New Pokémon Board Game - Pokémon Let's Go Adventure

[JoeRow]

Hello!

Any Pokémon fans?
I've spent the past few years creating a Pokémon board game which has been inspired by the Pokémon Master Trainer board game from the 90s.

I've finally uploaded it to the workshop and I would really appreciate some play testers for feedback!

If you're interested, here's the link:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2307759143


Thank you in advance!

[KOOLLAYDTAC]

I tried to look at it mate. I got Custom Token won't load for like 3 of the items on the board. I've noticed that happen a few times when downloading mods. Any idea how to fix that? From everything else that I have seen on it the game looks very nicely done and well made. I'm impressed mate.

[JoeRow]

Originally posted by KOOLLAYDTAC:

I tried to look at it mate. I got Custom Token won't load for like 3 of the items on the board. I've noticed that happen a few times when downloading mods. Any idea how to fix that? From everything else that I have seen on it the game looks very nicely done and well made. I'm impressed mate.

Thanks so much!
That's strange about the customs... If you can send a screenshot of what's missing, maybe it can re-upload them?
I've had anyone else report missing things!

[KOOLLAYDTAC]

Originally posted by JoeRow:

Thanks so much!
That's strange about the customs... If you can send a screenshot of what's missing, maybe it can re-upload them?
I've had anyone else report missing things!

I don't think it's so much an issue with the link not working as it just isn't loading in properly for me mate. I've had this happen a few times and I'm wondering if there is a setting I need to set or something. Here's the screenshot though of what happens. Thanks for the help mate.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2310969277

[KOOLLAYDTAC]

Just an update on the issue I was having in case anyone else faces the same problem that I did. We resolved the issue. Some of the components got reuploaded and also I had to set textures to Full Sized Textures in my graphic options. Thank you again, JoeRow for all your help. I really do appreciate it. Looking forward to testing out your game. I'm going to get some friends to download it and try it out with me. I been going over it and I think it's pretty impressive myself. You did a really good job on it mate. Thank you so much for creating this.

[Toma]

I gave it a try. Everything downloaded fine for me. Played for about 3 hours (before I accidentally borked the game) and I'm very impressed overall. Everything looks really good, snap points are nicely laid out, and the game seems pretty balanced (though maybe a bit drawn out. after 3 hours one player had just gotten their second badge and the other was about to get their first badge). The badges and cards look great and I'm very impressed how well everything lines up with the snap points. Also the rulebook looks good too, nicely laid out and easy to read, and the rules are pretty easy to understand. The scripting works nicely too, and everything seems to work perfectly (which is better than about half the scripted mods I've downloaded). I do have a handful of questions/suggestions/comments though. ;)

1. It'd be nice to have a cheat sheet for the type icons on the table so I don't have to keep flipping back to the rulebook when I'm not sure what a icon is.
2. It'd also be nice to move the board and cards a little over so the battle mat isn't partially on the map.
3. There seems to be an extra snap point by the title deck. I think there should be 5 there (the deck and 4 titles), but there's 6 there.
4. Not too serious, just slightly annoying that the bases of the PCs flicker when you move the camera as (I think) the PC model and the white square they're on are fighting for which should be drawn. This might be fixed by raising the PC models a couple of pixels?
5. Another not serious but slightly annoying issue is the tiny white line where the 4 pieces of the board meet. It's distracting and flickers as you move the camera.
6. Do you start with any PP? It wasn't listed in the setup so I'd guess not, but the other player thought we either should have started with 1 or got 1 at the start of our turn for being in Pallet town.
7. Event cards. Where do you put the ones you keep until used? It says face up in front of you, but there's not really any space to put cards in front of you. You could put them in your hand I guess, but face up implies the other players should be able to see them.
8. Similar question, where do you put titles and tree/rock tokens?
9. Maybe mention in the rules that PP maxes out at 6? We spent 2-3 turns without noticing that our PP was maxed out.
10. When you start your turn in a town, can you spend that turn in the town and do stuff (like challenge the gym leader) or do you have to leave the town and come back next turn to do stuff? (I wanted to challenge the gym leader, but had KOed pokemon. spent the turn in town to heal them (so couldn't fight the gym leader that turn), but then didn't know if I could challenge him next turn without leaving town and coming back).
11. Can you put pokemon into your PC before your party is full? I'd assume so but the other player assumed no.
12. Little bit of confusion about evolving pokemon by catching them. I had an Eevee and caught a Jolteon. So if I understand right I take 3 levels off Eevee (if i have that many) and evolve it by putting Jolteon on it. Which means I can't get Flareon or Vaporeon unless I manage to catch them, right? Also, what happens if you catch the evolved form before catching the basic form (for example catching a Weepinbell before catching a Bellsprout)?

