Tamagom (a Rpg pixel game like Pokemon)

[LukeCrazy]

Hey guys, I was wondering on your opinion about a project me and my friends are making. You die-hard Pokefans may or may not like it, but i'm making a game, similar to Pokemon. We have people making the sprites, the story, and much more. I have a blog to the game and i will be posting in it daily. We have a huge start already. Here is the link: http://tamagom.blogspot.com/
Please tell me what you think. It would help us a lot. We want this to be a legit game, not just something you find on the computer. Also, its technically not a Fakemon game because the battle style, format, and a bunch of other things are different.

[blaze boy]

Hey guys, I was wondering on your opinion about a project me and my friends are making. You die-hard Pokefans may or may not like it, but i'm making a game, similar to Pokemon. We have people making the sprites, the story, and much more. I have a blog to the game and i will be posting in it daily. We have a huge start already. Here is the link: http://tamagom.blogspot.com/
Please tell me what you think. It would help us a lot. We want this to be a legit game, not just something you find on the computer. Also, its technically not a Fakemon game because the battle style, format, and a bunch of other things are different.

Wow!

What poor carbon copy of the Pokémon series you are working on there.

I would strongly urge you drop everything that you have "borrowed" from the pokémon series and just make the game that you want to make so it can stand out, other wise it will be brushed aside as a pokémon clone.

Also OVGB is not the place to post fan made game.

[LukeCrazy]

Well what seems "borrowed" that makes it a "poor carbon copy" you called it. If you say the concept of catching monsters, i'll assure you that many games have done the same thing. Many RPGs in fact. I was swooping in google and found a list of games where you catch monsters. http://www.giantbomb.com/monster-cap.../92-734/games/
No but please do tell what I have "borrowed"?

[An00bis]

My opinion? You're nowhere near far enough in the process to merit a blog.

There is next to nothing here beyond a few concepts. No mockups. No screenshots. Just vague information and cries for help. I know you say this isn't a fangame (despite is smelling of Pokemon clone) but in the Fangame Community you wouldn't even be allowed to make a topic about this yet. You'd be required to show some physical proof that the game exists even in a barebones form. Normally it's some screen shots and maybe a video of an engine test. Maybe a demo. Something.

Contrary to popular belief you do not need custom sprites or art to do an Engine Test. That comes later. That's considered polish after the base product has been finished. If you show that your project isn't all smoke and mirrors you're more likely to find people who are willing to help you. That is, if you go ahead and do some work on the engine and show that you are capable of producing something people might be willing to follow your page, submit some art, and maybe even join your team.

[Will-powered Spriter]

Also, blaze boy is right, what few concepts you have are way too similar the Pokémon. I'd understand keeping the whole catch monsters and make them fight thing, but you've also kept gym badges, catching them all and an evil team, which is most of the story right there. You said everything else in the story is different, but the only part of Pokémon's story you haven't included is the rival and the league. Even your table of elements is basically the same. You've renamed some and combined some, but there's only one element you have that's new. I understand coming up with new elements is tough, but you've outright copied the Pokémon one, including the more abstract ones like bug, ghost and dragon.

What's more, the majority of the differences are just minor details. A different battle format would be a selling point if you gave any indication of how its different (and saying it's different doesn't carry much weight considering your "different" type chart and story), but the rest aren't really anything major. Even less impressive is that most of these points are fairly common fan ideas/complaints. More maturity (well, blood and cursing), dual type moves, no inanimate objects, etc.. Aren't original ideas, they're found in almost every list of fan ideas ever. You're only new element is bloody light type for pete's sake.

The thing is, if you want to sell a game, it has to find a niche for itself. If someone wants to play a game that's just like Pokémon, they play Pokémon. Now, you're not actually marketing it as "just like Pokémon" like someone from before, but really there's not much you've come up with that isn't either covered by Pokémon itself, or one of the 5 billion Pokémon fan games.

[Un0va]

Why are all the towns named after diseases?

[blaze boy]

Why are all the towns named after diseases?

Because the creator is either lazy or just has a poor imagination. Although in this it's very likely to be both.

