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Childishly "Adult"
Dragon_Quill- 05/17/2016 01:40 PM
- 42238 views
This is a review crossposted from review blog Dragon Quill. The original article can be found here.
You know that fanfic that newbie barely teenage boys have, the one with the new region and new pokemon but this time it’s got ALCOHOL and SEX REFERENCES and ZANY unlike those squares at Nintendo? It’s that. Like, beat by beat. If that’s you? Well, you’ll love this.
Pokemon RMN is a RPGmaker clone of Pokemon, with a brand-new region and completely new set of pokemon. The brand-new region is basically Hoenn. The new set of pokemon are somewhat rough and rather similar to existing ones. The game itself has been coded impressively close to the official Pokemon games and plays exactly the same…except it's just barely choppy/laggy enough to be distracting and make repetitive gameplay a chore. I never realized how important it was to me that the games run smoothly through repeated battles, and like any Pokemon game, it's mostly just battling. Also, for some reason cancel and start menu are the same button and there’s no way to skip through dialogue. And my one true love, flavor text? Exists for the trash cans and only the trash cans, and often in service of mentioning something gross or edgy.
Text which often has a mistake or two in it, as well. There’s errors all through this.
(Also, the evolution animation is horrible – the sprite spins in a circle really fast. Look, what’s wrong with just flipping back and forth? I realize this is really petty but it’s going through more effort to make something look so much worse!)
The game opens asking if you’re a boy, girl, or Namekian – which, for those of you who jumped at the option of not picking boy or girl, just results in being told to stop screwing around. You then get to pick an adjective: cool, tough, calm, quirky. This determines your look, and has similar problems with female trainers as the standard games. Want to be quirky, female, and not playing as the pantyflash fairy your whole journey?
Sorry, the technology isn’t here yet.
If you want to be female and wearing functional pants, your only option is calm, with the cool sprite particularly infuriating me by being almost decent but having those horrible just-below-the-knee jeans. You’re then given a palette swap option which includes skin color changes (at least in the case of the cool girl, the tough boy was just picking how intensely white your skin is and I don’t care enough to go through to check all permutations), and you can’t do any mixing and matching. Pink and cool? Blonde white girl. Green and cool? Slightly darker blonde white girl. Blue and cool? Dark-skinned redhead! I really don’t understand why it was impossible to let people change the color of things separately.
Once you pick you go to your house where your mom explains emphatically how she would never do any sort of pokemon journey and it’s only our great trainer dad’s genes that make us have any interest in doing the thing the setting revolves around, followed by going out to see the male professor and male assistant in trouble from a wild pokemon (followed by them identifying us as related to our dad who’s so important – like I said, basically Hoenn. Just even more so.), then the antagonist, a crazy male professor, shows up and steals only one of the three starters for some reason before running off to hop in a flying saucer. And half the characters have horrible phonetic accents. Later, our other rival, a middle-aged man appears. Throughout this, there’s lots of references to alcohol because that’s so adult and mature, with multiple characters whose personality trait is “is drunk”.
Look at how grown up this game is!
The only meaningful female presence is the first gym…where the gym leaders spend their time gushing about how I have a special destiny and I’m so great. Then there’s a girl ranting about how the card game minigame is too complex for her and only nerds play it. She also talks in third person and is an idiot, and she’s HILARIOUSLY assuming the evil villain’s robots are going to molest her.
Girls thinking people are perverts and crying wolf out of pure stupidity is obviously the best joke imaginable, so much that it goes on line after line after line. The only positive thing is that the designer didn’t bother to change her dialogue (yet?) so if you play as a girl, she still hits on you and kisses you after you save her, all the while talking about you in terms that make it so very clear this isn’t designed to be inclusive but is assuming she girl, you boy. There’s a girl in the first cave (Noob Cave because seriously, beat by beat) who also brings up same-sex stuff, but it’s only so the girl in question can go on at length about how gross the idea is and how she wants my character to leave her alone because she only likes boys. If you play as a boy, in contrast, she hits on you. And there’s a third female character who also hits on you regardless of gender…and do I even need to add that no male characters hit on you regardless that I saw? You could probably guess. Because that might bug male players.
