Game Mechanics Ideas for collecting monsters in PKMN-like game

[TheNegroShoddy]

Hello, I was hoping that someone could help me come up with a unique way for acquiring monsters in a Pokemon-like game. I feel as though one of the reasons games inspired by the series fail is because people easily perceive them as mere rip-offs of Pokemon. One of main reasons I feel that this is mostly the case is because the capturing is done 1:1 like Pokemon--you throw something at a monster after fighting it for a bit and then you capture it.

Other games have done the process of acquiring monsters differently though. Persona/SMT has the negotiation system, Digimon has automatic scanning, Dragon Quest Monsters has completely randomized recruitment, etc. I don't want to copy those methods either and also want to retain some level of difficulty when it comes to collecting a monster.

 

[Genetix]

This is a good concept/question - As a player I like the concept of growing them and raising them from birth. Perhaps you can buy eggs or acquire them other ways and help them to birth and raise them.

 

[Rob]

Monster Rancher had different ways of acquiring new monsters in each game they made. On the Playstation, you'd pop a cd in and a monster would be generated from that cd's code. You could use any kind of cd and get weird and cool monsters. The DS version had you entering different letters and symbols to get monsters and the 3DS had draw/sound generation.

They just thought of interesting ways for players to interact with the game, based on the device the player was using and that was one of Monster Rancher's big draws for many people. When people talk about Monster Rancher, they always mention the "cool time I put in cd X or typed Y and got a completely different monster".

You could have a "Breeder's Book" where the player has to collect information about the different monsters and if they have high enough info they can breed them. How that info is gathered is completely up to you!

 

[Yal]

I remember trying out a ripoff called Crystal Monsters, it failed because of being objectively worse designed (super annoying QTEs to capture monsters, evolving monsters just changed colors so it was completely un-exciting). Be careful with tacking on stuff just for the sake of being different, and be careful not to take obvious shortcuts

I kinda liked Telefang 1 (released as a bootleg called Pokemon Diamond / Jade)'s approach: monsters would randomly offer you their phone number after you beat them, and the chance of this happening would increase if you beat them with super-effective or special moves, beat them without calling friends, beat them quickly, or beat them without taking damage... so as you grew more familiar with a monster and figured it out, it would be easier to capture them. The game also had a confusing side system where you took DNA samples from monsters to evolve other monsters (each monster was classified as Natural, Cultured, or Artificial alongside its type, you could only collect DNA from Naturals... or something like that... the poor translation didn't really help me get how it worked. It'd probably make more sense that evolutions would turn natural monsters into either artificial or cultured evolutions depending on how weird DNA you choose, with artificial monsters being stuff like dragons with gun arms and cultured monsters being stuff like a wolf evolving into a dog).

Another approach you could consider would be having the player be a playable character, and you need to PHYSICALLY catch monsters... maybe you need to wrestle them to constrain them so you can apply a tranquilizer or something? Piledriving giant dragons makes any game better.

 

[TheNegroShoddy]

This is a good concept/question - As a player I like the concept of growing them and raising them from birth. Perhaps you can buy eggs or acquire them other ways and help them to birth and raise them.

You could have a "Breeder's Book" where the player has to collect information about the different monsters and if they have high enough info they can breed them. How that info is gathered is completely up to you!

Not sure as of right now if I'm even going to implement breeding. I really want the focus to be on the battling and capturing rather than for the breeding. Breeding in Pokemon has made the competitive scene so hard to get into for people, as it adds another layer of complexity. I'm not completely ruling it out as a feature though, especially if I decide to add multiplayer in the future.

I remember trying out a ripoff called Crystal Monsters, it failed because of being objectively worse designed (super annoying QTEs to capture monsters, evolving monsters just changed colors so it was completely un-exciting). Be careful with tacking on stuff just for the sake of being different, and be careful not to take obvious shortcuts

I kinda liked Telefang 1 (released as a bootleg called Pokemon Diamond / Jade)'s approach: monsters would randomly offer you their phone number after you beat them, and the chance of this happening would increase if you beat them with super-effective or special moves, beat them without calling friends, beat them quickly, or beat them without taking damage... so as you grew more familiar with a monster and figured it out, it would be easier to capture them. The game also had a confusing side system where you took DNA samples from monsters to evolve other monsters (each monster was classified as Natural, Cultured, or Artificial alongside its type, you could only collect DNA from Naturals... or something like that... the poor translation didn't really help me get how it worked. It'd probably make more sense that evolutions would turn natural monsters into either artificial or cultured evolutions depending on how weird DNA you choose, with artificial monsters being stuff like dragons with gun arms and cultured monsters being stuff like a wolf evolving into a dog).

Another approach you could consider would be having the player be a playable character, and you need to PHYSICALLY catch monsters... maybe you need to wrestle them to constrain them so you can apply a tranquilizer or something? Piledriving giant dragons makes any game better.

I've thought about doing QTEs for like a second before I ruled it out. People get tired of gimmicks, which is why there is so much whining about the upcoming Let's Go games and the way you capture Pokemon.

Its funny you mention having the player character be usable because I was thinking of having the character attack the monster in the process for recruiting/capturing. Couldn't sleep last night and I had the idea that maybe the way players obtain monsters is by getting them to respect the player. Perhaps there could be different things a monster looks for, such as strength, compassion, or intelligence. The player would select one of three options:

1.) Show Strength - Player attacks the monster
2.) Show Compassion - Give the monster food
3.) Show Intelligence - Cure it from a Status Aliment or use a stat boost item on it

After selecting either option, the player would get a message which would indicate whether the monster would want to join them at the end of battle. However, I think this is too similar to Persona 5's system.

and the chance of this happening would increase if you beat them with super-effective or special moves, beat them without calling friends, beat them quickly, or beat them without taking damage... so as you grew more familiar with a monster and figured it out, it would be easier to capture them.

^ I might go with something like this. Monsters would have a different requirement for wanting to join your team.

 

[Rob]

I meant "breeding" as the only way to get new monsters, rather than capturing them and then breeding them. You'd have to encounter X number of a monster type and jump through different hoops to get different types.

 

[Yal]

^ I might go with something like this. Monsters would have a different requirement for wanting to join your team.

That's also a good idea, it could make it more of a puzzle to recruit monsters... and it helps you hedge risks, because even if one capture method turns out to be annoying, the 20 decent ones might make the player forget about it.

I like the "offer item" thing, different monsters could have different tastes. Herbivores wouldn't like meat and predators wouldn't like salad, and crows and cats might only want shiny objects, and so on. And some items might have special effects if the interaction fails, like a flute that calms some monsters could scare others away, or add a stat buff, or such. Maybe some monsters need to be debuffed to be captured (e.g. a shellfish needs to have its defense debuffed to -6 to crack open its shell, a shy bird runs into a wall when it tries to escape if its accuracy has been debuffed enough with Sand Attack, and so on). Couple this with Earthbound-style funny descriptions of what happens and it gets even better.