pokemonroll-game

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Beta Testing Info

Expected Beta Date: Jan or Feb 2017

We plan on doing betas with a few levels and items to test, rotating them each build. What we would expect our beta testers to do is to answer a few questions about each build, and report any bugs they find. This will all be done through Google Docs, with there being a universal bug spreadsheet and each player copying the questionnaire and answering the questions in their own document. So if you're interested in being a beta tester, make sure you have a working Google account.

To reiterate the rewards you will get as a beta tester:

Reserve a specific username (we'll create it before release and send you the credentials so you can change your password)

Earn a unique player title that won't be available elsewhere

Earn some starting cash and items to help you in the final release

Earn some gold stars (a special currency used to unlock more game content like levels and items)

Some of the rewards might stack for those that test multiple builds, and we're planning an extra special reward for those who give good feedback on all of the builds.

If you're interested, feel free to reply or send me a message with your info

~ G.

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DWMY Update #6 and Beta Testing Info

Completed Stuff:

Work on Pokemon Roll had been halted for a little while, but we recently started working on it again, so hopefully there’s a lot of good new in this update!

Shiny sprites for Kanto made it in the build. Shiny Pokemon are pretty similar to those in the official games (being rather rare), but in Pokemon Roll they are worth SIGNIFICANTLY more points than their non-shiny counterparts. So capture a shiny to boost your score on a level!

A profile screen was also recently added. The profile screen is what will be publicly displayed to your friends and other Pokemon Roll users (if you made an account that is). There are several things you can customize to make your profile stand out:

1. Change what Pokeball - pick from one of the many Pokeball types in the game to show off your style

2. Change your player title - player titles are special distinctions earned by completing objectives

3. Show off your best catches - choose 6 of the best Pokemon you’ve caught and show them off Hall of Fame style!

4. Collect gold stars - Earn stars by completing objectives and participating in ingame events

This may have been mentioned before, but work on the Level Select Screen has also progressed. It’s currently being tweaked (so no video/gif right now), but I personally think the screen is very pleasing to use. In addition, a screen to change your loadout before you start the level was also added.

Our game play programmer has also started to work on our player movement. We’re taking extra special care to make sure the movement is very fluid and easy to control!

New Item:

Today I’d like to reveal a different type of item, one of the Pokeball types in the game, the Luxury Ball!

When you play a level with the Luxury Ball, you earn more points per capture! Use this ball to help you get 10 stars on levels and reach the top of the leaderboards!

Gripes:

Some of our screens are having issues involving low frame rates. Current theory is that the game is trying to animate 100+ Pokemon at a time (which would reasonably lower the frame rate), but we haven’t confirmed this yet. Hopefully there are some optimizations we can do to keep our game running smoothly on all modern machines.

Beta Testing Information:

Instead of the question, I’d like to share some info about the Pokemon Roll beta, and how testing is going to go down.

Originally, Pokemon Roll was not going to have a beta. Between the database functionality and the huge amount of unlocks, it didn’t seem possible to do a beta test without completing most of the game. But now, we think we’ve come up with a model that should let you guys test the game, without spoiling all of the hidden content or screwing up the database.

Pokemon Roll will be releasing multiple betas, each with several items and levels to test. The next builds will contain different items and levels, so this way we don’t have to worry about storing player progress (and mucking up the database) but can still give players the chance to test drive different parts of the game. There will be more info on exactly how we plan on doing testing in a post sometime next week.

We also plan on giving beta testers special in-game rewards once the game is completed, which may include a unique player title, some gold stars, and a starter pack with some points/money and items. We also plan on letting beta testers reserve usernames, so this could be a great opportunity to snag the name you want!

The earliest a beta build may be ready is next month, but if you’re interested please feel free to send me a message, email, or reply.

Cheers, 

G

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DWMY Update #5

Completed Stuff:

Pokemon sprites are back in the game, animated and all! I also implemented a scaling feature that scales the sprites to approximately realistic sizes. Some huge Pokemon (like Onix) obviously can’t be as big as they really are, but at least they’ll be bigger than say a Paras :P

To celebrate these sprites making it in, I updated the title screen! Take a look at it below: 

New Item:

The items I’d like to reveal today are the Shards!