The second gym introduces what I thought I wanted, puzzles that are an actual challenge…except actually they’re bad reaction time minigames where you just keep doing it until you get it right with no consequences for failure but your own rising boredom, and adding insult to injury, we’re told this twitchy reaction time game is somehow a meditation minigame. While flailing around on the final one before the gym leader, somehow the game decided it wasn’t going to open my start menu any longer so I couldn’t save and I decided I was done with it.
If you really love new pokemon and type combos, the game might be worth a play just for that, but they’re much more miss than hit to me, and looking at the current spritesheet most of the ones I didn’t get far enough to see look even worse. Also, for anyone annoyed they pretty much can only play as a white person, it’s okay because there is black representation: a black pokemon you can capture.
Maybe it’s just an unfortunate resemblance…?
Nope.
It’s okay, though, it’s not racist because grinning blackface caricatures who are simple, carefree creatures who only care about their primitive stomp-growl music is a compliment.
You know that fanfic that newbie barely teenage boys have, the one with the new region and new pokemon but this time it’s got ALCOHOL and SEX REFERENCES and ZANY unlike those squares at Nintendo? It’s that. Like, beat by beat. If that’s you? Well, you’ll love this.
Pokemon RMN is a RPGmaker clone of Pokemon, with a brand-new region and completely new set of pokemon. The brand-new region is basically Hoenn. The new set of pokemon are somewhat rough and rather similar to existing ones. The game itself has been coded impressively close to the official Pokemon games and plays exactly the same…except it's just barely choppy/laggy enough to be distracting and make repetitive gameplay a chore. I never realized how important it was to me that the games run smoothly through repeated battles, and like any Pokemon game, it's mostly just battling. Also, for some reason cancel and start menu are the same button and there’s no way to skip through dialogue. And my one true love, flavor text? Exists for the trash cans and only the trash cans, and often in service of mentioning something gross or edgy.
Text which often has a mistake or two in it, as well. There’s errors all through this.
(Also, the evolution animation is horrible – the sprite spins in a circle really fast. Look, what’s wrong with just flipping back and forth? I realize this is really petty but it’s going through more effort to make something look so much worse!)
The game opens asking if you’re a boy, girl, or Namekian – which, for those of you who jumped at the option of not picking boy or girl, just results in being told to stop screwing around. You then get to pick an adjective: cool, tough, calm, quirky. This determines your look, and has similar problems with female trainers as the standard games. Want to be quirky, female, and not playing as the pantyflash fairy your whole journey?
Sorry, the technology isn’t here yet.
If you want to be female and wearing functional pants, your only option is calm, with the cool sprite particularly infuriating me by being almost decent but having those horrible just-below-the-knee jeans. You’re then given a palette swap option which includes skin color changes (at least in the case of the cool girl, the tough boy was just picking how intensely white your skin is and I don’t care enough to go through to check all permutations), and you can’t do any mixing and matching. Pink and cool? Blonde white girl. Green and cool? Slightly darker blonde white girl. Blue and cool? Dark-skinned redhead! I really don’t understand why it was impossible to let people change the color of things separately.
Once you pick you go to your house where your mom explains emphatically how she would never do any sort of pokemon journey and it’s only our great trainer dad’s genes that make us have any interest in doing the thing the setting revolves around, followed by going out to see the male professor and male assistant in trouble from a wild pokemon (followed by them identifying us as related to our dad who’s so important – like I said, basically Hoenn. Just even more so.), then the antagonist, a crazy male professor, shows up and steals only one of the three starters for some reason before running off to hop in a flying saucer. And half the characters have horrible phonetic accents. Later, our other rival, a middle-aged man appears. Throughout this, there’s lots of references to alcohol because that’s so adult and mature, with multiple characters whose personality trait is “is drunk”.
Look at how grown up this game is!
The only meaningful female presence is the first gym…where the gym leaders spend their time gushing about how I have a special destiny and I’m so great. Then there’s a girl ranting about how the card game minigame is too complex for her and only nerds play it. She also talks in third person and is an idiot, and she’s HILARIOUSLY assuming the evil villain’s robots are going to molest her.
