you were really busy for the previously cited reasons, and I respect it.

New patch!
Added:
-Territorial encounters stop moving when talking to NPCs
-Increased capture chances

Let me know if you find any bugs!

Just beat the game in about three hours, was fairly interesting and a decent challenge. Although I would have liked to see more challenging foes/territorial mons such as the bastiodon horde and the Final battle for each kind of checkpoint. Saving each townsperson should have been a bit more of a challenge such as having celebi placing a small team in front of each of them to deter you.

I really enjoyed the concept especially as we are just thrust in the middle of a story/situation. It breaks the mold of traditional pokemon games and many mods that follow the same cookie cutter formula which gets old. More fangames like this would be nice to see and open the door for much more creative pokemon styled games.

Dontea said:

Just beat the game in about three hours, was fairly interesting and a decent challenge. Although I would have liked to see more challenging foes/territorial mons such as the bastiodon horde and the Final battle for each kind of checkpoint. Saving each townsperson should have been a bit more of a challenge such as having celebi placing a small team in front of each of them to deter you.

I really enjoyed the concept especially as we are just thrust in the middle of a story/situation. It breaks the mold of traditional pokemon games and many mods that follow the same cookie cutter formula which gets old. More fangames like this would be nice to see and open the door for much more creative pokemon styled games.

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I am SOOOO glad that someone else finished the game ahahah Gz!

Mmm more challenging foes?! You make my eyes shine! I can change the Scizor to Mega-Scizor for example. Or changing the Magneton-Magnezone territorial encounters in a scripted one (like the Horde). Have you some ideas in this regard? :) I would be happy to implement them!
Maybe the best choice is to make a Difficulty mode where those new harder battles are added. At least the game would be playable also by less expert players.

Thanks for the appreciation on the story telling method aswell! It would be awesome to see more games with a non-linear story telling :) It gives more emphasis to the story.

I think having one time territorial boss fights in the place of Scizor/Magnezone which could include all the other territorial mons that normally appear in the area would be a good way to include more team battles. I basically beat the game on the back of my Weaville using it to run away from every wild encounter and fake-out and oneshot most other mons. So each territorial team should have a direct answer to Weavile in the form of a wall or something that can outspeed it. I also think these fights would make saving the townspeople feel much more rewarding as it currently kind of feels like more of a chore than a challenge. Nurse Joy should also have more of a purpose as she is pretty much only needed to get the choice band because you can heal either way. Having her give some type of reward but also being more difficult to save would be a good change as well(Maybe have her leave the Chansey in the forest so she can heal you without returning to the town?).

Currently the difficult part of the game is surviving the world rather than brute forcing like other pokemon games. I like this part of it with the territorials but also enjoy difficult team battles, currently constructing your team isn't that important as even the final battle is fairly easy, especially because you are forced to play on switch rather than set( you should really add an option to play on Set mode).

Also it took me quite a long time to realize i could lift that probopass and their was a grammatical/spelling errors in some of the end game dialogue with Celebi.

Overall I really enjoy a high degree of difficulty in my pokemon games, so these changes are ones that I would enjoy the most rather than what might be best for the general audience. Either way good job and best of luck if you make anything in the future I would be happy to test it for you ^^

Dontea said:

I think having one time territorial boss fights in the place of Scizor/Magnezone which could include all the other territorial mons that normally appear in the area would be a good way to include more team battles. I basically beat the game on the back of my Weaville using it to run away from every wild encounter and fake-out and oneshot most other mons. So each territorial team should have a direct answer to Weavile in the form of a wall or something that can outspeed it. I also think these fights would make saving the townspeople feel much more rewarding as it currently kind of feels like more of a chore than a challenge. Nurse Joy should also have more of a purpose as she is pretty much only needed to get the choice band because you can heal either way. Having her give some type of reward but also being more difficult to save would be a good change as well(Maybe have her leave the Chansey in the forest so she can heal you without returning to the town?).

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When I'll have time, I'll work on those battles ;)
Yes, Weavile is spectacular with that moveset. I wanted to make a difficult game but with an OP starter to give the right weapon to the player.
As I said in previous posts, saving the nurse will imply that any defeat will send you to the pokémon center instead of the game over. So, in some extreme cases she can be really useful! The idea of leaving the chansey in the middle of the forest is really good! It would make the game less tedious when you want a fast heal. I will implement it for sure!

Dontea said:

Currently the difficult part of the game is surviving the world rather than brute forcing like other pokemon games. I like this part of it with the territorials but also enjoy difficult team battles, currently constructing your team isn't that important as even the final battle is fairly easy, especially because you are forced to play on switch rather than set( you should really add an option to play on Set mode).

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Ahaha I imagine that Galvantula didn't use sticky web on you >.< in that case it is a real pain but there is claydol (the only spinner in the game).
I initially implemented the choice of having the whole game on SET (because it was an option that I had for my main project). Together with SET I could change few things like those scripted encounters, in order to have 2 different gameplay experiences (without forcing everyone to suffer ahahah).

Dontea said:

Also it took me quite a long time to realize i could lift that probopass and their was a grammatical/spelling errors in some of the end game dialogue with Celebi.

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Gosh..! Spelling errors? If I send you in private the dialogues, would you help me in correcting few sentences? I would really appreciate that! (english isn't my mother language :\ )

Dontea said:

Overall I really enjoy a high degree of difficulty in my pokemon games, so these changes are ones that I would enjoy the most rather than what might be best for the general audience. Either way good job and best of luck if you make anything in the future I would be happy to test it for you ^^

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Thanks a lot! If you are interested, I will publish the first demo of my main project (Pokémon Desiderium) in 1/2 months ;) It has a more standard gameplay but it is way longer than this short game! Also, it is a little more difficult than this one. I am sure You will appreciate that too :D

i had played this game, and i can say... is great!
i did not finished it, but what i have seen is very cool, but i think territorial pokemon should be scaling levels as strong as your pokemon and the wild would be one or two levels less.

Diego Mertens said:

i had played this game, and i can say... is great!
i did not finished it, but what i have seen is very cool, but i think territorial pokemon should be scaling levels as strong as your pokemon and the wild would be one or two levels less.

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Thanks for the kind words!
I will adjust it in the next patch, together with the great suggestions by Dontea (can't THANK YOU enough for all the help)! I got stuck recently with real life things but I'll remedy soon :D

Quick update!
- Dialogues have been improved (a BIG THANK YOU to Dontea for the awesome work. I added you to the credits <3 )
- Level scaling has been modified a little: wild encounters' level will be on average lower than territorial encounters
- Minor bug fixes

I hope you enjoy the game :) Let me know any comments in case of bugs or problems, Feedback is much appreciated!