Beyond Episode 1

This is a page for ideas for Tuxemon series games, that don't necessarily fit with Episode 1: The Spyder in the Cathedral.

Plots/Game premises

• Play through the game as an NPC (limited team, based on the team of any trainer in the game)
• You are the leftover tuxemon that wasn't picked. Wander around the world getting up to mischief.
• Escape at the Daycare!
• You are a human stuck in tuxemon form
• Take down an evil team from inside, using only your assigned tuxemon

Tuxemon Gym Simulator

Each gym wants to defend its own Badges and claim Badges from others, so they can send their teams to the next level of the competition.

Take cues from 4X, tower defence, football manager, Dungeon Keeper and sim games.

Tuxemon Darkest

Inspired by roguelikes and Darkest Dungeons.

Explore dungeons and other routes and recover treasure (Badges, Fossils and Dolls) and captured tuxemon.

Two tuxemon fight at a time, with techniques having different targets (some can reach either rank, some hit both ranks, some can only target one of the ranks) and some only being usable from the front or the back rank.

You can bring any number of tuxemon with you, but each additional one takes up slots that could be used for treasure and items. Recruit from foes you meet on the way - but note that each Capture Device uses one of your precious inventory slots!

Spend your treasure improving the town that you operate out of, building new facilities (gyms, daycares, museums, laboratories) and training your NPCs.

Tuxemon use field moves that they can use out of battle - clearing obstacles, detecting traps, healing allies - as well as regular techniques.

Tuxemon Harvest

Original thread

We already have a bunch of fruit and vegetable and other farm items, and animations for growing plants (many from Catch Challenger)

Simple farming

• Consumable items are mostly fruit, vegetables, seeds, and so on. For example, instead of an Antidote, we could have an ANTIDOTE APPLE. Instead of Cure Burn, we could have BURNBALM MELON.
• There are fertile patches scattered around the world, especially in your backyard.
• When you acquire the HOE item, you can hoe a fertile patch.
• You can plant a fruit/vegetable/seed, etc., in the hoed patch.
• After X steps, the seed grows into the next stage. After another X steps, it grows into the next stage, and so on until you reach the final stage.
• If you have a WATERING CAN, you can water each patch. That halves the number of steps it takes until it grows into the next stage (then it dries out and has to be watered again for the next stage).
• Then if you have a SCYTHE you can harvest the plant, and get multiple copies of whatever item you planted in the first place. The patch becomes bare, waiting to be hoed again.

Novel additions to standard games

• Instead of being given a starter, you are sent to a Hunting Ground with some capture devices and bait, and you can attempt to catch whichever one you like.
• Crawls
• "I'd also love if you could check the tuxedex while in battle, maybe have an option to scan your opponent at the cost of a turn to get their data without catching them, allowing you to learn their element, average stats at that level, etc., allowing for more strategic use of the tuxedex instead of just being a portable achievement board." (Kelvin)
• Temporary evolutions. Tuxemon stay cute, and then can evolve in versatile ways as needed.
• "Taking a tuxemon with you". A Tamagotchi-like experience where you can import a single tuxemon into an app on your phone, and feed it, check up on it, train it, etc., then re-import it into your Tuxemon game and it will have gained XP/learned a new technique/etc. (tamashihoshi)
• Switching to a side-scrolling platformer for certain parts
• A journal that tracks your current quests

Ways to reduce grind

• Pressing A should skip dialogue
• Quickplay/grind mode that just displays what happens, not all the accompanying text
• Auto-resolve combat while in grind mode

Grind mode

Grind mode would tell you immediately what happened and moves to the next decision that the player needs to make.

• battle loads* (no need to say the two tuxemon, as that's visible on the screen) *text loads immediately* What will ROCKITTEN do?
• select*
• text loads immediately* ROCKITTEN - DEFENSE CURL - ARMOUR UP / EYENEMY - POISON STING - WEAK
• when player presses A, text loads immediately* What will ROCKITTEN do?
• repeat*

It could even play the animations while idle on the "What will ROCKITTEN do?" stage, and display the HP lost that round in yellow, but then they would be cut short when a selection is made.

In grind mode, if your first tuxemon has a move that would do enough damage (on average) to knock out the random encounter in one hit, then when the random encounter begins, a screen pops up:

   EYENEMY
   ROCKITTEN to use THUNDER? []
   Or GO TO FULL BATTLE []

If you chose the former, EYENEMY would be knocked out, ROCKITTEN's THUNDER PP would reduce by 1, and XP would be awarded.

If you chose the latter, it would play like normal.

Trainer stats

From tamashihoshi:

• Speed modifier (use of items etc)
• Capturing modifier (if we go by the "bind the soul to an object" theme, this could modify the capturing power)
• Training modifier (modifies the amount of exp your tuxemon gain or the way the exp is distributed among your tuxemon)
• Negotiation? (items are cheaper)

Field techniques

Techniques that are useful in the overworld, and that don't take up a slot for battle.