Girls thinking people are perverts and crying wolf out of pure stupidity is obviously the best joke imaginable, so much that it goes on line after line after line. The only positive thing is that the designer didn’t bother to change her dialogue (yet?) so if you play as a girl, she still hits on you and kisses you after you save her, all the while talking about you in terms that make it so very clear this isn’t designed to be inclusive but is assuming she girl, you boy. There’s a girl in the first cave (Noob Cave because seriously, beat by beat) who also brings up same-sex stuff, but it’s only so the girl in question can go on at length about how gross the idea is and how she wants my character to leave her alone because she only likes boys. If you play as a boy, in contrast, she hits on you. And there’s a third female character who also hits on you regardless of gender…and do I even need to add that no male characters hit on you regardless that I saw? You could probably guess. Because that might bug male players.
The second gym introduces what I thought I wanted, puzzles that are an actual challenge…except actually they’re bad reaction time minigames where you just keep doing it until you get it right with no consequences for failure but your own rising boredom, and adding insult to injury, we’re told this twitchy reaction time game is somehow a meditation minigame. While flailing around on the final one before the gym leader, somehow the game decided it wasn’t going to open my start menu any longer so I couldn’t save and I decided I was done with it.
If you really love new pokemon and type combos, the game might be worth a play just for that, but they’re much more miss than hit to me, and looking at the current spritesheet most of the ones I didn’t get far enough to see look even worse. Also, for anyone annoyed they pretty much can only play as a white person, it’s okay because there is black representation: a black pokemon you can capture.
Maybe it’s just an unfortunate resemblance…?
Nope.
It’s okay, though, it’s not racist because grinning blackface caricatures who are simple, carefree creatures who only care about their primitive stomp-growl music is a compliment.
Posts 
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
View playlists
Closeauthor=Ratty524author=SolitayreTo be fair, I listed everyone who made a Pokemon submission as "developer" here, and many of them, including iddalai, haven't influenced the core of the project beyond that, so I think I know where he's coming from.
Testers may review a game. Developers may not.
If you are on the list of developers and remove yourself so that you can review the game you made, I reserve the right to feed you to the locusts. That is all.
Then they should be moved to artist* instead of developer. And while sure there's still a conflict of interest, I suppose that might mean something to someone.
* Assuming the rules don't change between now and then, I plan on reviewing CoT when it comes out and harshly critiquing my own work because Lord knows I've improved substantially and there's an obvious break in quality due to my own stepping down from the project halfway through. I'll be the last one I spare and I'll make sure to put emphasis on the fact that "hey, I was a part of this game's development, just saying 'grain of salt' and all that".
author=Solitayre
Testers may review a game. Developers may not.
If you are on the list of developers and remove yourself so that you can review the game you made, I reserve the right to feed you to the locusts. That is all.
To be fair, I listed everyone who made a Pokemon submission as "developer" here, and many of them, including iddalai, haven't influenced the core of the project beyond that, so I think I know where he's coming from.
Testers may review a game. Developers may not.
If you are on the list of developers and remove yourself so that you can review the game you made, I reserve the right to feed you to the locusts. That is all.
If you are on the list of developers and remove yourself so that you can review the game you made, I reserve the right to feed you to the locusts. That is all.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=iddalaiauthor=CorfaisusYou weren't here when we discussed this the last time, right?
Regardless of how much or how little you put into the game, if you're being credited on the gamepage, you shouldn't be allowed to write a review. What this does is grant the one who writes the review their own makerscore, a sense of artificial inflation that in an economic setting would be illegal and cause for alarm as historically these things have lead to economic bubbles and bubbles bursting, crippling the unaware who've invested into the system on false pretenses.
What we seek to ensure here is a level playing field. You can either have yourself removed from the credits and sacrifice the makerscore that goes with it to write a glowing review of your own work (still shady dealings), or you could keep your credits and let others review your work for you.
https://rpgmaker.net/games/8394/reviews/4821/?p=1#posts
Solitayre stated that is was fine for testers (who share the game's makerscore) to review the games.
