My Friends the Monster Trainers
š¾ Gotta deduce 'em all!
Stuck at home while your friends go catch monsters and battle trainers, can you stillĀ complete your Monster Tracker?Ā Follow the story and search forĀ clues in your friends' letters in thisĀ short narrative deduction game.
How to play
- Read letters from your friends and follow their monster-collecting adventures.
- Use your powers of observation and deduction to identify the appearance, alignment, moves, and habitat of theĀ monsters.
- Click on the dropdowns in the Monster Tracker to fill in the details, then click Validate.
- Each time you identify three monsters, you'll get more letters that you can open toĀ see what happens next in the story. Click the mailbox!
- Optionally, take notes on each monster's page, the Notes page, and fillĀ in the Alignment page to trackĀ strengths and weaknesses.
Progress is saved to your browser local storage. Except if you're playing in Safari, which doesn't like to save data forĀ embedded games.
Languages
The game is also available in Korean. After pressing the green power button, go to Settings / Notes,Ā then change the Language dropdown.
ģøģ“ė„¼ ķźµģ“ė” ė³ź²½ķė ¤ė©“ Settings ė©ė“ģģ Languageė„¼ ķ“ė¦ķģøģ!
Credits
Originally created in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 58. This is a post-jam version with additional updates.Ā The theme was "Collector".
- CeliaĀ did the design, writing, and code.
- Rose did the art.
- Hunter helped with the monster names.
- Korean translation by Erica Noh.
- Music:Ā "Out And About" by FesliyanStudios
- Sounds: SubspaceAudio,Ā Rhodesmas,Ā HarpyHarpHarp,Ā SkyernAklea, Nomracer
ā ļø Some comments below have spoilers, so be cautious reading them before playing!
After playing, ifĀ you want to talk spoilers, try the html details technique.
Development log
Comments
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Found this game on a whim from the front page, loved it and finished it in one sitting! Such a fun way to do actual deduction. So smart! Then I noticed you also worked onĀ Familiar Flip, which was one of my favorites from the gbjam last year!!
Would love to see and hear your ideas about future versions. It got my mind racing with ideas, so can't wait what you come up next :)
Any upcoming jams where I can look forward toĀ your games?
Cheers!
Thatās great to hear, thank you!
We shall see if I ever circle back to MFMT or if I have too many new ideas to work on. Right now Iām super busy with my daily word puzzle The Daily Spell, and the other half of Jamwitch, Rose, is busy with life stuff! But I at least am hoping to participate in Ludum Dare in mid-April. š¤
This was incredibly cute. I love how natural the hints felt when they got dropped in the letters.
Very Good Game. That was a Clever Bit withĀ Pharolith. I, like so many others got so stuck in the Pattern of the previous Monsters. rot13 =Ā Rirelguvat lbh arrq rkprcg gur vzntr naq unovgng vf va Yrggre #16. Qba'g trg svkngrq ba gur cnggrea bs gur bgure zbafgref. Guvf bar Oernxf gur zbyq.
A couple of them were a little obtuse (Pharolith in particular felt a bit cheeky), but the designs of the creatures and the way the game is presented work very well, it doesnāt lean too much on nostalgia to stand on its own, either.
Had a lovely time playing through the game!
A really fun deduction game. IĀ love how it builds on everything through story. IĀ do think, though, that Pharolith is kinda unfair, though, as IĀ couldn't find any mention of his second move in any of the mails.
Would love to see a full release of this kind of game, if that ever happens. Really enjoyed what IĀ played here.
Pharolith's second move is mentioned in a letter that doesn't mention Pharolith's name >.> (I got to that letter and was like, I can't use any of this information right now, guess I'll come back to it)
Let's just say that its second move is mentioned as part of a group. You have to be reading carefully to pick up on it.
this was an awesome game! i like how it has a little bit of a backstory to it and all the characters add small little piece's of their day to it, the last letter that was from vincent was really touching and i hope you keep adding to this game, it was so cool to play
This was a fun little deduction game, and I really appreciated the addition of the alignment chart to help track strengths and weaknesses. Thanks so much for uploading this!
super cute and very fun! i was more locked in playing this than i think i realized lol.Ā ive wanted to play through stuff like golden idol, but ended up watching a youtuber play it, so getting a short and sweet version of that themed around
pokemoncreator collections was really nice! i will say that i felt like i was holding myself back from filling up later entries just by name alone, but not only is that not a bad thing its' kind of an expected byproduct of showing the names of creatures in the dex. if you expand this idea, maybe there's cause to make only each dex number visible and assign names off that? idk but i feel like there's a lot of potential here and this game was extremely fun! thank you so much for making this and i wish you well for the future!Thanks for the comment! And yeah, I was thinking about that too, since I agree the feeling of being able to guess but thinking you should have to hold yourself back isnāt great. I briefly considered having all empty pages, and you can start adding information for any monster anywhere you want and when that information is a valid monster it can lock in, but thatās less like filling in a neat well-ordered dex compared having a specific spot for each monsterā¦ Definitely interesting to ponder.
