1) How much music really adds to the experience;
2) How critical the Pokemon cards are to the experience, and most importantly;
3) That we are really on to something special here.
Read on for a complete overview of what our incredible first major play test for Pokemon Journeys entailed.
The Board
I decided fairly late that instead of simply asking the players to test the systems one by one, that I'd actually put together a small part of a region, a story, and play the game as I imagined the final product being played. With that in mind, I drew out a simple test region as my players arrived, with three towns (Beta Town, Testville and Ending City) on a gridded D&D battlemat.
You can see now how I imagine the board to look - like a zoomed out overworld view of the region, with a path leading from one place to the next. I imagine that if you zoomed in on each square of the road, it would look a lot like the routes from the video games.
Our test game would include 3 Story Points (marked on the board with asterisks that are a bit hard to see in the photo); a community garden north of Beta Town, the Testville Pokemon Centre, and some flags in a field north of Testville.
The Setup
Testing the game would be my friends Chris, Louise, Dave, Otis and Chris' 12yr old brother Liam. I was glad for the age difference, as one of the things I wanted to know was if this would be enjoyable by young and old at the same table. Dave, Otis and Chris would start the game off in Beta Town; Liam would join in later en-route to Testville, with Louise teaming up with the party in Testville for the trip north to Ending City.
First up, we made some characters. Dave, Otis and Liam opted for the Trainer profession, Chris went with Researcher, and Louise tried out a Medic. The players each copied down the benefits of their class onto their character sheets, and had 12 points to spend in the four traits (Physical, Knowledge, Social, Luck). They each received $300 and 2 Pokeballs to start their adventure.
Next up, they randomly chose their starting Pokemon from a pool of 6. Chris got Squirtle, Louise chose Chikorita, Dave landed Bulbasaur, Otis got Charmander, and Liam picked Totodile. They copied their stats and moves down onto their character sheets, and levelled their starters up to lvl 5.
Character creation went very quickly and smoothly, and while they were busy doing that, I built a Travel Deck and got to shuffling. After that, we were ready to get started.
The Story
We ran with the story that Chris, Dave and Otis were friends living in Beta Town, who were preparing to make the journey north to Ending City, where the Little League tournament was going to be taking place. They received their starters from the local Professor (who Chris named Professor Rubbertree), and were sent on their merry way, with the Professor telling the boys that if they were heading north, the Beta Town Community Garden was a place worth stopping and checking out. And with that, they set off.
The Game
The group (using a d6 as a marker) set off with plans to stop in at the community garden and see what it was all about. Rounds were completed by first moving the Day/Night marker one space (or in the case of the first turn, setting it to morning), moving the group counter 1 square, drawing a Travel card (with the players taking it in turns to do so each round), and either resolving it themselves, or passing it to another player in the group to resolve. Once it was resolved, the card was discarded, and a new Round began.
Rain set in early in the game (much to the joy of Chris' Squirtle), and would soak the players for much of the journey. Dave encountered the group's first wild Pokemon, a Weedle, which he managed to battle and successfully capture* after dropping it to its wounded state (25% HP).
*Each Pokemon in the game has a Capture Rate (CR), between 1 and 10. Capturing a Pokemon involves rolling below their CR on a d10 roll. As the Pokemon take damage, their CR is increased, making it easier for capture. Injured Pokemon (half hp) gain a +2, and Wounded Pokemon (25% hp) gain a +4 to their CR, whilst Pokemon on Full hp have -2, making capture harder.
A team battle against a pair of trainers provided plenty of excitement, before Chris' Squirtle got thrashed* by a wild Ekans. Soon after, Dave managed to draw another Wild encounter and also rolled Ekans, and so we decided to make it the same one that just trounced Squirtle, as a bit of story flavour. This time, Dave succeeded in capturing it, taking his party total to 3.