Does my reasoning make more sense now?
author=Liberty
Well, not only that, but it's a bit of a conflict of interest depending on how integral the tester is in the game. I still maintain that they should not be giving scored reviews, but welp. :shrug:
I'd have more makerscore if I
Take this for instance. You wouldn't think it just the slightest bit suspect for someone to have their work being so strong ridiculed and pushed to the bottom of the barrel, and follow this up with giving themselves a glowing review under their own handler or an alias to make themselves seem better than they really are. Other places that'd be false advertisement.
orochii
6740
Hi, just wanted to share this with you people. Hope you don't mind.
I'm pretty sure this guy would hate me for this, but he's dead so his opinion doesn't count.
I'm pretty sure this guy would hate me for this, but he's dead so his opinion doesn't count.
Dragon_Quill
750
author=Ratty524
I think the only reason I made the "tough guy" line a single skin color was due to the other alternate outfits being tied to references (Outfit 2 is colored similarly to Goku from DB, and Outfit 3 is actually supposed to be similar to Knuckle Joe from the Kirby series. Perhaps, making the default outfit have darker skin tones would alleviate the issue? It would certainly offset the fact that every other character's default skin is white.
Sure. The easiest rule of thumb for this is just parity. One way is to mix all sets, another is that if one set's all shades of white, make another all shades of brown. It's like I was to make a bunch of trainers that reference the main characters of the different generations, only one set of them even could have different color skin, and of those, it's not the official art version. It wouldn't be me choosing to make an all-white/almost all white cast, but it'd still be what I ended up with. On the other hand, if they were part of a set of a hundred different minor trainers, and I had them fill up the pure-white slot and then worked my way down the gradient for the others, I'd have both the reference and an even balance.
@Liberty: Yes, you already told me how you think I'm "just pick and choosing to represent it badly". Why don't you take your own advice about drama and at least keep it over there? You're totally free to answer my questions like what more, exactly, I was supposed to say about the fact it's pokemon battles, or when exactly NPCs and art stopped being part of the game.
You know, if someone is trying to kill you, I think screaming out "Molester, molester" is a logical course of action. It's bound to get more people looking your way and would save your life. I actually didn't see Leanne as crazy - I saw her as a bit of a bitch who was doing completely logical actions when faced with an asshole. (If you are being threatened, absolutely making noise and screaming about it is the way to go.)
The reason such a thing is so big in anime is because this is what you're supposed to do if you're getting molested/attacked/threatened and if a woman thinks she is in danger she should absolutely scream about it. The idea that screaming for help (and instead, that you should suffer in silence) is so wrong it makes my heart hurt. So I'm all for Leanne screaming out "Help I'm being Molested" because that is 100% what I would be screaming if some fuckwit came up to me and threatened my life. Make them heads turn.
Granted, having it played up for comedy sake is a bit crap, but that is so easily remedied - just have her say "I knew screaming that would bring someone to help!" and completely make her sane about it. Easy. Done.
That big wall of text doesn't negate the fact that this is an opinion piece and not a review. You don't talk about the systems, the gameplay, the music, the graphics or anything else that makes up the game bar the writing parts you didn't like. You rate the game based solely on one aspect instead of the whole and that really grinds my gears most of all.
Have your opinion, sure - I'm not against that - but at least when you write a review, write a review.
The reason such a thing is so big in anime is because this is what you're supposed to do if you're getting molested/attacked/threatened and if a woman thinks she is in danger she should absolutely scream about it. The idea that screaming for help (and instead, that you should suffer in silence) is so wrong it makes my heart hurt. So I'm all for Leanne screaming out "Help I'm being Molested" because that is 100% what I would be screaming if some fuckwit came up to me and threatened my life. Make them heads turn.
Granted, having it played up for comedy sake is a bit crap, but that is so easily remedied - just have her say "I knew screaming that would bring someone to help!" and completely make her sane about it. Easy. Done.
That big wall of text doesn't negate the fact that this is an opinion piece and not a review. You don't talk about the systems, the gameplay, the music, the graphics or anything else that makes up the game bar the writing parts you didn't like. You rate the game based solely on one aspect instead of the whole and that really grinds my gears most of all.
Have your opinion, sure - I'm not against that - but at least when you write a review, write a review.