The colored shards have had various uses throughout Pokemon history, but in Pokemon Roll they serve an entirely different purpose! You’ll encounter fossils as you play Pokemon Roll, and you’ll need to revive these fossils in order to catch the Pokemon trapped inside. Each fossil takes a certain color and number of shards to revive, so make sure to look for them in levels if you’re looking to bring back some prehistoric Pokemon!

Gripes:

As of now, none. Give me a few days. I’ll find something.

Question:

Do you like older games that have tons of hidden content?

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DWMY Update #4

Completed Stuff:

The Pokedex screen loads all basic info of the Pokemon, including an awesome curved scroll list! All of the level metadata for Kanto has been added to the game, complete with unlock conditions. I also started working on one of the secret features of the game. All I’ll say is that it unlocks after you play 100 levels!

New Item:

The item I’d like to reveal today is the Air Balloon!

The Air Balloon is a nifty item that make you float upwards for a few seconds! Useful for reaching secret areas without jumping or platforming. Be careful though, as Pokemon attacks will pop it.

Gripes:

The Pokemon sprites had to be removed. They were too small by default, so I attempted to size them up using the same method as the item sprites. They didn’t work for some reason, so I had to cut them for now. They’ll obviously be back since they’re kinda essential, but this whole ordeal is reminding me why I chose programming over art :P

Question:

If a game dev asks the community a question, and no one is there to answer it, does the design choice really matter?

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DWMY Update #3

Completed Stuff:

All of the previous menus (Title, Options, Credits, Tutorial) now all use mouse controls! In addition, I also formatted all of the Gen 1 Pokemon sprites into sprite sheets ( I had animated gifs from BW2), and added all of the metadata for those Pokemon! It’s not quite enough to implement combat yet (still need Pokemon stats and movesets), but it is enough to implement the Pokedex screen :) Oh, and we’ve decided on how to represent evolution behind the scenes, so that’s no longer a worry.

New Item:

The item I’d like to reveal today is the Cleanse Tag!

The Cleanse Tag is a bit more important in Pokemon Roll than in the standard Pokemon games. “Cursed” is a nasty status effect that some Pokemon can inflict on you that lowers your capture rate! This is one of the status effects that doesn’t clear up on its own, so stock up on Cleanse Tags so you can fix the problem right away!

Gripes:

Converting those gifs to sprite sheets took a LONG time, and honestly, a lot of the animations weren’t quite what I expected. Some Pokemon that fly, swim, or hop will be easy to animate, but a lot of the other ground Pokemon don’t have much to work with frame-wise. So, Pokemon animations are on the backburner. Our builds will start with static, non-animated Pokemon sprites, and we’ll animate them one at a time as we go.

Question:

Do you think Pokemon Roll should stick strictly to official items, or should it have some unique items of its own?

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Here’s a screen of the loadout menu, where you can change what items to take with you into a level!

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Here’s the shop screen! I’m not going to make a gif since I don’t want you guys seeing all of the end-game content :P

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DWMY Update #2

Hello! It’s about time for another progress update!

Completed Stuff:

After some recent discussion the dev team decided to change the menus to use mouse controls instead of the keyboard, and it’s panning out really well! The shop and inventory screens are now fully functional! Expect some screenshots or gifs of them soon.

Next on the list is updating the previous menus to use mouse controls.

New Item:

The item I’d like to reveal today is the Float Stone!

The Float Stone is an item that temporarily boosts your jump height. While we haven’t gotten around to designing levels yet, I’m looking forward to putting some areas that can only be reached using the float stone, or at least some shortcuts to reach the stronger Pokes faster!

Gripes:

We still haven’t quite hammered out Pokemon evolution, but we’ve had a few solid ideas about it (one of which shows some good promise). Development is going rather smoothly since we transitioned to mouse controls for the menus, so I guess my only gripe now is how few people know about the game! I’d love to get some interest in it so we can be excited for a demo release :)

Question:

What is your favorite platforming game? Does it have any unique features that you liked?