Again, you did a great job. :)

[JoeRow]

Originally posted by Toma:

I gave it a try. Everything downloaded fine for me. Played for about 3 hours (before I accidentally borked the game) and I'm very impressed overall. Everything looks really good, snap points are nicely laid out, and the game seems pretty balanced (though maybe a bit drawn out. after 3 hours one player had just gotten their second badge and the other was about to get their first badge). The badges and cards look great and I'm very impressed how well everything lines up with the snap points. Also the rulebook looks good too, nicely laid out and easy to read, and the rules are pretty easy to understand. The scripting works nicely too, and everything seems to work perfectly (which is better than about half the scripted mods I've downloaded). I do have a handful of questions/suggestions/comments though. ;)

1. It'd be nice to have a cheat sheet for the type icons on the table so I don't have to keep flipping back to the rulebook when I'm not sure what a icon is.
2. It'd also be nice to move the board and cards a little over so the battle mat isn't partially on the map.
3. There seems to be an extra snap point by the title deck. I think there should be 5 there (the deck and 4 titles), but there's 6 there.
4. Not too serious, just slightly annoying that the bases of the PCs flicker when you move the camera as (I think) the PC model and the white square they're on are fighting for which should be drawn. This might be fixed by raising the PC models a couple of pixels?
5. Another not serious but slightly annoying issue is the tiny white line where the 4 pieces of the board meet. It's distracting and flickers as you move the camera.
6. Do you start with any PP? It wasn't listed in the setup so I'd guess not, but the other player thought we either should have started with 1 or got 1 at the start of our turn for being in Pallet town.
7. Event cards. Where do you put the ones you keep until used? It says face up in front of you, but there's not really any space to put cards in front of you. You could put them in your hand I guess, but face up implies the other players should be able to see them.
8. Similar question, where do you put titles and tree/rock tokens?
9. Maybe mention in the rules that PP maxes out at 6? We spent 2-3 turns without noticing that our PP was maxed out.
10. When you start your turn in a town, can you spend that turn in the town and do stuff (like challenge the gym leader) or do you have to leave the town and come back next turn to do stuff? (I wanted to challenge the gym leader, but had KOed pokemon. spent the turn in town to heal them (so couldn't fight the gym leader that turn), but then didn't know if I could challenge him next turn without leaving town and coming back).
11. Can you put pokemon into your PC before your party is full? I'd assume so but the other player assumed no.
12. Little bit of confusion about evolving pokemon by catching them. I had an Eevee and caught a Jolteon. So if I understand right I take 3 levels off Eevee (if i have that many) and evolve it by putting Jolteon on it. Which means I can't get Flareon or Vaporeon unless I manage to catch them, right? Also, what happens if you catch the evolved form before catching the basic form (for example catching a Weepinbell before catching a Bellsprout)?

Again, you did a great job. :)

Thanks so much for the feedback Toma! I really appreciate it!