TheNecromancer
3160
Hmm, I'll have to play it but I have to agree that those immature jokes really aren't funny and ruin a game for me. Even if there are only a few, although it seems like it's more than a few. That's obviously a matter of taste by why ruin a game for most people to appeal to some. With all the effort in making the game look and sound good, the writing should match. I wanted this to be a good game overall.
Even though it's RMN version I don't think it should be a 'joke game'. It should be a serious, thoughtful game with intelligent jokes. No need to simply grab the low hanging fruit. There are plenty of community games that take a serious tone and include RMN jokes without alienating the "adult" audience.
But again, I'll need to play the game to get a better sense of it, which I will do right after work. Since I'm not a dev perhaps I'll even right my own review!
Edit: Also, all the examples of "adult" themes in official pokemon games are bad examples. Driftloon taking kids away is very vague(it's a balloon and it could cause a kid to drift away while holding it, it doesn't mean that Driftloon is gonna do anything sinister). A girl screaming "molesting me" is very specific. When these crude topics are brought up in a very crude way, that is what is a turn off. Such topics can be hinted to without being overtly obvious, and that is what makes them non-cringeworthy.
Edit2: Screw it, work is slow, I might as well start now :D
Even though it's RMN version I don't think it should be a 'joke game'. It should be a serious, thoughtful game with intelligent jokes. No need to simply grab the low hanging fruit. There are plenty of community games that take a serious tone and include RMN jokes without alienating the "adult" audience.
But again, I'll need to play the game to get a better sense of it, which I will do right after work. Since I'm not a dev perhaps I'll even right my own review!
Edit: Also, all the examples of "adult" themes in official pokemon games are bad examples. Driftloon taking kids away is very vague(it's a balloon and it could cause a kid to drift away while holding it, it doesn't mean that Driftloon is gonna do anything sinister). A girl screaming "molesting me" is very specific. When these crude topics are brought up in a very crude way, that is what is a turn off. Such topics can be hinted to without being overtly obvious, and that is what makes them non-cringeworthy.
Edit2: Screw it, work is slow, I might as well start now :D
author=Corfaisus
Regardless of how much or how little you put into the game, if you're being credited on the gamepage, you shouldn't be allowed to write a review. What this does is grant the one who writes the review their own makerscore, a sense of artificial inflation that in an economic setting would be illegal and cause for alarm as historically these things have lead to economic bubbles and bubbles bursting, crippling the unaware who've invested into the system on false pretenses.
What we seek to ensure here is a level playing field. You can either have yourself removed from the credits and sacrifice the makerscore that goes with it to write a glowing review of your own work (still shady dealings), or you could keep your credits and let others review your work for you.
You weren't here when we discussed this the last time, right?
https://rpgmaker.net/games/8394/reviews/4821/?p=1#posts
Solitayre stated that is was fine for testers (who share the game's makerscore) to review the games.
Does my reasoning make more sense now?
@Corfaisus: In no way do I mean to imply Pokemon is its own genre. That's a semantics point at best, because the argument is that the content doesn't match the style. It's a kids game. There are no Pokemon games rated 'M' for Mature. Not that these jokes are particularly mature (quite the opposite imo), but hey apparently I'm the only one who cares.
Thank you for the follow-up! It really clears up a lot and demonstrates where I can specifically improve in this project. I'll try to explore Leanne's character a bit more and the other things you mentioned.
I think the only reason I made the "tough guy" line a single skin color was due to the other alternate outfits being tied to references (Outfit 2 is colored similarly to Goku from DB, and Outfit 3 is actually supposed to be similar to Knuckle Joe from the Kirby series. Perhaps, making the default outfit have darker skin tones would alleviate the issue? It would certainly offset the fact that every other character's default skin is white.
I think the only reason I made the "tough guy" line a single skin color was due to the other alternate outfits being tied to references (Outfit 2 is colored similarly to Goku from DB, and Outfit 3 is actually supposed to be similar to Knuckle Joe from the Kirby series. Perhaps, making the default outfit have darker skin tones would alleviate the issue? It would certainly offset the fact that every other character's default skin is white.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=iddalaiauthor=SolitayreI have a question, could someone who created a couple of Pokemon for the game and designed the skeleton of a dungeon, review the game?