This is so fun and sweet! I fully got into character and made setting notes for this. All the sprites are so cute. I got here from dungeon descent, then daily spell, and now here, and I am absolutely in love. You guys really have range in writing silly, tragic, and heartwarming all at once.
In-Character Notes
My name is Avery. Iām not a monster trainer yet, but Harper and Ollie are. Theyāre sending me notes to help me fill out my tracker-I should remember to thank them next time I see them.
Harper is very smart about alignments, so she was made for this. Ollie is a little more carefree, but heās always gotten along really well with monsters, so Iām sure heāll do great! Harperās been giving him good advice, too.
I worry about them, though. Harper knows a lot, but she can be a little headstrong because she thinks sheās prepared for everything. And Ollie might do something dumb without her aroundā¦I shouldnāt worry, Iām sure theyāll be fine.
Maybe Iāll get to join them one day, but for now, Flora is all I need.
Thank you so much for this lovely comment!! My heart grew three sizes reading that. As a writer, it means so much to know that I was able to communicate something about the characters and that people appreciate them. š
I landed here from The Daily Spell, and this was such a sweet way to spend an evening - and I think some of my close ones will really appreciate it too. I've been both into deduction games and back into Pokemon lately, so the experience was perfect. I could envision this so much from Harper and Ollie's letters.
Thank you so much for making this! (and, while I'm at it, for the Daily Spell too!!)
Thank you, that's really nice to hear!
As a rogue dnd player with a black cat, I think I know what my favorite monster is :) Added this to my favorite games list!!!
Really cute and fun!Ā I'm just playing your whole back catalog today apparently.Ā IĀ stumbled a few times on the back half, but we got there eventually!Ā ....I wanna go on these adventures, dang.
This was a lot of fun!
Interesting format! At first I thought it was going to be too hard to deduce two moves for each monster, but it was just the right amount of information. It felt natural!
I really liked it!! The format was really nice, as well as the length! It provided a cute and enjoyable afternoon before the weekend š„°
GAME COMPLETE!!!ššš
I got everyone except for Vursus! (Needless to say, I had to cheat with Pharolith.)
EDIT: I completed the game!
I got teary eye towards the end.Ā A wonderful experience.
Monument monster? Monument Mythos reference??? (very fun game :3)
Afraid not, I just had to google that! Glad you enjoyed.
Very cute, was a good way to wile away the time as my friend recommended! Though I've never played a deduction game before, I was surprised by how much redundant info there was.Ā It's almost like the game was designed around different unlock paths to the next letter, even though I used every available bit of information as it came, so alternative paths would have needed blind guessing.Ā
Very fun game. It was a lot of fun reading the letters trying to figure out what monsters used what. I honestly guessed with part of the puzzles, but overall a joy to play and I look forward to trying more of your games.
That was so fun and really satisfying to complete !!! I like the unique way the "pokedex" was embedded as well. Great presentation and very fun.
This was an absolutely delightful bite-sized puzzle game!Ā Really captures the Pokemon-style whimsy, and the monster designs are very cute. The two friends' different perspectives on events are fun too!
So cute! It feels like a wonderful tribute to monsters-collecting games but with its own mechanics. I had a blast.
I'm very impressed with the personality all characters got from so little text. Loved having two takes on some events, and quickly becoming able to tell right away which friend wrote this letter -- I love these kids and want to protect and nurture them!! So wholesome ;w;
IĀ want to keep playing in this world for hours and hours :)
Beautiful late night experience... still have class tomorrow... 10/10
I really enjoyed the game ā it was so charming and cute!
By the way, do you have any plans for other language versions? Iād love to help voluntarily if thatās something youād ever consider.
Thanks! I donāt currently have any plans to translate it, but if youāre offering to do a translation and you think thereās at least a few players who would enjoy it, Iām open to it! Message me on Bluesky?
Iāve translated other itch.io game into Korean before and the players really loved them, so I thought your game would be a great match too!
It looks like your DMs are only open to people you follow ā feel free to follow me at @ericanoh.bsky.social if youād like to chat more ā¤
This was really fun and cute! IĀ sent it to my friends with the message "What if Obra Dinn but pokedex?" :D
Cool game! I had fun going back and forth through the letters and it realy made me feel smart!
So, there's supposed to be music? Oh, nevermind. That's for the future... Well...Ā The green start button is a non-symbol that's saying it's supposed to be 23FB...