1. I'll keep this in mind! Although I assumed the icons were pretty easy to identify as they represent the types pretty well (they are straight from the Pokemon video games). The only ones people seem to mix up sometimes are rock and ground. Fairy isn't too clear either.
If you know Pokémon well, you usually can figure them out!
2. I wanted to keep the board central and the battle area was just a little too big! That's why they overlap. I'll have a fiddle around with they layout again though.
3. There was a point where 5 title cards were revealed at the start of a game, I reduced it to 4 and forgot to remove the extra snap point.
4. I know! I'm not sure how to fix this. I'll look into it!
5. The board is actually made up of 4 separate tiles. This is why you can see a faint line between them. I did this as it was the best way to get the board on the table being as big as it possibly can and not be distorted.
6. No, you don't start with any PP. A few players have commented on this! So I will definitely be making a comment about this in the rule book.
7. Agreed that there isn't much space... The Kraken table is by far the best table I've found though!
You can leave them on the wood in between your dice buttons and badge case. Or, in the grey area right by your board space.
8. Usually I see people place them below their team spaces (You can see this in the screenshot in "ending the game" in the rulebook. The player had placed them under their team spaces.
9. Good point! I will mention this in the rules.
10. Yes, you can! The rules state you don't need to necessarily make your movement roll at the start of your turn. So you can do stuff in the town you are currently in, and then roll to move afterwards.
11. Yes! Using the Pokémon storage PC in a town/city you can switch out your team in any way you like. Even if this means placing extras in your PC so you have space on your team.
12. Again, I think this is something I need to clarify in the rules, or make Eevee a special case with additional rules (as it's only Eevee you encounter this issue with).
Currently, the rules are that if 2 Pokémon that evolve from one another are in the same place at the same time (PC or Team), they will be treated as being evolved, much stay together and can no longer be separated.

Thanks again for taking the time to write all this feedback! I really appreciate it!
I'm also so happy that you enjoyed the game as well!

[JoeRow]

Also, 3 hours for 1 badge?!? What were they doing?! Haha
I would say on average games take 2-3 hours depending on the number of players and how familiar they are with the game.

[Toma]

Well, the 3 hours also covered reading the rules and getting everything set up so knock off like 20 minutes for that, but mostly it was just some bad luck. Every time we tried to fight a gym leader we always got the more powerful pokemon, end up about the same on attack value and just got out rolled during the combat. So after a couple of tries we decided to level up and evolve our team (having forgotten the part about needing badges first ^_^* ). After failing to beat the gym leader we'd end our turn (we hadn't moved yet, but it seemed like we shouldn't, since if we did there was a good chance to land on a wild encounter and having 2 battles in one turn seemed wrong). Then not knowing if we could do stuff in town first (since most board games I've played you have to move before you do your actions, and you can't do stuff in a space more than once) we'd spend a turn leaving town, then another turn going back to town and doing the full party heal (since by that point we were spending PP trying for battle items and leveling our party faster we couldn't afford the quickly heal one pokemon), leave town again for a turn, then come back to try to beat the gym leader again.

The other play also got pretty unlucky in some ways. He had nothing strong against rock, his neutrals (except his starter) were all 2 damage base (which even with 5 levels on them were only a 7 vs an 8), and the one 3 power he had was weak to rock. He spent a bunch of turns farming PP to try to get some battle items, eventually tried again and the gym leader rolled 4 crits.

1. Most of the icons weren't too bad, but neither of us have played an actual pokemon game since Gen 3 so they've changed from what we knew. Personally the ones I had the most trouble with were Ground, Rock, Ghost, Fairy, and Poison. Like you said though, if we'd have played the newer games it would probably have been pretty easy.

2. Makes sense. It just seemed a little odd having that overlap when everything else is so well laid out. ;)

5. Yeah, I figured that was the cause, and I don't know if there's a way to fix it. Just figured I'd mention it.

7. Yep, it'd be nice if they just had some really big tables in the game. And you did good with it, the mat extensions look nice.

10. Good to know. Most board games I've played you have to do rolls and actions in specific orders, and you can't do stuff in the same space for multiple turns. It's do whatever you wanted, leave, then come back later if you need to do more stuff. That does leave me with a question though. Can you fight a Gym Leader, at the start of your turn, then roll for movement, land on a wild encounter space, and have a second fight in one turn?