You're listed as a developer, which means you may not review this game. Sorry!
I totally understand where you're coming from by denying a review from a Developer, but in these community events, the real Developer is the main person in charge making the game and the other people listed as Developers only did very small things like designing a couple Pokemon or the skeleton of a dungeon or giving feedback (like testers).
Should these people be listed as Developers and should they not be allowed to review the game?
Regardless of how much or how little you put into the game, if you're being credited on the gamepage, you shouldn't be allowed to write a review. What this does is grant the one who writes the review their own makerscore, a sense of artificial inflation that in an economic setting would be illegal and cause for alarm as historically these things have lead to economic bubbles and bubbles bursting, crippling the unaware who've invested into the system on false pretenses.
What we seek to ensure here is a level playing field. You can either have yourself removed from the credits and sacrifice the makerscore that goes with it to write a glowing review of your own work (still shady dealings), or you could keep your credits and let others review your work for you.
author=Dragon_Quill
Back in the ancient RBY days...
Ugh, it wasn't that long ago. Then again, I don't know how old you are and these sorts of things are all subjective.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=halibabica
'RPG' isn't a genre either, Liberty. It's a style of game (which is technically a genre, but not in the context I'm using). I'm not trying to raise drama here. You can't say I'm wrong because I'm not arguing with opinion. The only thing up for debate is whether the game should be changed or not. I think it should, you think it shouldn't; I don't like this style of humor, but you do. The only difference is I don't think it fits.
Where you're losing everyone is with your insinuation that a single game can be its own genre.
"This is a Star Wars genre game with platforming elements." sounds like a bit of a stretch. Logically it's a platformer genre game with Star Wars elements. The same goes for Pokemon being an RPG with Pokemon elements in it.
So yes you are wrong because you are arguing with a wrong opinion.
That's awesome commentary. Thanks for the follow-up!
Also, making Leanne alien-crazy actually seems like a good way to make her craziness at least amusing and properly weird. I really wouldn't have known how to do that well at the top off my head.
Also, yes, I'd like in on the males hitting on people.
Also, making Leanne alien-crazy actually seems like a good way to make her craziness at least amusing and properly weird. I really wouldn't have known how to do that well at the top off my head.
Also, yes, I'd like in on the males hitting on people.
Dragon_Quill
750
Hey, sorry it's taken me ages. To go talk about what was said at the beginning and everyone's probably forgotten...
Hm. Is Harry Potter still a good common language? I hope so. So, Luna there was a pretty good "weird girl" example, I think. Leanne just comes off like she's a complete idiot - she can't handle a simple cardgame and can't remember you from five minutes ago, so when she's ranting about robots it only seems like it's just her being too dumb to understand what's happening. If she bumped into the character and assumed that oh hey, you're an alien prince/ditto/android pretending to be human, hey, I bet you don't know about this new card game, I'll tell you about it to help you fit in, that'd still be bizarre and suggest she's crazy. Plus, it's usually more entertaining to see someone spin complex stories than just not understand what's going on.
Also, on the weird front, her yelling because she thought she was going to get turned into a robot, or thinking the robots were aliens, and so on, would have been way weirder than the same old girls assume the guy's being perverted when he's actually doing something else, and avoid the way her dialogue is still coming out like she's talking to the guy - saying she's rushing off to defend all women is really weird when a girl just saved her.)
(Her being weird in a less incompetent manner would also fix much of the dreaded sexism complaint there - it's the combination of most of the characters being male and having the major female NPC who gets lots of lines also be the ditziest ditz to ever ditz.)
Well, I can say I'd have considered it differently if I was looking at this as a finished game and not a demo - I jumped to conclusions there because the only character to change was also the earliest one - but I would suggest thinking about the order of presentation. Having the first reference to sexuality I encountered being NO HOMO is startling in a way that NO HETERO isn't. We're nearing the point where saying this stuff is just a neutral statement of which person you want to date, but we're not there yet. Having a character before that say something to indicate they're gay/bi would've really changed how the girl came off.
Well, variety helps. If there was flavor text a bunch of places I wouldn't mind the trash being trash flavor. I really, really, really love flavor text, even more than I love oldschool flicker evolutions.
