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I’ve been spending much of my time in Pokemon TCG Pocket battling other players, especially as I wait 12 hours for another pack to become available. Doing so, I’ve seen truly unfortunate disasters. Sometimes it’s me hitting countless tails with my Marowak EX deck. Sometimes it’s the enemy Misty card never ever hitting heads. I’ve seen turn 2 concedes. I’ve seen turn 1 concedes! Such is the joy of a card game that relies, in some fashion, on luck.
But I’ve got no way to express my joy nor disappointment in such magic moments. Yeah, I can laugh or cry at my phone at 3AM, but the Japanese Charizard EX player doesn’t know that. To them, I’m just a faceless Pokemon trainer with a Pikachu badge. What I want is a chance to communicate during these moments. For this reason I look to Hearthstone for a bit of inspiration.
In case you don’t know, Activision Blizzard’s own card game grew to intense popularity when it came out years ago for a variety of reasons. But one of the funniest parts of the game without a doubt is the emote system. It allows you to send short (pre-written) messages to your opponent during matches. Stuff like, Sorry, Well Played, Hello. Totally innocent stuff. But, in the hands of players, this sort of stuff counts for a lot. Innocent players will use them as intended, while others like myself fell in love with the ability to spam ’em for a bit of banter.
Hearthstone, unlike Pokemon TCG Pocket, didn’t rely on coin flips too much when I played it. Spamming emotes was left for moments when your opponent drew a dead hand, or got hit with some nasty board clear spells. In Pokemon TCG Pocket, you can get bodied by lady luck real easy. Sure, you can play correctly, minimise risk, and build a deck intelligently. But every now and again, inevitably, you’ll just flip poorly. These aren’t bad moments, they’re hilarious occasions worth joking about. So give me an emote to express that.
While Pokemon TCG Pocket is an online game, there’s not a huge amount present that makes you feel like you’re part of a global pokemon community. Aside from passing on thanks to other players following matches or wonder picks, you can’t really interact with folks. Trading, which is set to come in the near future, will help fix that! But in the meantime, strangers you fight online may as well be faceless, nameless, characterless decks. I want a chance to actually interact with these people. If Pokemon TCG Pocket is aiming to replicate the joy of collecting and playing with Pokemon cards, it’s currently missing a core part of that enjoyable experience.
Because if you’ve ever been to a Pokemon TCG tournament, or even a casual meet-up focused around the game, or any card game, you’ll know half the joy is from the social aspect of it. It’s about laughing when you flip a coin and hit tails three times in a row. It’s about cheering when you top deck the perfect card. These moments, all of them, require an element of back and forth between players. While saying thanks after the game emulates a handshake or a GG, it’s lacking the sauce that makes playing these games against other people so compelling.
So add some emotes! Let me actually interact with all the other players enjoying the game like I am. I want someone with a quirky deck to feel proud when I express surprise, or laugh when I draw badly, or feel comfort when they fall foul of the coin. It’ll go a long way in making Pokemon TCG Pocket feel a lot bigger than a game on my phone.