[LukeCrazy]

Ok thanks guys, this negative activity is what I needed. My mind was at a lost and begged for ideas. I justed posted this to understand what Pokemons would consider a "carbon" copy. Thank you here is what I learned: No Gyms, No badges, New elements, Start an engine, no "catching them all", new differences, and just for Blaze: better town names.
But guys thanks in return. Its like posting a english paper on youtube and wait the grammar nazis to edit it for you.

[An00bis]

A good place to start would be putting up some mockups. Mockups are not screenshots from the finished game and are subject to change, but give the audience a good idea of what to expect from the finished product. They're usually made in Photoshop with either placeholder or the final graphics to give that visual feel. Show off things like the Title Screen, Overworld Style, and the Battle System Interface. Its something you can do immediately for your viewers and it shouldn't take more then a few days.

In the meantime you can pick out your engine depending on your needs. There are a ton out there for free or one-time fee ($50 or less) that can be used for commercials games. Almost of them require you to learn an in-house scripting language which isn't as hard as it sounds. Probably the easiest way to learn one would be to pick one and then try to build something simple like Baby's First Game (Pong or Breakout). Yes you're building an RPG, but you use a lot of the same tools when you create something simple like Pong.

[Un0va]

Probably the easiest way to learn one would be to pick one and then try to build something simple like Baby's First Game (Pong or Breakout). Yes you're building an RPG, but you use a lot of the same tools when you create something simple like Pong.

If he just used RPG Maker Lite or some similar software, which would probably be the simplest route, this might not be necessary.

[Will-powered Spriter]

Ok thanks guys, this negative activity is what I needed. My mind was at a lost and begged for ideas. I justed posted this to understand what Pokemons would consider a "carbon" copy. Thank you here is what I learned: No Gyms, No badges, New elements, Start an engine, no "catching them all", new differences, and just for Blaze: better town names.
But guys thanks in return. Its like posting a english paper on youtube and wait the grammar nazis to edit it for you.

For the record, catching every variety of creature in your game is something the players will try to do anyway. What makes yours a copy was that you had a professor ask you to do so to fill an encyclopedia. You can keep the collection aim, hell you can even keep the encyclopedia, you just need to try and implement things differently from Pokemon as opposed to just renaming them.

Gym Leaders and badges are probably something you should avoid. That's not to say you can't have a tournament or something as part of the story, or even as your characters main goal, but again, it needs to be implemented differently.

For your table of elements, the default elements for anything seems to be fire, ice, electricity, earth, air, water, light and dark. You can probably include nature/plants, metal and non-elemental as well. However the important thing to realise is that dragon, ghost, bug, fighting aren't really elements at all. Several RPGs might have them as an enemy type that has a set of weaknesses, but the idea of having them as elements that attacks can be infused with is so idiosyncratic that its a lot more obvious that you're copying pokemon when you throw them in.

My suggestion is that you do some research into other MonRPG games to see what things all of them do, and what things you can change around. Believe it or not, Pokemon is part of a sub-genre, and not every thing in the genre is a carbon copy of pokemon, or even accused of being one.
For a start, look at Shin Megami Tensei, which was doing this before Pokemon, and also look at the Digimon games and Monster Rancher, which were released at roughly the same time and differ enough to not be carbon copies. That doesn't mean make a game that copies all of them, but its worth looking at what will effectively be your competition.

Think of what makes your game different from all these types of games. If your concept can be summed up as "It's pokemon with..." or "Its pokemon except..." then you are doing it wrong. You need a major unique selling point as part of the core concept, not just a list on minor differences.

Also I suggest you consider why you're adding blood and cursing. If you're aiming to make a game that's darker in tone and aimed at older audiences so that blood and cursing fit in then fine. If you're trying to make a game that's darker in tone by adding them, don't. Maturity can include blood and cursing, but they don't make things more mature, they just make it unsuitable for minors.

Edit: Also, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you? Are you working on this full time as a proper project, or are you in school/college/uni/have a job/whatever and only doing things in your spare time? Speaking as someone who starts like a billion projects in my spare time and has yet to finish so much as one of them, how likely are you to actually finish this?