Here on Firefox Windows 10
Fun to play again, seeing what I remember and deducing again what I didn't!
Thanks for checking it out! Yeah, I wanted to get it updated since this version has a lot of improvements over the jam version, but I also want to commit to adding sound before calling it done and posting the update devlog and so on, so stay tuned...
Thanks for the speedy report on the start button! I changed the font to one that definitely supports the power symbol -Ā let me know if you can see it now.
I'm seeing the power button on Firefox on Linux and Windows 10! Woo!
scratched my roottree/obra dinn/golden idol itch so bad i started purring
i dont think ive ever seen a āreading comprehensionā type game before. this is really cool!
Thanks! It's inspired by deduction games like Obra Dinn, the Roottrees Are Dead, and Riley & Rochelle. I'm really into those games and realizedĀ that a Pokedex would be a fun thing to have to fill out!
This was super cute!
Pharolith gave me the standard ambiguity problems, but I feel like the big problem there is that I didn't fully understand the type chart? I went back through the letters and I couldn't see where (rot13) lbh jrer fhccbfrq gb yrnea gung Zrephel vf jrnx gb Znef.
Other than that, the game was pretty smooth, and I'm kinda sad that we won't get to see the rest of Harper and Ollie's adventures.
Thanks for playing! In the next update I'm adding a page to track the type chart, which I'm hoping will be fun to fill in as you go and will make that aspect clearer (alongside me fixing up some of the clues.)
To your question, gur pyhr jnf zrnag gb or va yrggre 16, gung Sver Fynfu vf tbbq ntnvafg Fvarfgryyn.
Ah, I see! I missed that.
Hey, I think I found a weird glitch in the game, when I came to Stagmite, I put forest as it's habitat, yet the game considered it incorrect? I feel like this is a bit off as the place it was caught was called 'Orion Forest'
I ended up finishing the game and I LOVE IT!!!!! I really hope to see more of this type of game from you two! Hell, I'd even spend like 15$ to get a full fledged version of this!
Thank you so much for playing, I'm glad you liked it!Ā I'm working on some post-jam updates to what we have now, butĀ I think it's unlikely we'll have time for an expanded version -Ā but your vote of confidence is awesome to hear, thank you!
As for Stagmite, it was found "in the fields outside Orion Forest", so its habitat is Fields, not Forest.
This game was fun. Thanks for sharing it. I first found you with tongue tied, and all your games have been a blast to play through.
I only struggled with Pharolith. I thought it was grass as it was weak to fire, and ended up having to guess all elements.
Thank you, glad you liked it! And yep, in the rush to finish for the jam timeline, I ended up withĀ Pharolith's clues asĀ ambiguous, sorry about that. Will clean up those clues in my post-jam update.
yea i quit i cant figure out pharolith someone just tell me
You can find both of itsĀ skills in letter 16.Ā
Letter 13 gives a hint to its habitat.
Letter 14 gives a hint to its dual element nature.
If you still want the answer, I'l drop it under this and strike it through:
Saturn,Merc,Desert,RockPunch,ArmorVery fun and clean!Ā I really love identification-game in general, but I like the "pokemon first gen" mood on this one : especiallyĀ how you mix both the fantasy we have when playing the game, and the strategy/data we need to learn to enjoy the game to the fullest. Really liked how you can also anticipate/guess some information by the name of it, or the colour. Help a lot in the "end game" !
As i was playing this i remembered that Pokemon is a game originally meant for children and all i could think was "how did children managed to internalize the strenghts and weaknesses of each type so well???" Stuff like water beats fire is obvious but what about stuff like rock beating flying?Ā
Cause i'm an adult playing this and i'm struggling, i can't for the life of me figure out Pharolith. I figured it's a saturn mon from the desert but apparently it has two saturn moves?? i'm probably just confused.Ā I can't figure out it's second alignment.
But in anyways great game, these characters are very charming.
I tried to make Pharolith tricky but I accidentally made some of the clues ambiguous rather than clearly pointing to what's going on with it, whoops. Here's an extra clue to make up for it:Ā it has an alignment that Harper's team has two monsters of and Ollie's team has one.
really like this, just need to figure out vursus and malegora now...Ā
Very cute game, and just challenging enough to remain interesting throughout.Ā
Your writing continues to impress; thatĀ you managed to get me invested in all these characters with only a few letters is impressive. I could tell so much about Harper and Ollie's personalities just from the nicknames they gave their monsters,Ā which I'd say isĀ excellent character writing.Ā
Another 10/10. I only wish it were longer so I could have followed Harper on her journey to fame and glory (and Ollie on his journey to cheer for Harper š).