A few years ago I came across an A.A. Voigt video about the Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game while skimming his channel. At the time, I was fascinated by the fact that something like this even existed. A time when Nintendo was a bit more loose with their IP, maybe? Or perhaps its existence can be attributed wholly to the fact that WoTC was already making Pokémon Cards for the western market. An idea which seems to be more likely based on the comments by Bill Slavicsek in A.A. Voigt’s video. Either way, it seems like a bit of a unique product of its time. I ended up picking up a copy of the game on eBay and then mostly forgot about it. 

Not long ago, it wormed its way into my brain again as I worked on a couple of card game systems. So I brought it to the table just to try it out with the gang at Playtest Chicago. I’m not sure why it lit my brain on fire so much more to play it than just read the tiny booklet, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since! At its core the game is simple; players catch Pokémon! These are big cards with two sides for different powers. Each power has a chance to hit, the amount of damage it does and sometimes an extra ability that often includes flipping the Pokécoin. This simple system pairs with great, simple writing and easy to use tools for parents or kids to onboard everyone straight into the Episodes - their version of little adventures. A lot of this comes down to a game that can lean heavily on the IP it’s drawing from, but what else does it do well to introduce players to the game?

When someone cracks open a book, turns on a show, boots up a video game or starts reading a TTRPG; it's often the first impressions and initial interactions with the art that drive whether they want to continue on. We only have so long to pull someone into the work before they might decide that it’s not for them. Overwrought and jargon filled projects can push people away, even if it might be the sort of thing they’d otherwise love. Others might gravitate towards games with dense text and layers of jargon. When figuring out how to onboard new players into your games it's important to think about what type of player you are trying to build for. Who are the sickos that are gonna be obsessed with this?

Before we go any further, if you would like to read Pokémon Jr, I’ve linked a PDF of the rules in plain text at the bottom of the document. As far as I could find there is no scan or PDF of the rules anywhere, if I have some extra time I may try to get the whole rule book scanned though!

Pokémon Jr. gets to skip much of the hard work by starting off with one of the most popular IPs in the world. This is obviously something that not every game will be able to do. However, Pokémon Jr. doesn’t just lean on a strong IP. In A.A. Voigt’s video, he interviews one of the lead designers: Bill Slavicsek. Bill talks about how the design of the mechanics, the way they planned the probabilities of combat, and the writing for the modules was all to make the game friendly to children and non-gamer parents. Their target audience was very clear and so they tuned the mechanics, writing and form factor to it.

One of the things that stands out to me is how simple the adventures start. The layout is incredibly simple, but very easy to understand. It clearly delineates between the portions that should be spoken, read to yourself or asked to the players. This isn’t exactly ground breaking by today’s standards, but it does feel groundbreaking compared to other TTRPG content from the 90s that I’ve read. It even has, what we would today call, Paint the Scenes integrated into the pre-made adventures. These moments allow the person running the game to engage everyone at the table to help build their own version of Pokémon.

These simple adventures start to slowly layer complexity as the players and the GM get more comfortable running the game. Many video games implement this type of ramping complexity but I see it less often in tabletop games. It lends itself incredibly well to newcomers picking up this type of game, pulling it out of the box and running it without any prep. Much of it relies on some familiarity with Pokémon as a concept though, which allows for a lot of shortcuts in explanation but leaves holes for someone unfamiliar with the property.

Most tabletop games won’t be Pokémon. While it might not have been the biggest IP in the world in 1998, it was still popular. Not only is it just not possible to always make your game based on some popular IP, it’s also incredibly creatively limiting! In an era of over-sequaled content I don’t want that. However, we’ve gotta at least talk about the ways the use of the Pokémon IP makes Pokémon Jr does possible.

The biggest benefit is familiarity. In Pokémon Jr all of the mechanics are in some way derived from the core gameplay loop of the CRPGs. Battling and catching Pokémon remain at the core of the game, with light, simple story beats to tie those mechanical moments together. You select your move, just like in the games, roll to see if it hits and then—optionally—swap moves or Pokémon before the next round. All of these moments are simple to relate back to the games if you’ve played them. This familiarity means you can spend less time explaining your mechanics. In Pokémon Jr this is used to allow the game to elide excess jargon or explanatory text. They don't even stop to explain what a Pokémon is!

While Pokémon Jr. does a fantastic job of avoiding mechanical jargon, if you open the game with zero knowledge of what Pokémon is... I have to imagine it would be quite confusing. Why are there colorful depictions of strange animal-ish creatures? Why are we training and fighting... with them? So many descriptions of the narrative framing of the game rely on knowledge of Pokémon and the surrounding universe - even just a tiny bit! In Pokémon JR’s case this seems to be a choice. At no point does it stop to onboard a player into the universe, that’s not the games goal. Of course that means that the game will just plain not work for some people, but that’s ok!

The last - and probably biggest - risk when building on beloved IPs is alienating parts of your audience because of subtle disagreements on the original text. This applies less to a built out, long term, IP of your own making, but imagine if the designers of Pokémon Jr took some big swing like having Pokémon die instead of fainting? Imagine if they butchered the characterization of some of the beloved anime characters? Now these might be silly examples, but in more complex games it becomes much easier to see how a disconnect between the designer and the IP could create a disconnect with the audience that loves the IP.

In the relatively short one-shot I ran of Pokémon Jr, Sean Foer chimed in as I was explaining the mechanics with ”Oh and I bet I know how you catch them!” and proceeded to pitch an incredible catching mechanic. I had to explain that the catching mechanic is just… beat the Pokémon! Somewhat disappointing for a game that is almost entirely about “Catching them all”. This decision was likely made to simplify mechanics for the target audience, but it's a real world example of the type of disconnect that can happen when someone knows the source material well enough to expect something more.

What can we extract from a game like Pokémon Jr. and bring to the games we make?

1) Intentional Jargon
The first and largest thing that I think I’ll be taking from Pokémon Jr is reducing jargon. Jargon can be incredibly useful, especially in complex games. However, keywording too many words can lead to hard to understand systems and annoyingly dense text. Keywords should be used sparingly and only when the keyword improves understanding of the text.

2) Clear Audience
Figure out your target audience for your game and tune your complexity and design to them. This might feel weirdly corporate, but this doesn’t have to mean developing a target audience then building a game to that audience. Instead, build the games that bring you joy. Build the art that is enticing to you and encourages you to make more of it. Then, once you’ve started to build it out, find the other sickos who like similar stuff. That is your audience. This can help drive the decisions you make as you finish your project.

3) Touchstones
While not every game can be Pokémon, or use similar existing MASSIVE IPs, it’s still useful to think about the touchstones that can connect your audience to your game. Things like referencing your influences, connecting elements to broader cultural touchstones and tone setting to get people in the right head space for the game you want people to play. All of these are huge for helping people get onboard with your game more quickly.

4) Mechanics with Clear Intent
Pokémon Jr is undergirded by a set of clear, concise mechanics that derive directly from their inspiration and give a simple, fun play experience. Throughout the written adventures all of the numbers in the combat encounters have been tweaked to favor player. The math is aimed at creating a fun, lighthearted experience. This throughline of connects all of the mechanics, writing and play.

None of these are hard rules, just like everything in design. But they are great reminders from a game in the 90s of techniques and ideas that can be used to help introduce players to our games. If you care to look a little deeper, check out the plaintext rulebook linked below!