*When a Pokemon faints, it can't be used for the rest of the day until camp is made. When the group makes camp for the night, all Pokemon regain their Base HP stat in hit points, up to a maximum of half their total HP. We figured that during camp, players with fainted or injured Pokemon would care and tend to them. This mechanic also prevents a player not being able to participate until the next Pokemon Centre, which could be some distance away. Note that Pokemon can only gain a maximum of HALF their total HP by resting; players still need to visit a Pokemon Centre or use a Potion to get them back to full health.
The players then reached the community garden, where the first Story Point (entitled 'The Pidgey Brigade') kicked off. During a Story Point, the group shifts from boardgame mode to role-play mode, and the Story Point plays out much like a small traditional D&D adventure.
At the community garden, the players meet a woman named Mara, who tells them that the garden is used to grow berries for the surrounding towns. However, she says that flocks of Spearow have been a big problem in eating the young berries, and to combat this, the gardeners have all trained Pidgey to help keep the Spearow away. Due to the rainy weekend though, she is the only one who came out today to tend to the garden.
Of course, the garden is soon assaulted by a group of Spearow, led by an alpha male, and Mara pleads with the players to help her protect the berries. This kicks off a 4 vs 4 battle against the flock of Spearow, with Mara lending her Pidgey for aid. After a tough fight, the players managed to defeat all but the alpha male, whom Otis successfully captures. However, the Spearow resents* him, and so he will have to work to win it's loyalty.
*When players capture a new Pokemon, they roll a d6 to determine it's Loyalty Level. On a 3+, the Pokemon is neutral and will listen to the player. Otis rolled a 1, 'resentful', meaning it would only obey him on a d6 roll of 5 or 6 during battle. Otis would have work at it to win Spearow's trust. This is a place where Natures can also be used as role-play and personality devices, instead of merely stat-changers. Otis' Spearow had a Brave nature, meaning pitting it against tough foes in battle would probably increase it's respect for him, and help raise it's loyalty.
Liam and his Totodile then join the group, and they continue on towards Testville. After a couple of Trainer battles, Liam draws a Rare Wild Pokemon card, and faces off against a Cubone, which he manages to capture.
Arriving in Testville kicks off the next Story Point (titled "The Flames of Flareon"), with the players pushing through the night to find that the Testville Pokemon Centre is on fire, the rain doing little to hinder the blaze (yes, it was STILL raining). They rush to aid a Nurse Joy, who is begging the gathering crowd for anyone who can help. With her is a young boy, who is sobbing and calling out for his Eevee. Chris finds out that the boy's Eevee grew too powerful and refused to listen to him, and so he thought making it evolve with a Fire Stone would make it happy. Instead, the now Flareon went into a rage, engulfing the Pokemon Centre in a blaze that nobody can get near.
The players spring into action, with Squirtle and Totodile clearing the flames from the door so that Chris and Liam can get inside. There, standing on the counter amongst the blaze, they find the powerful Flareon, and a relay battle* ensues as they try to subdue it. Despite their type advantage, Flareon proves too powerful and shrugs off their water attacks, and before long Totodile goes down hard. Otis' Charmander takes it's place, and the Flareon focuses on what it believes to be a finally worthy, fire-type opponent. Charmander deals some good damage with Squirtle's support, but it's not long until Charmander is smashed through the front wall, straight into Otis.
*A Relay Battle is when the players team up against a much tougher opponent, in a sort of 'boss fight', in a 2 vs 1 or 3 vs 1 scenario. When a teammate is defeated, another player can jump in and take their place.
Staring defeat in the face, Chris decides to try his Luck**, and has Squirtle's Tackle smash down one of the roof supports to cave the roof in and let the rain through, giving Squirtle back his ability to reroll damage rolls due to the Rainy Weather card in play. This also allows Dave to send Bulbasaur into the rainy space, and together they finally manage to bring the raging Flareon (and most of the Pokemon Centre) down.
