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A jam submission

Monster Friends Underground Fight ClubView project page

Be the very best... but at what cost?
Submitted by Metal Ostrich Games — 1 hour, 43 minutes before the deadline
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Monster Friends Underground Fight Club's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#63.6053.704
Adherence to the Theme#63.5693.667
Originality#63.9474.056
Design#123.2993.389

Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

I’d say you hit the theme on the head, this is a solid example of redesigning failure. 5 stars on that front.

The layout was very dense, however and the design seemed to have a lot going on at a time. Seems fun, I haven’t played it yet, but it seems busy.

Very original though. I never would have thought that using Pokemon as a redesigning failure example would have worked as well as it did!

Submitted(+1)

I don't know that a physical layout to the board helps this game, instead of having a 6" move limit, it might make more sense to allow Trainers to freely use the arena and services, and roll for a random Mon when hunting in the wild. As it stands, the skateboard is basically mandatory. I've seen the dual stat thing before, but the added choice before a contest is a new wrinkle, and adds a fair amount of depth. Trainer unconsciousness seems like a 'lose more' mechanic, and seems to have been blindly lifted from the source material, as I can't see what it adds here. Innocence feeding into capture mechanics is a good idea, as it gives a reason to have a higher innocence. If players controlled only one trainer, the Thug might make sense, but as it stands there's not much reason to ever have a different class of trainer do fighting, given how much low innocence helps in a fight, and they can never lose due to completely bottoming out on innocence. If they were your only trainer, you'd suffer trying to capture mons, but you can have a dedicated rube to catch the things.

Starting with the obvious: Innocence as a mechanic, oy. Look I get what the game is doing, I get why the game is doing it, I just really don't like it. Subversion is one thing. Innocence as a mechanic, brutal deaths, becoming burnt out, there are many settings and milieus where this would work. Gothic horror, pick a war, a revolution, etc. By setting it here, the theme is actually cheapened, as instead of indulging it, the notion of innocence lost just becomes a tool for shock value and 'subversion'.

Complaints aside, this game does a good job of fitting the theme, with total loss of innocence(ffs) constituting a defeat for a character, but with a lower innocence granting the trainer substantial combat advantages. It's just a pity one of the trainer classes (thug above), removes the most interesting aspect of this mechanic, the defeat part. Mechanically, I feel like there's not a huge reason for this thing to care about board layout and movement measurement, and it doesn't seem to add much of interest for the additional complexity. It's original enough though, theme aside. I think that high innocence needs at least one more positive thing associated however, as it stands you should have just one trainer to do the one thing you'll want higher innocence for.

Developer

Thanks for the comment!

There's definitely a handful of places a second draft of this could update.

Honestly, the unconsciousness mechanic is there at least partially as a workaround - i didn't have the space to work out human vs mon combat.

The thug class was a half-baked idea - i felt like it would be too easy to knock them out otherwise. The low innocence also makes it harder to win the game, since the sponsorship deal for the highest innocence character is a big payout at the end.

Submitted

An extremely interesting theme! I'm not totally sure if I get your interpretation of redesigning failure, but the P̶o̶k̶e̶m̶o̶n̶ mon theme is really fun! 

Developer

At least the intention is for all the rolls to represent the Trainers' child-like innocence. Sometimes, failing that roll, not being innocent enough, can give you benefits, like being able to push your Mons to harder training or use the shady businesses, at the cost of your innocence.

Developer(+1)

To me, Redesigning Failure opened up the question: can there be times when failure is preferable?

In this game, I wanted to give players the option to play toward failure. Everyone wants to be the spunky, heroic kid monster trainer, who overcomes every obstacle through the power of friendship. But if you fail at that, you can at least try to overcome every obstacle through ruthless cynicism.

Having high innocence is a powerful bonus, but some of the most interesting effects happen if you fail your Innocence checks.