• Magnetism to pull and push metal blocks
• Swim against the wind
• Icebreaker - like an icebreaker ship, swimming through ice
• Enter clouds
• Shrink to insect size and explore new areas
• Hide/camouflage to wait until something happens
• Sneak to avoid alarms and trainers
• Tunnel to a new level
• Set a trap
• Decode foreign languages
• Hold breath to get into an area with poison gas
• Disable traps
• Spider climb to get up walls
• Blow away fog
• Roll at a high speed to get over jumps
• Surf
• Soar
• Put out fires
• Destroy walls
• Open locked doors
• Mind control people
• Telekinesis
• Exorcism
• Block - create a stone that blocks the path or fills a hole
• Bounce to higher ledges
• Levitate
• Teleport - get to any location you have already visited
• Dive
• Enter outer space
• Sonar
• Item finding

Things in cities and towns

• Museum
• Art gallery
• Cafe
• Photo exhibit - could collect pixel art from all around
• Weekend markets
• Bike shop
• Car shop
• Train station
• Concert hall
• School
• University
• Race track
• Vineyard
• Laboratory
• Mansion
• Secret society
• Clubhouse
• Sporting field
• Stadium
• Swimming pool
• Tavern, pub, inn
• Library
• Botanical gardens
• Arboretum
• Jail
• Courthouse
• Blacksmith
• Mine
• Castle
• Pond
• Lake
• Fountain
• State
• Church
• Theatre
• Jeweller's
• Bank
• Barber's
• Town hall
• Entrance gate
• Cemetery
• Restaurant
• Customs office
• Fire department
• Hospital
• Temple
• Arena
• Game arcade
• Shopping centre
• Lighthouse
• Fishing boat
• Hot air balloon
• Airport
• Zoo
• Safari
• Playground
• Street vendors
• Bridge
• Industrial zone
• Ghetto
• Mayor's office
• Parliament house
• Park
• Aquarium

Admirable features of EvoCreo

• They have some monsters wandering around the overworld, as well as tall grass encounters. This adds a nice mix, where you can chase/run away from some visible creatures, while also getting random results from the grass. For example, if there's just one creature you haven't grabbed in an area, you can wade through the long grass or you can just keep an eye out for one wandering around.
• Information about the battling creatures is visible if you tap on their HP bar: it tells you their name, level, what conditions they are subject to, their typing, exact HP, etc. Then that information is hidden again until you request it, giving a beautiful large battle arena (which looks pretty). You can even click each condition and it tells you what it is and what its effect is.
• There's an auto-battle option. It plays an ad, which is a clever way to monetise the game. You don't see the battle in progress (because the ad is playing) or what XP you get, you just get told at the end if you win or not.
• There are no PP. Instead, each move has a number of rounds until it is available again (including "1", in which case it is always available). This is a really nice element to the game, and it adds a tactical touch missing from PP.
• Related to there being no PP is that a creature knows all the techniques it's ever learned. It can still only use four in battle, but out of battle you can switch these for any other techniques.
• All stat changes come from conditions, so you never have a technique that gives you Defence +1. Instead, the technique gives you Shell, which gives you Defence +1.
• Conditions continue beyond a single battle, even positive ones like Shell. They can be upgraded, so e.g. if you would get Shell twice you instead get Hardened Shell.
• There are nice little touches, like the home screen having a little scene that features you active creature.
• There are Traits, which I think are like Pokemon's Abilities (except you can swap them out) and Abilities, which I think are out-of-combat benefits. Just like techniques, you can swap out any you have learned. These serve as that game's equivalent to HMs, so you never need to waste a technique slot on Surf or Cut.
• Five rather than six creatures in the party. I don't know why EvoCreo did this, but I think it'd make sense for Tuxemon as well, because with only five elements it's already going to be easier to cover all types.
• Arenas where you have to fight three trainers in a row, without being able to go to a medical centre in between. Requires different strategies for success.
• Healing potions that heal a percentage of total HP, + a fixed amount of HP. This makes them useful at any level.
• Separate move slots for Elite Moves, which have a really powerful effect but a slow recovery, and Heal Moves. There are a variety of Heal Moves, some of which have benefits other than just healing. I feel like these open up a similar design space to Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves in Pokemon. A potential change: Elite Moves could start without being recharged. That way, they only become available after some time in combat - you can't spam them then switch out.
• There are "classes" like Massive, Ice, Radiation and Insect which also affect type strengths and weaknesses, although I'm not sure how.
• In Trainer battles you can choose to retreat, but it's a forfeit (i.e. I think just like losing by another means).
• There's a button you can press to find out what your current quest is. Alternatively, a refresher could show each time you load the game.
• You can "Glide" across empty spaces, and have random encounters while you do so.