Gym leader concept and special announcement

[ssbCasper]

Disclaimer: If you haven't read the Evil team concept thread or haven't been keeping up with my post you might want to check a few of them out so things don't fly over your head. 

 

So I think I've been posting here for like a week now and there is always a handful of you who have been in nearly every thread giving feedback and being supportive. As my "Day 1" supporters I figure I'd let you guys all beta test each public release. Most of you probably know who you are and if your not interested by all means let me know. When we get closer to the first beta I'll just PM you all. Note I have no clue when that will be since college makes my schedule super unstable. Lastly its time to quickly touch on my initial concept for the gym leaders of Pokemon Empire. 

 

Assuming you read the evil team concept and know the basics of the plot you know that after the war the people of the Telius region voted in members of a grand council. This council created a new Pokemon league with 18 gyms. But who are these new gym leaders and how were they selected? Instead of giving a general overview I will use one gym leader as an example, most of you know that the first gym leader will be the ice type specialist and this is her trainer entry in my google doc for gym leaders.

 

Gym Leader: Elise

Memorable qoute: This world is cold yet beautiful, don't you agree? 

Type: Ice

Past occupation: Figure Skater

Special Field: Ice rink 

Ace: ???  (Won't spoil teams)

Bio: Elise also known as "The ice maiden" was a famous figure skater prior to the Telius civil war. During the initial power struggle. She lost her husband who was also her life long skating partner. A powerful trainer in her own right she soon joined the Yoake mercenaries and helped them free the region. The council saw no trainer more fit to be the new ice type leader than Elise. Reluctant at first she accepted, she moved away from the massive city and stadium she became use to to a more secluded place, the snowy city Polaris Point, here she teaches trainers that mankind like ice can be strong and easily broken at the same time. 

 

There's a lot more stuff but this is the jist for all the gym leaders, some are related to other characters some have a more shadowy past but this is how I started bringing these ideas to life.  Next time we'll be looking at the Yoake mercenaries, who are they? Why are they in Telius and why did they help overthrow the King? Til next time.  

Edited October 1, 2017 by ssbCasper

[Filthy Casual]

Honestly, ice seems like a great type for the first gym in a game like this! Easily breakable, but can hit hard if not careful! Her bio is also extremely intriguing. Well done!

[ssbCasper]

@Filthy Casual Yea I wanted a unique type for the first gym and ice was the first to come to mind.

[Star Arcana]

I really like the idea of using a figure skater as well; it's a pretty unique concept I've never seen done before (in a Pokémon fangame). It also fits so well, and her backstory is pretty neat too. 

 

Having developed gym leaders makes Pokémon games so much more engaging, and it sounds like this is going in the right direction in that regard. 

[Matt_]

I think that adding so much detail into gym leaders is really a great idea, one thing I have never liked about the official pokemon games or many fangames either is the gym leader never plays any real type of role besides giving a tough fight and a badge. I think developing the gym leaders better as characters really benefits the story, especially in the case of your game since the gym leaders appear to be a more substantial part of the plot. Anyways, Elise looks like a really interesting character, and just reading through the thought put into a single gym leader really gets me excited to see more about this game, good luck!

[Commander]

I guess I'm going to speak out that it is kind of annoying that you've basically taken up half of the first page of the sub-forum with your "game." It's honestly a little bit disrespectful to fan-game developers as you've now covered up some of there games in order to showcase yours 10 times (I haven't counted the thread numbers so don't quote me on that). If it was like a massive update in like a week or even a month for all of these, I'd be fine with that. These are all very light and quick updates all done within the same day at points. I get it. You're excited to talk about your game and passionate about it but...how about showing a little modesty?

 

You have actually made more threads about your game than when Rejuv first started out until maybe I think Version 2 or 3. That was due to its massive popularity which I even suggested asking for a subforum to avoid the clutter and mess he was experiencing. Pretty much every other fan-game has only a single thread (sometimes two) for everything they do and give updates on. They are all very successful through that method and it is easy to keep a following on. I really suggest just making a single thread because you really aren't helping yourself out here in the long run. What if I wanted to keep track of your entire progress and glance through updates. Now I'd have to dig through 8 or 9 posts just to be able to.