[LukeCrazy]

For the record, catching every variety of creature in your game is something the players will try to do anyway. What makes yours a copy was that you had a professor ask you to do so to fill an encyclopedia. You can keep the collection aim, hell you can even keep the encyclopedia, you just need to try and implement things differently from Pokemon as opposed to just renaming them.

Gym Leaders and badges are probably something you should avoid. That's not to say you can't have a tournament or something as part of the story, or even as your characters main goal, but again, it needs to be implemented differently.

For your table of elements, the default elements for anything seems to be fire, ice, electricity, earth, air, water, light and dark. You can probably include nature/plants, metal and non-elemental as well. However the important thing to realize is that dragon, ghost, bug, fighting aren't really elements at all. Several RPGs might have them as an enemy type that has a set of weaknesses, but the idea of having them as elements that attacks can be infused with is so idiosyncratic that its a lot more obvious that you're copying pokemon when you throw them in.

Ok, I was thinking overnight, that, since you can kill them, and gain dropped items from them, you have to kill and collect like skin pieces for genetic research. With that it fills the Vitopedia. Also, the format of the battle is similar to Paper Mario. I can get rid of the gyms and badges and add something similar, but without the "whole puzzle in the gym" thing. It would be like one person in the town, who gives you a piece of a template. Completing the template gives access to visit the King of the Land. All regions have them. Again, somewhat similar to the Elite Four, but instead, not to be the best, but to challenge the king. Which in the end gives an award and a exclusive monster. Also, the dark tone in the game was not from the maturity, but from the concept of how the monsters are killing humans. How the templars are controlling them to destroy whole towns and taking over the whole. The dragon element was mostly for the templars. Since their god is the dragon of manipulation. The whole series will be against Templars. No other teams to jump in and be a different story. I'll try to make the pixel size a bit more bigger to work with more detail.

The elements, i can understand. Maybe like for plants, i can add wood. Stuff like that maybe?

I'm 15 and i have a team of friends to help with me. I plan on finishing this. The same with my animes, the one i have been dying to start once i have a degree. RiP, an anime that i came up since I was 10. The story of it is all done and written. So all i need is to make it into an anime. That's why, with the same passion, i wont quit. Thank you for asking, no really, i seriously don't mind at all. I try to get help from many people, strangers even, but i fear to be asking too much and looking like I won't finish anything. Thank you

[LukeCrazy]

Are any of you guys Taylor Philpotts thaat followed the blog?

[An00bis]

If he just used RPG Maker Lite or some similar software, which would probably be the simplest route, this might not be necessary.

You are not allowed to make commercial games with RPG Maker Lite.

There are some free options out there where you can make a commercial game. It really depends on what they want to do with it.

[LukeCrazy]

commercial games

What do you mean by that? Like a game to be on retail, like a physical thing you can buy at stores? Plus all the copyrights, trademarks, etc.

[LukeCrazy]

Hey, guys, one question, would similar art also make it a copy? Just for the monsters, though, cause i can't decide whether to make it like super def and add more detail, or keep it somewhat simply so i can have room to add many other features?

[An00bis]

Commercial Games are Games you intend to sell. Retail or otherwise.

Hey, guys, one question, would similar art also make it a copy?

It's probably best to distance yourself from Pokemon when it comes to art as well. If you can draw it another way by all means do so.

[LukeCrazy]

Commercial Games are Games you intend to sell. Retail or otherwise.



It's probably best to distance yourself from Pokemon when it comes to art as well. If you can draw it another way by all means do so.

Ok thanks i was going to do that anyways. I was going to add like a town with like a boxing/fighting tournament. Since the player can fight as well, it gives me the chance to make the player interact with many other things, by him/her self.

[Night Shadow]

Based upon the title artwork, I'm already impressed and I have high hopes for it.
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[LukeCrazy]

Based upon the title artwork, I'm already impressed and I have high hopes for it.
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Why thank you, I make many title designs for many things really. I just try to give meaning into my drawings and ideas. I leave "hints" and metaphoric things. But i just do it subconsciously....

But anyways, thanks.