[Completed] GPS Monster Scouter [Android] - with Pokémon data pack

App updated to 0.9.8:

Now you can gain coins while traveling, and you can set a base at your house or where you stay more often.
You'll be able to spend the coins at the shop inside your base, but the shop isn't enabled yet.
To access the options regarding bases, hold pressed the exploration area while gps is connected.
Also updated permissions handling for android 6.

In the previous update was added the possibility to add more boxes to store monsters, and to switch the content of the two columns in the 'team' screen.
To access these options, hold pressed the name of the column (eg. 'Team' or 'Reserves').

Hi again! So, ive been playing this for awhile now and am simply loving it. The exploration aspect gives me a reason to go outside again. lol. But I have some questions.
Does the lvl of a pokemon determine an outcome of a battle? My lvl 10 slugma lost to a lvl 3 froakie. I know fire is week to water, but a lvl 10 fire should defeat a lvl 3 water.
And does satisfaction increase? I just want shinx and fletchling to like me. LOL.
And do pokeballs respawn? It seems that when I pick one up, that's it, never to had again. And I live in the suburbs, so I just cant walk though peoples yards or randomly through the woods in the metro parks.

Cold63 said:

Hi again! So, ive been playing this for awhile now and am simply loving it. The exploration aspect gives me a reason to go outside again. lol. But I have some questions.
Does the lvl of a pokemon determine an outcome of a battle? My lvl 10 slugma lost to a lvl 3 froakie. I know fire is week to water, but a lvl 10 fire should defeat a lvl 3 water.
And does satisfaction increase? I just want shinx and fletchling to like me. LOL.
And do pokeballs respawn? It seems that when I pick one up, that's it, never to had again. And I live in the suburbs, so I just cant walk though peoples yards or randomly through the woods in the metro parks.

Click to expand...

Very happy to see people liking it!
The exploration is not even at its best now: the app is collecting some data on the places you explore that's not displayed yet, so I hope you'll like it even more when that part is completed.

Slugma is, sadly, very weak. Outcome in battle is determined by level, type matching and species power, so weak pokémon (like a Caterpie) are difficult to train at first, and you need to find the right opponents to have them gain some levels. It's not like this because I hate slugma or caterpie :D game freaks made them weak in the first place and I simply adapted to it.

Satisfaction increases in most cases by using the pokemon in battle and winning with it, but that depends on personality. Pokeballs should respawn in new locations every day at midnight, and will soon be available in a in-game shop, so even if you don't find them in the streets you can just buy them with the in-game coins you gain by walking.

Hope this satisfies you, I'm open to suggestions otherwise, and thanks, comments like this are a joy for me.

Updated to 0.9.8.1

I already said that with a long click on the exploration area - with gps connected - you can set up a base where you are.
Another long click while you are at your base, and you can access the shop, which is now available.
Pokeballs and evolutionary items can be purchased by spending coins, coins that you obtain by travelling, doesn't matter how and how fast.
There is not a limit on how many coins you can get daily, like on 3ds, however, they become progressively difficult to gain (until the coin system resets at midnight).
Evolutionary items are also reset and changed everyday, so check often.

Another important change: the region view is not entirely visible from the start anymore. It'll color itself while exploring, and will make it clearer your surroundings, your usual paths and what's left to visit.
Your past travels are already registered - it just wasn't shown yet.

I am Brazilian and I thank infinitely to do only based on GPS, allow me to play without using the poor mobile network of my country. I wanted about the size of the areas of a specific pokemon, in my university in the whole of computer sector you only can find abras, is a huge space... would not be possible at least 2 types of pokemon per quadrant? (But I know that car is possible to go through sooooo many areas in a short time , my question is really about what to do stopped at a fixed point and how the game can hold a player there).

Vraga said:

I am Brazilian and I thank infinitely to do only based on GPS, allow me to play without using the poor mobile network of my country. I wanted about the size of the areas of a specific pokemon, in my university in the whole of computer sector you only can find abras, is a huge space... would not be possible at least 2 types of pokemon per quadrant? (But I know that car is possible to go through sooooo many areas in a short time , my question is really about what to do stopped at a fixed point and how the game can hold a player there).

