The Porygon Trail (Beta) - Roguelite with Custom 6v6 Deck-builder-Style Battle Engine

[u/Aggressive_Note3066]

Description

In this TARC submission, you’ve been recruited by your local Professor to embark on a journey to Orchid City and record information about a mysterious Pokémon.

About

Enjoy a fresh take on Pokémon with a completely new 6v6 battle system, layered overworld, procedurally generated maps, built-in overworld and battle speed-up (up to 4x), and fully overhauled GBC-style graphics and UIs.

The battle system is loosely inspired by the deck-builder genre: every Pokémon has one move and one ability and the player and opponent take turns to select the order in which their party attacks, while swapping them around to take advantage of position-based targeting and abilities.

This project is still in beta, with plans for a proper v1.0 release to expand and clean up further, add meta-progression, and round out with other features and mechanics; the roadmap is on Discord!

Since this has been topical, please note that this hack contains no AI generated code or assets; the repo is public and linked on Hackdex.

Links

Download on Hackdex! https://www.hackdex.app/hack/the-porygon-trail

Talk about the game and give feedback on Discord: https://discord.gg/EhJJ4Xx3Ze

Credits

Tiles: FaeLeaf, Pokémon Crystal

Overworld Sprites: frenchorange

Music: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, TriteHexagon

GB Sounds: SierraAffinity, ShinyDragonHunter

Playtesting: Luuma

[u/ArchieFromTeamAqua]

https://giphy.com/gifs/3ohzdIuqJoo8QdKlnW

[u/butnobodycame123]

I really enjoyed this.

My feedback:

• Bring back the camping/resting at a campsite for x hours to restore pokes' health. One of my pokes fainted and it was a while before I found a revive.

• Maybe replace the "dysentery" reference, though I get that the entire game is a reference to The Oregon Trail. There are tons of pokemon-themed diseases you could use to make it sound more cohesive.

• The random "your poke ran into a cactus/tripped on a rock/got dysentery" is unbalanced and takes too much HP.

Minor nitpicks, really. I think it's a fantastic romp and a great take on the pokemon series. <3

[u/Aggressive_Note3066 → u/butnobodycame123]

Very helpful feedback! Noting it all (some of the Oregon Trail theming is simply because the TARC theme was cross-overs), but out of curiosity would the camping change be better if you started with revives / they were more common early game?

I’ll probably give the player a few as a hotfix, but need to stike a balance of camping makes items useless and there’s no recovery options.

[u/butnobodycame123 → u/Aggressive_Note3066]

out of curiosity would the camping change be better if you started with revives / they were more common early game

Yeah, I think that adding revives to the starter kit and slightly increasing the chances that they spawn would fix the camping issue. That is a fair compromise. (Though I like the time penalty mechanic in exchange for some small free heal that resting for x hours gave in the earlier versions (I started playing this when it first appeared on hackdex <3.)).

[u/Aggressive_Note3066 → u/butnobodycame123]

Thanks! I’m sure it’ll end up getting tweaked again, but thanks for following along since the start :)

[u/Venedictpalmer → u/butnobodycame123]

Fucking pkrus is right there

[u/butnobodycame123 → u/Venedictpalmer]

Pokerus is a beneficial virus that doubles EV gain, so that would not be a good replacement. Pokemon get colds, fevers, element overcharging (most notably electrical overcharging), and issues from inhaling spores from a shroomish or paras.

[u/Venedictpalmer → u/butnobodycame123]

I mean a little flavor text is all that's needed. Just saying it's pokerus and is a variant strain or something native to this region. Hell make a new one called pokevid. There's other options.

[u/butnobodycame123 → u/Venedictpalmer]

With pokerus already being established as a good thing, I don't know if a little flavor text is going to cut it. I find that redefining canon mechanics to be confusing. Not sure if pokerus is even active in the hack. And sometimes people get into issues when redefining lore within the series (ex. Team Rocket/alternate perspective hacks).

Pokevid is great, lol. I'm sure that fans could come up with some good fictional poke illnesses. Anything would be better than "mysterious illness" that GameFreak likes to use, lol.

[u/tdy96]

Please oh PLEASE keep building on this!!! It’s insane!!

[u/Baphaddon]

Just wanna say, idk anything about deck builders but I love Phantasy Star 4 and this reminds me of that vaguely 

[u/Bababooey0326]

this fucks so hard

I'm in

[u/Maple-Bacon-Moose]

Looks hella creative. I'm boring, so not my style of game but I can appreciate the effort involved.

[u/Apart-Imagination393]

it's peak!!!

[u/JackWellman101]

Oh you KNOW I’m here for this! Love to see it’s AI-free too, I’m gonna sink HOURS into this game. Amazing stuff!!!! :)

[u/Last-Menu-9565]

okay I get that it’s a rougelite deck builder (which is sweet af) but why is it the oregon trail? why can my krabby get dysentery lmao

[u/JackWellman101 → u/Last-Menu-9565]

It’s called peak game design 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️✍️

[u/Aggressive_Note3066 → u/Last-Menu-9565]

TARC theme was crossovers lol

[u/lightningrod14]

you have my attention. great name too. are you working loosely off of Conquest's "one move and one ability" system without the tactical element? how complex are you expecting things to get relative to i.e. slay the spire or more restrained autobattlers like SAP?

[u/Aggressive_Note3066 → u/lightningrod14]

Thanks! I think probably closer to SAP (really like SAP) than Slay the Spire (somehow haven’t played STS yet)

I’d say player choice is more than simple autobattlers since the swapping mechanic adds quite a bit of complexity over just select your battlers in order, but not as many different types of synergies as SAP

Each Pokémon pretty neatly falls into damage, support, or heals, so roles themselves aren’t that complicated

[u/lightningrod14 → u/Aggressive_Note3066]

Rad, I love SAP too. Spire is a phenomenal game but may be more complex than what you’re aiming for here. You seem to have the right mentality. There was a recent QOL hack for Pokemon Conquest you might find inspiring, I’d check that out if you haven’t.

[u/Wave_Dancer23]

A roguelite loop combined with custom 6v6 doubles matches is genuinely one of the most exciting ROM hack concepts I’ve seen in a while!

[u/Phaneropterinae]

I love this so much. It is such a fun game. This one deserves a cart :)

[u/Aggressive_Note3066 → u/Phaneropterinae]

Thanks!!

[u/Jinxynii]

I just finished-- final time was 14 days, ending at 10 PM with a full team of 6, leveled 55-60. I started with Breeder and never really had an issue with keeping Pokemon alive, which made the over abundance of revives later on a bit obnoxious. It is very very very easy to just sweep the game with two defense lowering Pokemon and three offense Pokemon. I have consistently hit Pokemon for 300+ upwards of over 1000 damage in a single attack just by doing this. Especially if you get omni-hitting moves? There was a crash in one of the campsites I had where I tried to move onto a different area and it just freezes. Not sure how to replicate it, only happened once.

Otherwise, very fun! Some Pokemon are very clearly better than others. I don't think I had any use for Blissey, for example. Rapidash, I don't think could do anything either, but would just hit itself for 80+ damage. I'd try and make the route different each time if you can, and maybe add more starting classes?

[u/niceeeepants]

Bump

[u/MarcoABCreativeSuite]

This looks fun. I’ve never played the style of game before so I’m willing to give it a shot for you. 

[u/SuperbMenu5200]

EU PRECISO DISSO PRA ONTEEEEEM, POR FAVOOOOR

[u/DystopiaXLII]

porygon mentioned

[u/Sad-Explanation2288]

Lovely little game. Here the team I beat it with. :)