Thanks! In all seriousness. When stuff's different in a gendered way/"sexism" it doesn't have to be huge but a matter of there's some sort of disconnect and it's distracting as I suddenly stop to go, wait, why are only the girls flirting? Where are the bi/gay boys? Are they just incredibly shy? Does my character have GIRLS ONLY written on their forehead? Why is the world tilted in this specific way?
Well, part of what bugged me is that there's also no penalties, which makes it feel more pointless. You just keep doing it until it works. Back in the ancient RBY days, Blaine's gym gave you a choice of (pretty easy) quiz or fighting a trainer to get to the next section, and failing the quiz forced you to immediately fight the trainer. Since this is a lot harder, you could give people three tries or something, but if they do badly they're forced to fight a trainer, rather than fighting the trainer then doing the minigame. Everyone gets through one way or another. (Maybe also hand out an item for people who do it properly, so there's a carrot as well?) (Also calling it anything other than meditation - magic chakra fast breathing?)
With the discussion happening around the afropup - even just one bit changing would do a lot - black skin with a different expression or the expression but a different skin color (like purple or blue, a skin color not used in caricature makes it a lot less of one). Stereotypes are exponential. One thing would never be a problem, a whole pile usually is, and often even just one bit disrupting it can change the meaning significantly (afropup the genius psychic, for example, breaks the combo. And a black character who happened to be all about jazz while wearing an afro would be stereotypical, but he'd be one person and not a species of animal who all act that way, so not such an issue). Also, the trainer sprites being less white overall would've made it come off better - maybe one set all dark skinned to balance the fact at least one sprite set is all white ones. Like sexism, it's generally not that X is bad so much as X in absence of Y. More variety always helps, and it's also not something we're usually had in the official games. If the main trainer set had been just black kids in different clothes, afropup and another dozen pokemon like it wouldn't have been a problem at all since the best way to say something isn't literally meant to stand in for people is to have those people stand next to it.
Also, since people are talking about edgy - I was largely frustrated that it was the same kind of joke over and over about something that's not a big deal in the first place. If the only drunken guy was the sailor, the joke wouldn't have been stale by the time he was mowing people down with his boat. Having multiple drunk characters and still more discussing this fact is what made it annoying. Even just diversifying the drugs would've helped - maybe the cranky guy at the start was mad because he was out of cigarettes. Maybe someone's got a bong. I didn't mean that it has to be to the same level of family-friendly as the games. A fangame should be doing things differently and providing stuff you don't see in the official games.
author=Ratty524
In regards to Leanne, she's supposed to be insane. She's a kind of comic relief in the sense that she's there to make you, as a player going through a whirlwind of experiences throughout the game, feel awkward or perplexed at every encounter, hence the entire Triple Triad scene and even her sudden affection towards you.
Hm. Is Harry Potter still a good common language? I hope so. So, Luna there was a pretty good "weird girl" example, I think. Leanne just comes off like she's a complete idiot - she can't handle a simple cardgame and can't remember you from five minutes ago, so when she's ranting about robots it only seems like it's just her being too dumb to understand what's happening. If she bumped into the character and assumed that oh hey, you're an alien prince/ditto/android pretending to be human, hey, I bet you don't know about this new card game, I'll tell you about it to help you fit in, that'd still be bizarre and suggest she's crazy. Plus, it's usually more entertaining to see someone spin complex stories than just not understand what's going on.
Also, on the weird front, her yelling because she thought she was going to get turned into a robot, or thinking the robots were aliens, and so on, would have been way weirder than the same old girls assume the guy's being perverted when he's actually doing something else, and avoid the way her dialogue is still coming out like she's talking to the guy - saying she's rushing off to defend all women is really weird when a girl just saved her.)
(Her being weird in a less incompetent manner would also fix much of the dreaded sexism complaint there - it's the combination of most of the characters being male and having the major female NPC who gets lots of lines also be the ditziest ditz to ever ditz.)
author=Ratty524
Speaking of which, her similar interactions towards girl-characters is entirely intentional in that regard. It's so the people who play female characters don't miss out, and also to imply that Leanne is bisexual.
