Puckamon bug reporting/suggestions/discussion thread

[Newbie Newtype]

3) Why is the palette completely green?

It's the nostalgic palette:

http://www.sodahead.com/entertainment/w ... t-3111729/

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

Check your settings and make sure you're doing it right; I screwed up a lot of tag chains before getting them right.

Hmm... not sure what I was doing wrong before, but I just tried them again and it seems like tag-chains are indeed working now. Instead-chains are, anyway; I didn't try out any others.

That's really weird though, because I'm pretty sure I tried the exact same setup for an attack earlier and it didn't work... but they do work now, at least.

3) Why is the palette completely green?

It's the nostalgic palette:

Heh, yeah, I attempted to make the game look like it was being played on an old Gameboy. The game actually doesn't use a custom palette at all, though--all the colors come from the "green" row of the new default OHRRPGCE palette.

It's really obvious if you use a drain move, since the red color that absorbing moves use isn't customizable yet and I didn't remember to go into the palette and change that one to some sort of green.

2) I like how the game follows in tradition with the original Pokemon games, like jumping over ledges. With that said, I think it could benefit with having a Pokemon style flash and screen fade in, instead of the traditional OHR, fade out to white then battle screen (or at least, flash the screen and play the song before traditional OHR fade). I don't know if you are using anything for your before battle scripts, but I'd recommend doing that because when I first stepped into the grass outside Mallet town, I was half anticipating for the flashy effects.

Hmm... I actually hadn't thought of doing the Pokémon-ish flashing battle intro scene. It's been a while since I've played any of the really old (R/G/B/Y/G/S/C) games, so I can't really remember exactly what the flashes looked like... I guess I could always bring out my old toaster-sized Gameboy and check, though.

At the moment there's only one before-battle script, and it only appears on certain maps. It checks to see how you answered the Laryngitis/Athlete's Foot question and then replaces wild Jigglypuffs with Mr. Mushroom if you picked Athlete's Foot. Probably wouldn't be hard to add in a flashing scene before that one, and have a instead-of-battle script on the other maps just for the flashing.

4) I agree with Surlaw in that the beginning battles are waaaaay too long. I fought a Mr. Pepper for about 6 minutes before it ran away and I got no EXP, which was really frustrating.

Six minutes?? Wow. I know Mr. Pepper's evade and defense are his best stats, but... I hope that's at least a little bit exaggerated... even the gym battles didn't take that long when I tested them out.

But yeah, pretty much everyone has mentioned that enemies have too much HP... so I've gone through and trimmed down the HP for every Puckamon. The max HP amounts are back to what I had them set at originally (half of what they are in the RGC demo) and I also lowered the starting HP amounts a bit.

I've also redone the stats for pretty much everything; mainly focusing on the starting stats, but also lowering the level-99 stats a bit so they don't get too high too fast. In addition to making Pikachu not suck quite as much at the start of the game (now Thundershock usually does more than 1 or 2 damage even without using Annoying Noise first!), this also seems like it's done a pretty good job of balancing out the more overpowered ones (like the evolved Slimes and Walrus/Surlaw.)

5) I like the Frenchmen who sings a variation of Bad Romance. I commend the/effort you put into that scene, cause I enjoyed it!

Heh, I was waiting for someone to mention that scene, since I think it's probably the funniest thing in the game so far. Took forever to get the timing of all the textboxes right, and they're still not exactly perfect, but... probably as close as I'm going to get. It was actually my little sister who came up with most of the words, though (she literally started singing along out of nowhere one day when that song came on the radio, except... the words were all wrong. XD)

[Fortis]

I haven't played yet (I use an intel mac and generally like to reboot into Windows for playing OHR games) but I strongly encourage you to make a Slime Green Version and Castle Grey Version.

EDIT: Also I gotta be honest, and this is a matter of personal taste, but the green palette isn't doing much for me. Maybe it's because I started with a gameboy pocket (straight up grays) and went to a GBC, but I think it'd be pretty interesting if you only used 4 colors and went with similar palettes to the way R/B/Y looked on the super gameboy or gameboy color, ie "white" (very light gray), black, and 2 colors (usually two shades of the same color).

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

I haven't played yet (I use an intel mac and generally like to reboot into Windows for playing OHR games) but I strongly encourage you to make a Slime Green Version and Castle Grey Version.

I wasn't really planning on making multiple versions, though I've already built in something along the lines of the "version exclusives" in the Pokémon games. Depending on how you answer Professor Tree's questions at the beginning, some Puckamon won't show up at all and others will appear in their place.

Funny that your version ideas are Slime King themed, considering that he actually is one of the "version exclusive" Puckamon (he isn't obtainable yet in the current demo, though he is mentioned.)