[pokemonroll-game]

The Daily-Weekly-Monthly-Yearly Update

Being a new game, we don’t really have much of a following. Now that could be attributed to the fact that we can’t really do marketing for an IP that isn’t our’s, but all the same we’d like to push out blog updates every so often so people can know where we’re at. Since we don’t have a following (and thus no gauge of popularity) we can’t really decide how frequent these updates should be, so now we have Daily-Weekly-Monthly-Yearly updates :P

During each of these updates I’d like to cover a few things:

1. Discuss the major features and milestones that have been added since the last update.

2. Reveal a new item in the game, and describe how it works.

3. Bring up any glaring issues we’re facing that might be slowing us down.

4. Pose a question for our fanbase to hopefully one day answer.

So let’s begin!

Completed Stuff:

A portion of our options screen has been added, so you can now change basic settings like volume and date/time formats. The options screen also has a Feedback section that will let people send feedback directly in-game! The Tutorial menu is also done, although it hasn’t been hooked up to any actual tutorials yet. But, once it has, we can release our first demo! It will be very bare bones with nothing but some tutorials on how to play, but it’s better than nothing!

New Item:

The item I’d like to reveal today is the Amulet Coin!

Since points are synonymous with money in this game, the Amulet Coin awards you more points whenever it’s used! It lasts for a little while before you need to use another one, but on the bright side you can carry around 10 of them into a level with you!

Gripes:

We have a few issues ahead of us, but currently what’s perplexing us is Pokemon evolution. There are so many different ways for Pokemon to evolve, and representing that behind the scenes is proving challenging (since all of the evolutions have to be pre-programmed into the game). Hopefully we’ll find a method that’s as easy for the game to use as it is for us to understand and code.

Question:

What is your favorite web browser to use, and have you ever played a WebGL game in it before?

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It may look simple, but creating menus like this are difficult since I have to use math to position and size the buttons. Keyboard controls are also much harder than mouse controls!

- G

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Work is continuing on the menus! The Options and Tutorial menus are being fleshed out, and work on the Shop Screen is starting next. Considering we’re also starting to add metadata for items and Pokemon, we’re on our way to getting a playable demo!

- G

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The Icons at the bottom of the title menu are all created by your’s truly

- G

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Currently Implementing Menus!

Right now I’m hard at work giving Pokemon Roll some awesome, clean menus! I’m even stepping outside of my element by doing some art for the animated icons at the bottom of the screen, but I think they’re turning out rather well. Maybe I’ll post some gifs later :)

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And here is an unfinished prototype of the title menu!

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Why No Demo?

The dev team is open to answering user submitted questions either on here, or on PokeCommunity, but since we’re still starting out I’ll answer one of the questions I imagine some people will want to know.

Why is there no demo and when can I expect one?

When developing games, most teams will use a type of development called Agile Development, which is different from regular straightforward development. Agile Development works like this:

Work -> Release -> Revise -> Release -> Revise ...

So you as the players get new, more-polished releases over time, and the dev team had less bugs since they’re releasing constantly and only adding features a little at a time.

Pokemon Roll is being developed using Agile, but unfortunately we can’t release to the public at each iteration. This is because of the type of unlock system we are using. As you may or may not know, Pokemon Roll is going to have A LOT of unlockable content to keep you playing, and some of these unlocks are based on completion percentage. For example, there may be a reward for “Complete all levels”, and if we released the game before it was finished you would either be stuck, unable to complete that task, or you would complete it, get the reward, and then we would add more levels. Now we’re stuck on whether to revoke the reward or not :/

TLDR: we’re going to see what we can do from a design perspective to get a build in player’s hands BEFORE the game is finished, but we can’t make any promises due to our system for unlocking content.

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Starting a Dev Blog

Hello potential fans! You’ve stumbled on a blog run by a small team making a Pokemon fan-game called Pokemon Roll. Pokemon Roll is a platformer that plays much like Sonic the Hedgehog, but set in the Pokemon Universe! Roll around famous locales from the Pokemon world and capture all kinds of Pokemon!

Pokemon Roll is being made in Unity2D for the WebGL platform, so it will be a browser-based game!

Feel free to interact and ask questions!

Cheers,

G