Well, I can say I'd have considered it differently if I was looking at this as a finished game and not a demo - I jumped to conclusions there because the only character to change was also the earliest one - but I would suggest thinking about the order of presentation. Having the first reference to sexuality I encountered being NO HOMO is startling in a way that NO HETERO isn't. We're nearing the point where saying this stuff is just a neutral statement of which person you want to date, but we're not there yet. Having a character before that say something to indicate they're gay/bi would've really changed how the girl came off.
author=Ratty524
As for being gross and edgy, I won't deny that, but what else would you expect to find by digging through trash? :P
Well, variety helps. If there was flavor text a bunch of places I wouldn't mind the trash being trash flavor. I really, really, really love flavor text, even more than I love oldschool flicker evolutions.
author=Ratty524
I'll gladly add some males who hit on you!
Thanks! In all seriousness. When stuff's different in a gendered way/"sexism" it doesn't have to be huge but a matter of there's some sort of disconnect and it's distracting as I suddenly stop to go, wait, why are only the girls flirting? Where are the bi/gay boys? Are they just incredibly shy? Does my character have GIRLS ONLY written on their forehead? Why is the world tilted in this specific way?
author=Ratty524
Yeaaaaah that minigame is kind of borked. I'm not sure whether to rework it to make it more responsive/easier to complete or rework it entirely.
Well, part of what bugged me is that there's also no penalties, which makes it feel more pointless. You just keep doing it until it works. Back in the ancient RBY days, Blaine's gym gave you a choice of (pretty easy) quiz or fighting a trainer to get to the next section, and failing the quiz forced you to immediately fight the trainer. Since this is a lot harder, you could give people three tries or something, but if they do badly they're forced to fight a trainer, rather than fighting the trainer then doing the minigame. Everyone gets through one way or another. (Maybe also hand out an item for people who do it properly, so there's a carrot as well?) (Also calling it anything other than meditation - magic chakra fast breathing?)
With the discussion happening around the afropup - even just one bit changing would do a lot - black skin with a different expression or the expression but a different skin color (like purple or blue, a skin color not used in caricature makes it a lot less of one). Stereotypes are exponential. One thing would never be a problem, a whole pile usually is, and often even just one bit disrupting it can change the meaning significantly (afropup the genius psychic, for example, breaks the combo. And a black character who happened to be all about jazz while wearing an afro would be stereotypical, but he'd be one person and not a species of animal who all act that way, so not such an issue). Also, the trainer sprites being less white overall would've made it come off better - maybe one set all dark skinned to balance the fact at least one sprite set is all white ones. Like sexism, it's generally not that X is bad so much as X in absence of Y. More variety always helps, and it's also not something we're usually had in the official games. If the main trainer set had been just black kids in different clothes, afropup and another dozen pokemon like it wouldn't have been a problem at all since the best way to say something isn't literally meant to stand in for people is to have those people stand next to it.
Also, since people are talking about edgy - I was largely frustrated that it was the same kind of joke over and over about something that's not a big deal in the first place. If the only drunken guy was the sailor, the joke wouldn't have been stale by the time he was mowing people down with his boat. Having multiple drunk characters and still more discussing this fact is what made it annoying. Even just diversifying the drugs would've helped - maybe the cranky guy at the start was mad because he was out of cigarettes. Maybe someone's got a bong. I didn't mean that it has to be to the same level of family-friendly as the games. A fangame should be doing things differently and providing stuff you don't see in the official games.
author=Solitayre
I heard someone say something recently about comedy that I really agree with. In comedy, nothing should be off-limits, but you need to know the room.
Is this comedy (and this game) targeted at an RMN audience or a general Poke'mon audience? Which jokes work for who?
It is primarily targeted towards the RMN userbase. I still plan on expanding its view to other communities, however, for extra publicity.
author=Kloeauthor=Ilan14It was hidden and then he edited it all into nothing, I dunno what was on it
What happened with the post of the reviewer that has nothing on it?
For the record, I do not know what they said either. I'm not the one who hid their post.
author=Ilan14
What happened with the post of the reviewer that has nothing on it?
It was hidden and then he edited it all into nothing, I dunno what was on it