Also I gotta be honest, and this is a matter of personal taste, but the green palette isn't doing much for me. Maybe it's because I started with a gameboy pocket (straight up grays) and went to a GBC, but I think it'd be pretty interesting if you only used 4 colors and went with similar palettes to the way R/B/Y looked on the super gameboy or gameboy color, ie "white" (very light gray), black, and 2 colors (usually two shades of the same color).

Hmm... it wouldn't be too hard to switch to another 4-color palette (like the Gameboy Pocket gray), and a "semi-colorized" Super Gameboy/GBC look probably wouldn't be too hard to make either (all it'd really take is adding more than one palette, though semi-colorizing the maptiles would take a tiny bit more work.) I'll probably use a GBC-style palette if I ever make a sequel at some point in the future when the limits on heroes and party size are removed.

My first Gameboy was the toaster-sized old green-screen one, though, so of course I'm going to prefer the green just for nostalgic reasons. XD

[Fortis]

Nah, not Slime King themed exactly. "Slime Green" refers to Slime Salad, "Castle Gray" refers to CastleParadox.

That's cool though, I'll watch for the reference when I play it.

[Newbie Newtype]

Steal pretty much most of these palettes (it has a better version of the Classic Gameboy Green palette as well): http://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Game_Boy

It's also possible to plot script a way to define our own custom colors, but the interface programming would be tricky.

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

Nah, not Slime King themed exactly. "Slime Green" refers to Slime Salad, "Castle Gray" refers to CastleParadox.

Ohhhhh... Okay, I see it now. I guess since I've been so inactive on Castle Paradox for so long, I just kinda forgot about it and missed the "versions for each big OHR forum" reference. (in that case, would the special third version be... Walrus Blue, or something like that?)

Steal pretty much most of these palettes (it has a better version of the Classic Gameboy Green palette as well): http://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Game_Boy

Hmm... 3-H is the green toaster Gameboy palette, right? The "kinda yellowish background + two greens and a blackish color" looks closer than any of the others, anyway.

[Newbie Newtype]

Hmm... 3-H is the green toaster Gameboy palette, right?

It is.

[Skullduggery Studios]

Nice game. Could've done without the cusses and suggestive material (MotherPucka-ball?)

LOVED the I AM A FRENCH MAN. Seriously. Hilarious. The Team Sputnik songs were well timed, too. Maybe having someone(s) sing the songs, though?

I didn't run into the problems the others here are stating. I'll agree that parts are too long (e.g. walking and walking and walking through the sewers...) but battles didn't take that long.

The 'your opponent seems to be getting weak!' thing sounds great. I was quite confused for a while as to why they died but were still there...

Two suggestions: First, how about giving the players some hint as to which puckamon are good vs. other puckamon. For instance, I'm in Anvil City right now, and have no clue what's good vs. gross type.

Second, how about adding more pit stops in between? For the Fnrrf temple, I was constantly running back to the last town for the Pucka building. It got quite tiring after a while...

Oh, yeah. I found one of the Mother Puckaballs. Where do I find others? Can I buy them somewhere?

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

Whoops! Just noticed I left some questions unanswered on here since I haven't checked this thread in so long...

LOVED the I AM A FRENCH MAN. Seriously. Hilarious. The Team Sputnik songs were well timed, too. Maybe having someone(s) sing the songs, though?

If you're suggesting actually recording someone singing the "I am a French man" song and the Team Sputnik mottos, then putting it in as a sound file in the game, well... that would probably inflate the filesize way past the point where I'd be able to upload it (or other people with dialup would be able to download it.) Especially since the French man song is so long, and there's multiple versions of the Sputnik motto (they change it every time they appear.)

Having voice acting in-game would be kind of out of place in this game, anyway, with the Game Boy-ish style of it.

However, I did have something along those lines planned at one point. Not the French Man song or the Team Sputnik motto, but something else entirely. The song itself has already been recorded, though right now I'm not sure when (or if) it will actually make it into the game (probably not until the final version, if I do decide to put it in.)

Two suggestions: First, how about giving the players some hint as to which puckamon are good vs. other puckamon. For instance, I'm in Anvil City right now, and have no clue what's good vs. gross type.

Puckamon types don't work exactly like Pokémon types, so there's not always going to be one particular type that's always good against a certain type of Puckamon.

That said, the next version of the game will have "advice guys" at the start of the gyms that give some hints as to what most of the gym's Puckamon are weak against. Gross-types are usually weak against Fire, by the way (except for the Bad Butts, which are weak against Water instead.) Of course, hardly anything learns fire moves this early in the game, so that probably doesn't help much (I think Walrus's Fireball might be the only fire attack you can get at this point.)

Second, how about adding more pit stops in between? For the Fnrrf temple, I was constantly running back to the last town for the Pucka building. It got quite tiring after a while...

Fnrrf Temple is completely optional. If you're having a lot of trouble with it, just go somewhere else for a while and come back later.