**Chris wasn't receiving the Rainy Weather benefit in the burning building, and so asked to "Try his Luck" by having Squirtle destroy a roof support to create an opening for the rain. He did this by rolling a d20 and adding his Luck trait, against a check I as the GM determined. He passed the check with flying colours, and did a grand job of testing the Luck trait out to boot in the highlight of the game for me.
The next day, a makeshift Pokemon Centre tent is setup for the town, and it's here that the party meets Louise's medic, who is on her way north to Ending City to provide aid for the Tournament, and agrees to accompany them.
Not far out of town, the group draws a 3 vs 3 Team Battle against a group of cheerleaders also heading north for the Tournament. This gives the group their first solid defeat, and they go down to the cheerleader's Pidgey, Grimer and Growlithe. They make the decision to head the day's travel back to Testville to heal up their Pokemon instead of pushing on, and try again.
They fair better this time, with Louise encountering a wild Paras, which she manages to capture, and Liam encountering a wild Grimer, which he chooses to pass on to Chris (who still hasn't managed to catch a Pokemon*). After a solid battle, Grimer joins Chris' party.
*It is for this reason that the ability to resolve a card or pass it to another player was included.
The weather finally clears up and Sunny Weather prevails as the group reach the last Story Point (titled "In It To Win It"). Here, they find a group of trainers crowded around a brother and sister, who are about to race their Pokemon. The players decide to join the race, in a fast and furious battle royale as the Pokemon rush and bump each other around. Eventually, Otis' Charmander wins the day, along with the $500 prize pool.
After Dave rolls some horrible capture rolls to try and catch a wild Mankey that appeared, failing twice in a row with two 10's, the group arrive at Ending City. Here, they face off against each other in the Tournament in two pairs, with the two winners battling for the grand prize. Battles against other players worked incredibly smoothly, and were a ton of fun, a real highlight of the day, with Dave's Ekans and Bulbasaur taking out first place.
The Verdict
What started out as an innocent play test on a hastily made-up region map, something I thought would take a couple of hours at the most riddled with bugs and rule changing, turned into a thoroughly enjoyable, all-day and into the night campaign filled with great moments, lots of laughs and an incredible amount of fun. The players picked up the system extremely quickly, and I was ecstatic with how rock-solid the whole game was from start to finish. There wasn't a single case of a rule not working, or a system not turning out. The battle system was clean, simple and worked like a well oiled machine, and the travel system kept the players hooked for that next card for hours and hours.
I was also wrapped to see that the game suited all age groups without any issue - Liam fit in and had just as much fun as the older players - a big positive when it comes to any kind of boardgame or tabletop game.
As for my three standouts from the start of this post?
1) Music: Chris had the Pokemon battle music on his phone, and you would not believe how much this added to the experience. This, coupled with Braxton Burks' amazing Kanto Symphony playing in the background, took an already great game and turned it up to 11. Do yourself a favour and find some looped battle music, trust me.
2) Cards: One of the big themes of the game for me has always been 'forging a bond', taking Pokemon you might not normally use and forging a bond with it over the course of your journey. The extent to which this happened even just during the play test was amazing, to the point where the players were actually sad they had to hand them back at the end of the game. Over our game, these Pokemon had become their friends and companions. A big part of this was due to the cards we used (and which will be available with the final product). Having a visual representation of your Pokemon right there in front of you, that you can see and hold, made your connection to it so much stronger than it would be if it were simply stats on a character sheet. The game can certainly be played without them, but if you really want that emotional connection, the cards helped in a big way.
3) Something special: This might sound like me blowing my own horn, but the proof is in the pudding. 12 hours. I knew the game had been a success when we finally reached the end of our test, almost 12 hours later, and the players were ready to just keep on going. 12 hours and they still didn't want to stop. I was gobsmacked, thrilled, and humbled, all at once. Watching something you've created be so so so well received was truly inspiring and encouraging. I am completely overjoyed.
Don't just take it from me, though. In the next post, I'll get some of the players to share their thoughts of the test, the game, the systems and how it all came together.
Until then!
- Jamie
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