Click to expand...

I'm happy that someone finds it useful that internet connection is not used, I thought I was the only one, haha.

That can be an idea I could go through in the future, I have plans for improving the habitat system and adding a little bit of biodiversity in them could be nice.
The basic idea however is that the game should be similar to a real adventure in how much effort is needed to gain something, so to not break the balance, I think it's required that to find more species one necessarily has to travel and explore new areas.
Anyway as the app improves I'll try to add some bonding activities that can be done while staying in the same place, with the possibility to disconnect gps and save battery, and of course also multiplayer battles and trades.

Thanks for the feedback!

We found a rare bug causing an infinite loading white page when opening the shop as of today and tomorrow (yes just these two days).
I'll put up a fix so don't open the shop until then, sorry for the trouble caused.

Edit:
The fix is online.

This game looks amazing! If only I had an Android!

The updates look promising as well!
I'm trying to make an iPhone app that's an egg hatcher pedometer in essence,
but it looks like you'll have that too soon :) ! Best of luck!

I've been using this app for about a week (didn't post because i didn't have an account here), and this app is really fun! I love the concept of making battles as simple as possible.

I'm keeping an eye on the pokémon go community, and they're often talking about how much the game drains battery (1-2 hours at very best) and what power bank could they buy.
I think the devs did some poor choices, considering the essence of the game. It uses precise gps tracking, internet connection, advanced 3D graphics and the camera for augmented reality. Yeah it looks cool, but I'd rather have nice 2D graphics and way more play time, for example. Power banks are okay, but they will get dry anyway when you're on a trip and you stay outside all day.
Constant gps tracking can suck energy like crazy alone, that's why I was against adding more than that. The more the app can be played outside, the better!

Impo said:

This game looks amazing! If only I had an Android!

The updates look promising as well!
I'm trying to make an iPhone app that's an egg hatcher pedometer in essence,
but it looks like you'll have that too soon :) ! Best of luck!

Click to expand...

Hey that's interesting, I'll get to that too but I'm sure they can be really different experiences, an egg hatching app would be awesome. Thanks and I hope to play yours when I get an iphone!

Jolt_ said:

I've been using this app for about a week (didn't post because i didn't have an account here), and this app is really fun! I love the concept of making battles as simple as possible.

Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks! I'd like to add a bit more depth to gym leaders and (future) other players battles, still following the 'greater value wins' concept but having a couple dynamic choices in the process. That was the idea from the start but I went with a simpler version first.

Have you considered posting this to the PokemonGo subreddit yet? That's where I found your app, albeit only in a comment that didn't get too much visibility, and I'm sure many of them would love playing this at least in the interim until Go's release.

Jolt_ said:

Have you considered posting this to the PokemonGo subreddit yet? That's where I found your app, albeit only in a comment that didn't get too much visibility, and I'm sure many of them would love playing this at least in the interim until Go's release.

Click to expand...

Yes but they blocked my attempt. Anyway I decided to make some other changes to the game before searching for more players, so I'll try again as soon as I'm ready.

Hi Tankenka

You messaged me on reddit to tell me about your project. I've been playing it over the last few weeks and have been really enjoying it. I was lucky enough to travel to France from Scotland over the last week which really allowed me to have some fun catching and battling lots of different Pokemon. I was even able to evolve my Magby into Magmar. It felt really cool to travel with my team in real time.

Here is some further feedback which I hope you find useful;

Things I enjoy:

• The large variety of Pokemon overall
• The dialogue of the Pokemon interactions and feelings
• How you catch a Pokemon by fainting it - this makes so much more sense than having to lower its HP
• Finding items by travelling
• The simplicity of the menus
• The limited number of Pokeballs

Things I would like to see implemented/improved:

• More variety of Pokemon in one area
• Develop the Pokemon interactions and feelings to have some sort of impact on their battle performance. Make it so you can use items to influence their feelings and bond with them. I'd like to see a system where the closer your bond is with your Pokemon, the harder it will fight for you in battle.
• More variety and quantity of items
• It can be pretty boring waiting for your Pokemon to be ready to battle. There needs to be more for the player to do during this time. I think having more items that have different properties would be a way to do this.
• More complex battle mechanics, similar to the main series games if possible. I realise this is a lot of work but I think it would improve the play-ability of the game tenfold.

