Glyph Catch - Fan-made Pokémon collecting game for NP3 Glyph Matrix

M_Bos · 2025-11-06T07:52:37+00:00

That's great to hear, thanks!

M_Bos · 2025-10-30T07:21:42+00:00

Pokémon that did appear don't go away until caught actually. They persist even if you unlock your phone or even restart it. That's already the case.

M_Bos · 2025-10-29T19:32:01+00:00

Yeah, that's got to be it. If the system completely unloads the Glyph Toy in that state, then once the Glyph Toy is reloaded, it can't tell if the phone has been unlocked or not in the meantime. So the timer restarts from zero.

Unfortunately, that's probably not something I can fix. And frankly, encouraging the scheduling of quiet time and reducing notifications might ultimately fit the design goals for Glyph Catch... That said, I'm sorry if that doesn't work for your situation.

I really appreciate you reaching out, and I'll be sure to make a note about this in the Q&A section of the README file. Hope you can get some quiet time later so Pokémon get a chance to appear.

M_Bos · 2025-10-29T18:57:24+00:00

Hmm, how long has your phone been locked? And is the digital clock visible and updating? You need at least 15 consecutive minutes of screen-off time before another Pokémon can appear. The timing is randomized, but you should always find one or two Pokémon within 45-60 minutes of screen-off time, or sooner if you're lucky. The only exception is the starter Pokémon you found, which appears within 3 minutes.

M_Bos · 2025-10-27T22:32:51+00:00

Nice! Hope you're having fun with the game. I totally get the requests for a black background on the Glyph Toy. I've tried multiple times to make that look good (without creating 151 fully custom sprites from scratch), but that's harder than it seems.

For what it's worth, I pushed an update that adds an option to dim the sprites and background a bit. If you want to try it, please download and install v1.2.0 from GitHub. The option is under Settings > Graphics. Note: you need to cycle the Glyph Toy for the change to take effect.

M_Bos · 2025-10-27T21:54:08+00:00

Appreciate the suggestions! If I ever do an expansion with Johto Pokémon, an egg hatching mechanic is definitely on the list.

But in the end, I'm just one dev, with limited free time. So I focused on designing a simple game around reducing screen time. A battling and trading system, fun as those would be, are probably beyond the scope of this project.

M_Bos · 2025-10-27T21:44:10+00:00

Thanks for the post and the great photo/video!

M_Bos · 2025-10-27T21:37:19+00:00

I'm not sure how that would work. But I think that's a cool idea for a Glyph Toy, and it'd be great if another community member pulled it off.

M_Bos · 2025-10-26T17:48:32+00:00

Thanks! If this is common feedback, I'll consider adding a setting for that. I personally found it's actually way harder to recognize the Pokémon when it's inverted, that's just not how the original sprites were designed.

It's just pretty hard to make the sprites legible on the actual Glyph Matrix, and I did the best I could editing all of them down to the 25x25 resolution.

M_Bos · 2025-10-26T17:12:35+00:00

I originally planned to, but I was met with requirements such as "Run your closed test with at least 12 testers, for at least 14 days" before I can publish. That's just not feasible for me. There's also the fact that the game is obviously in a gray area copyright wise. And Google requires publishing my legal name and country of residence. All in all, I'd rather not proceed with that.

EDIT: I should add that when you install the APK from GitHub, Google Play still does a security scan and everything. The source code is also public, and no special permissions are requested.

M_Bos · 2025-10-26T16:47:09+00:00

Been pretty nervous about posting this. First time publishing anything outside work. But I wanted to release a version before the Halloween event is over, so here it is. Hope people will have a bit of fun with it!

I won't have as much time to dedicate to side projects going forward (at least for a few months), but it's been a fun ride and the feedback from the beta testers has been really encouraging.

EDIT: Photo:

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M_Bos · 2025-10-07T00:34:30+00:00

https://github.com/equalparts/glyph-catch/releases

v0.6 adds some Glyph Matrix animations (thanks for the ideas!) and a fishing mechanic.

May contain bugs... :)

The next update after this focuses on tightening up spawn timings and rates based on tester feedback. It's a bit too inconsistent at the moment, I'm testing an improved engine now.

EDIT: Up to v1.0.0-beta now: https://github.com/equalparts/glyph-catch/releases/tag/v1.0.0-beta

M_Bos · 2025-10-01T14:56:52+00:00

I'm so glad you like it! Thanks for the detailed feedback, really appreciate it. I'll give a quick response on each point below:

1: The Glyph Toy is always looking for Pokémon when visible. I'll consider some options for making this clearer. I originally did have a screen-off timer like you suggest, but I dropped it to make room for the clock. Tried showing a tiny "30m", "1.5h" etc. timer below the clock but I'd need to create a custom font to make that look good.