Also, there's really not anywhere to put an extra rest stop in that area, since Fnrrf Temple is already really close to Ballpeen City (it's part of the way down the route between Ballpeen and Gavel Town.)

Oh, yeah. I found one of the Mother Puckaballs. Where do I find others? Can I buy them somewhere?

Bad Mutha Puckaballs are really rare at this point in the game, since they're very likely to catch pretty much anything you can find (and they even ignore the "must weaken before catching" aspect of certain Puckamon.) You'll find more throughout the game, and you will be able to buy them eventually... but not until VERY late in the game.

Also, you need Bad Mutha Puckaballs to catch certain Puckamon (so far, only Yo Ghosts are like this, but there will be a couple more later), so you probably shouldn't waste them on easier-to-catch critters. Especially since most Puckamon don't need to be weakened before you can catch them; it's pretty much only the "boss/special" Puckamon (some fought in NPC form, others randomly; you can tell when you've found one because they have different battle music) and random encounters in dangerous areas (like the Swastikave) that need to be weakened first.

====

Also, since I've recently started doing some more work on Puckamon (mostly updating attacks/weaknesses/etc. to use the new nightly's elemental system), here's a few new screenshots.

Remember that scientist in Anvil City's Mad Scientist Lab who said he could send people into the Internet with his computer? Well, in the next update, you'll finally be able to use it, traveling into the depths of the Internet... where you can catch horrible Puckamon, like this one:



And also run into horrible people, like this one:



And eventually, after exploring a bit, you may be able to come out of the Internet on the other side.

What's on the other side? A new town that you can't reach in any other way, which is... a little strange. No screenshots yet, since I still haven't finished the Internet map itself, but there'll be plenty of stuff to do there; a Puckamon Gym (of course), a new dungeon (with another rare Puckamon at the end), lots of creepy-Internet-people NPCs running around, and some new TMs that you can't get in other places.

Of course, that's not all that will be in the next version of the game. Expect to see at least one more town (possibly two), a few more routes, a couple more caves, and a few more encounters with Team Sputnik (including what will most likely be the final encounter with them, when you infiltrate their base.)

Not sure when this will all be done, but it's probably safe to say that it'll happen sometime in 2011, since Puckamon generally has been easier to work on (and much less time-consuming) than my other games.

[mjohnson092088]

Hmm... it wouldn't be too hard to switch to another 4-color palette (like the Gameboy Pocket gray), and a "semi-colorized" Super Gameboy/GBC look probably wouldn't be too hard to make either (all it'd really take is adding more than one palette, though semi-colorizing the maptiles would take a tiny bit more work.) I'll probably use a GBC-style palette if I ever make a sequel at some point in the future when the limits on heroes and party size are removed.

you mean GBC pallettes? for anyone who didn't know this; if you held down a direction on the direction pad and pressed either A or B on the Gameboy splash screen when you play a Gameboy game on a Gameboy Color, you can change the pallette used in the game. it would be awesome if you could mimic that. when i felt like punishing my eyes, i'd play games with the inverted color pallette.

Heh, I was waiting for someone to mention that scene, since I think it's probably the funniest thing in the game so far.

thank you for that.

[Shizuma]

I think the green is a bit too green, the Gameboy screen is much lower saturation and it is a bit more yellow. Experiment a little?

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

GBC pallettes?

That's what I was talking about when I mentioned the "semi-colorized" GBC/Super Game Boy palettes, yeah. Not sure how I'd go about putting the palette-switching part in the game, though considering that it is basically a Pokémon game it would probably make the most sense to have the palette switch depending on what route/city/etc. you're in at the moment.

When I mentioned using a GBC-style palette for the sequel (if there is a sequel), though, I meant a GBC palette as seen in the fully-colorized GBC games (like what Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal uses), not the multiple palettes used in regular Gameboy games played on a GBC.

I think the green is a bit too green, the Gameboy screen is much lower saturation and it is a bit more yellow. Experiment a little?

Yeah, the current colors are just the default OHR palette's greens, since the game was a RGC contest entry originally and I didn't have much time to fiddle around with the palette.

I probably should change it sometime, though. Partly to get it looking even more Gameboy-like, but also to get rid of the problem where damage numbers still use the top-row OHR palette colors rather than shades of green.

Redoing the palette will be kind of a pain in the slime, though, since my monitor is really bad (I should probably get a new one pretty soon) and everything shows up too dark and too blue, no matter what I set the brightness/contrast/color settings to. Even if I got the colors looking identical to a Gameboy on my screen, they'd probably still look off on a monitor that works right.

[Newbie Newtype]

Just alter (including the UI colors) and plotscript change the master palette every time you need to.

[Shizuma]

If your monitor is weird just use a gameboy palette somebody else used, such as: http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=39789.0 , that one looks pretty accurate.