 

You're not technically breaking any rules or anything so if you really want to continue doing things this way by all means go ahead. Probably should do this as a PM but oh well...

 

And to at least make this somewhat relevant:

 

If you want to make an empire based game really work you need to focus on the world building aspect from the politics and the people and not just based on choices and reputation. Both sides need to feel like they are both in the right and wrong, unlike the infamous Fire Emblem Fates in which the Hoshidians were over-glorified good. You really cannot tell me or sell me that you did this well as I would have to play and experience it to see if I'd enjoy your idea. After all, it's not what the story is about but how well designed and written it is.

 

As for the Ice gym leader, this is literally Serra's backstory just with Model replaced with Ice Skater. Kind of sad how Serra was the one leader in Reborn who got shafted since she had an interesting history in Reborn but her character just feels blandish alone. As for Ice as the first leader err...that'd probably work since the early stages of ice are very very weak and some even laughable. Smoochum and Vanillite are two that cross my mind right away. It's probably workable with Gen VII in place but it is the shallowest pool of types. It's probably a coincidence Serra is very similar to your own character as it happens just ironic they are both ice type leaders.

[seki108]

I'm probably not the best judge of characterization, but I do like her concept.  I suppose the whole 'trying to isolate themselves' aspect might be similar to Serra, like Commander said, but the rest is different, so it's just a commonality.  You didn't mention a son or her acting depressed/unmotivated like Serra has been(so far), so you have plenty of differences to work with.

Edited October 1, 2017 by seki108

[Matt_]

I see the similarities between Serra and Elise, but I think they are more different then alike. As Seki said, they follow the same theme of escaping reality or isolation due to tragedy or depression, but that is about it (besides the obvious of them both being ice leaders). Also, even if she did isolate herself, it doesn't appear to be out of total lack of motivation or depression like Serra, as mentioned above. She seems to have a more positive view on the world and is working to get over her losses by accepting the job as a gym leader as helping other trainers. Serra really just abandoned hope of living a fulfilling life, where as Elise kept moving forward. I understand that they have similar backstories, but I think they strongly differentiate from how they reacted to their depressing lives and continued their lives. Of course, I may be misjudging the characters since I don't really know that much about them, and I am just going off of what I have picked up.

[Noctelis]

As far as I've seen, the only things that that Elise and Serra have in common is ice-type and tragedy.

As the game plays in a post-war country, it's obvious that LOTS of people had some form of tragedy in their lives, and since most fan games are doing 18 gyms these days to make sure the game isn't too short, it's also obvious that each game has an ice-type leader.

My thoughts on an ice-type gym as 1st gym: it's going to be a very easy gym, as most ice-type start out very weak, slow or fragile (and usually remain that way as well).

Alolan Vulpix and Sandshrew would be good though, Vulpix for Snow Warning and Sandshrew for countering rock-type (though they would still be pretty fragile).

It could be a harder fight if item evolved pokemon will be used in the gym, such as Cloyster or Froslass, but using too many of these could make it overly difficult for a 1st gym.

 

(Ps. the part where it's common for people to have tragedy in their lives is a little bit of a reference to Lindow Amamiya from God Eaters.)

Edited October 1, 2017 by Noctelis

[ssbCasper]

@Commander when I decided to make my first post I understood that the model used by every other fangane is to have a massive Dev log with updates. I decided against that because the individual post lead to more people seeing them thus me getting more feedback. Since I don't have any crazy hype trailers or custom art my initial selling point is being the first dev that isn't keeping people in the dark and walking them through the process as they also get to pitch in ideas every step of the way. I do agree that it takes up a lot of the front page, so I'll either make 2 massive threads one for concepts and one for actual progress updates. Or I'll just make a poll on what people would prefer between multiple post or the 2 massive ones. I really do appreciate you being critical.

 

As a side note for the reasons everyone listed above I think my gym leader is far removed from being a Serra clone, and due to her team composition and field effect the battle is certainly manageable but not a cake walk. 

Edited October 1, 2017 by ssbCasper