Thank you again for creating such a fun app, as a Pokemon fan who has been waiting on this type of game for a long time I really appreciate your hard work on this fantastic project and wish you all the luck in the future development.

Broleta said:

Hi Tankenka

You messaged me on reddit to tell me about your project. I've been playing it over the last few weeks and have been really enjoying it. I was lucky enough to travel to France from Scotland over the last week which really allowed me to have some fun catching and battling lots of different Pokemon. I was even able to evolve my Magby into Magmar. It felt really cool to travel with my team in real time.

Here is some further feedback which I hope you find useful;

Things I enjoy:

• The large variety of Pokemon overall
• The dialogue of the Pokemon interactions and feelings
• How you catch a Pokemon by fainting it - this makes so much more sense than having to lower its HP
• Finding items by travelling
• The simplicity of the menus
• The limited number of Pokeballs

Things I would like to see implemented/improved:

• More variety of Pokemon in one area
• Develop the Pokemon interactions and feelings to have some sort of impact on their battle performance. Make it so you can use items to influence their feelings and bond with them. I'd like to see a system where the closer your bond is with your Pokemon, the harder it will fight for you in battle.
• More variety and quantity of items
• It can be pretty boring waiting for your Pokemon to be ready to battle. There needs to be more for the player to do during this time. I think having more items that have different properties would be a way to do this.
• More complex battle mechanics, similar to the main series games if possible. I realise this is a lot of work but I think it would improve the play-ability of the game tenfold.

Thank you again for creating such a fun app, as a Pokemon fan who has been waiting on this type of game for a long time I really appreciate your hard work on this fantastic project and wish you all the luck in the future development.

Click to expand...

It's awesome to hear your detailed experience, it's a great motivation for me, and I can observe lots of useful information from it alone. I wish I could hear it from everyone, thanks!

Your suggestions were very useful and gave me more ideas for the secondary activities to be done while not traveling that I was trying to come up with. Also some vague improvements for battles I need to define more, to make them more dynamic and fun.


Improvements and updates have stopped in these past days because I was busy, but they'll start coming out again later this week, thanks everyone for your support!

This looks like a great idea! I just signed up for the beta testing, so I don't have access to the app yet, but I'll be sure to give you feedback once I can actually play it :)

Update:
I installed it, by for some reason the game is stuck on (Searching GPS Signal...) It's been about 10 minutes and nothing has happened yet :( It's not frozen, because when I turned GPS off the game reacted, but so far it can't seem to find a GPS signal.

CDB said:

This looks like a great idea! I just signed up for the beta testing, so I don't have access to the app yet, but I'll be sure to give you feedback once I can actually play it :)

Update:
I installed it, by for some reason the game is stuck on (Searching GPS Signal...) It's been about 10 minutes and nothing has happened yet :( It's not frozen, because when I turned GPS off the game reacted, but so far it can't seem to find a GPS signal.

Click to expand...

Thanks! You're using it at home? Precise gps tracking is weak inside buildings, try it outside ;)

I downloaded the monster pack (not the music), t crashed whenever I launch it. Do I need the music?

Edit: The archive is corrupt. I now have all packs but the data pack is corrupt.

I am usually rom hacking forums. how do you use this? I have a Android tablet, so could I make the size of the routes smaller to only fit in my room?

trenhoj said:

I downloaded the monster pack (not the music), t crashed whenever I launch it. Do I need the music?

Edit: The archive is corrupt. I now have all packs but the data pack is corrupt.

Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for reporting it. It seems there was a bug in a library and just for some devices. I'll try fixing it the way they said but I'm unable to test it properly, please check again after the next update!

TheHunterManX said:

I am usually rom hacking forums. how do you use this? I have a Android tablet, so could I make the size of the routes smaller to only fit in my room?

Click to expand...

Nope sorry, the game is designed around global gps tracking.

Apparently the last introduced functionality disturbed the efficiency of gps tracking, so I have now disabled it until I find a fix.

The next update that should restore the GPS tracking as it was should be up very soon.