Like I said, we had a bit of bad luck, but it was still fun. I want to try to get a couple more friends to play.

[JoeRow]

Originally posted by Toma:

Well, the 3 hours also covered reading the rules and getting everything set up so knock off like 20 minutes for that, but mostly it was just some bad luck. Every time we tried to fight a gym leader we always got the more powerful pokemon, end up about the same on attack value and just got out rolled during the combat. So after a couple of tries we decided to level up and evolve our team (having forgotten the part about needing badges first ^_^* ). After failing to beat the gym leader we'd end our turn (we hadn't moved yet, but it seemed like we shouldn't, since if we did there was a good chance to land on a wild encounter and having 2 battles in one turn seemed wrong). Then not knowing if we could do stuff in town first (since most board games I've played you have to move before you do your actions, and you can't do stuff in a space more than once) we'd spend a turn leaving town, then another turn going back to town and doing the full party heal (since by that point we were spending PP trying for battle items and leveling our party faster we couldn't afford the quickly heal one pokemon), leave town again for a turn, then come back to try to beat the gym leader again.

The other play also got pretty unlucky in some ways. He had nothing strong against rock, his neutrals (except his starter) were all 2 damage base (which even with 5 levels on them were only a 7 vs an 8), and the one 3 power he had was weak to rock. He spent a bunch of turns farming PP to try to get some battle items, eventually tried again and the gym leader rolled 4 crits.

1. Most of the icons weren't too bad, but neither of us have played an actual pokemon game since Gen 3 so they've changed from what we knew. Personally the ones I had the most trouble with were Ground, Rock, Ghost, Fairy, and Poison. Like you said though, if we'd have played the newer games it would probably have been pretty easy.

2. Makes sense. It just seemed a little odd having that overlap when everything else is so well laid out. ;)

5. Yeah, I figured that was the cause, and I don't know if there's a way to fix it. Just figured I'd mention it.

7. Yep, it'd be nice if they just had some really big tables in the game. And you did good with it, the mat extensions look nice.

10. Good to know. Most board games I've played you have to do rolls and actions in specific orders, and you can't do stuff in the same space for multiple turns. It's do whatever you wanted, leave, then come back later if you need to do more stuff. That does leave me with a question though. Can you fight a Gym Leader, at the start of your turn, then roll for movement, land on a wild encounter space, and have a second fight in one turn?

Like I said, we had a bit of bad luck, but it was still fun. I want to try to get a couple more friends to play.

Awh, yeah it does sound like you all got a bit unlucky! Once you have another playthrough, I'm sure it'll go a bit smoother for you!

Some tips of mine are:
~If a Gym leader is really causing you trouble, just skip them! You can challenge them in any order.
~Having a strong Water or Grass type can help a lot! 2 of the gyms are weak to these types.
~If you're aware of the types of Pokémon the gym leaders have, try and make use of type advantage.
~If you start with Pikachu or Charmander, farm the Green spaces until you get a Water type (there are loads in the Green deck!) as it will help in beating Brock. The Pokédex and Sweet Honey Items can help with this as well.
~Having said that... Having a fully levelled up starter will usually have no problem beating Brock, especially with a Battle Item in hand.
~Read the ability of EVERY Pokémon you obtain. A few people I have played with have just thrown any Pokémon they obtain straight in their PC as soon as they get them. You could have a really useful Pokémon just sitting in your PC for the whole game and not even know about it!
~Ask the other players for trades if you're getting stuck. Remember that you can trade pretty much any card for card and even several for just one! Sacrificing a couple of Green Pokémon for a good Battle Item or Pokémon will certainly help you progress and not have much impact on you in the long run!

And also, yes you can technically battle a Gym Leader at the start of your turn, still roll to move, and have a wild encounter (if you haven't already rolled to move previously in the turn).

But anyways, I'm really glad you still enjoyed it! Let me know how your next game goes! :)

[Argen Rider]

is really interesting