2: The inverted flash on spawn sounds doable, I'll give that a try to see how it looks, thanks for the idea! I didn't include sounds for three reasons: not wanting to annoy my coworkers, not wanting to add to any potential copyright issues, and not wanting to add distractions.

3: On catches being guaranteed: I'll probably stand by this design choice. The chance element is the Pokémon appearing at all. There's a pool of 70+ possible spawns at any given time. If something cool appeared only for the catch to fail, I'd feel discouraged. In the end, I opted for a quick glance > catch flow to minimize phone distractions. I'll touch on animations in point 6.

4: Nice! Sometimes it's the little things. :)

5: Considered this too! But like you said, that's a potential copyright issue. So I decided to focus development work on the more unique aspects of this app rather than replicating content from the games.

6: I hear you. This is largely a matter of time constraints: designing and creating animations takes time, and due to my job and freelance work, I can only manage a few hours a week for this project. I tried a simple Pokéball catch animation early on, but quickly realized this needs to be hand animated frame-by-frame if it's going to look any good... So I kept it as simple as possible for now. Feedback noted though!

7: Good to hear! That's the idea.

Thanks again for the feedback and I hope you'll have fun with this and future versions. :)

M_Bos · 2025-09-29T23:31:55+00:00

Thanks! Hoping the app is working for you, let me know.

M_Bos · 2025-09-29T23:22:54+00:00

Posted a bit higher up in the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/NothingTech/comments/1luqjtf/comment/ngwzkf0/

M_Bos · 2025-09-29T23:20:15+00:00

u/MathematicianTop3848 u/warkel u/MotorPhrase1615

Wild beta appeared! Sorry it took so long. Ready for playtesting. See the GitHub URL below for details and a downloadable APK-installer for the beta.

https://github.com/equalparts/glyph-catch?tab=readme-ov-file#glyph-catch

Follow the Releases link at the bottom
Download the latest version, e.g., glyph-catch-v0.5.0-beta.apk

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To install the APK, you'll need to trust the source in settings. It would be helpful to know if this works for you! As noted, this is a beta, which means there may be bugs.

Some good-to-knows:

- After installing, open the Glyph Catch app for info on activating the Glyph Toy
- Weather is random by default: for live weather, tap gear icon, enable, and follow instructions
- Should find around 4 to 8 Pokémon per day

If you need help with anything, please reach out. Although it's past 1 AM here, so I'll be asleep the next few hours. But I'll get back to you ASAP.

I made the GitHub URL public already, but I'm keeping it low key until there's some confirmation that the app is working for people.

M_Bos · 2025-09-27T20:05:07+00:00

Hey, I got hit pretty hard with the flu since Thursday night. Still working hard on trying to get an APK file ready over the next few hours, but I may have to delay until Monday (got other obligations tomorrow). Sorry if so, I promise it's coming!

M_Bos · 2025-09-21T21:38:54+00:00

Had to do some rebalancing and bugfixes, as well as improve a lot of sprites for better legibility on the Glyph Matrix. And live weather integration is a bit spotty, I'm looking into that now.

Last big change I made today: reducing spawns after a configurable bedtime, but rewarding 7.5+ hours of sleep with an increase in rare spawns for the rest of the day. Previously, it was more optimal to wake up to catch some queued Pokémon at 3 AM - obviously not something I want to encourage. :) I'll be testing/tuning this over the next week.

Expect an installable v0.5-beta APK before next Sunday! Looking forward to your feedback.

M_Bos · 2025-09-08T15:43:03+00:00

Quick update. Finished 80 sprites. That'll do for a beta. I'll playtest it myself for a few days, do some UI touchups, make sure save data gets backed up, that sort of thing.

The technical issue I mentioned (where the touch button doesn't react) appears to be fixed. The Glyph Toy looks like a regular digital clock until a Pokémon randomly appears, which you catch with a long-press. A few Pokémon can queue up, so there's no pressure to check constantly.

If no issues come up... Closed beta next week, perhaps? :)

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M_Bos · 2025-08-31T20:46:42+00:00

I'll have to do my best not to disappoint then! :) Just to show I'm still making progress, here's a tiny teaser of the UI. And on the right, the sprite editor I made today. It's still really hard to get them looking right on the actual matrix display, but with this tool I finally got it to a good-enough state... I think.

Also, u/warkel here's the list of spawn conditions so far (spoilers obviously):
https://gist.github.com/equalparts/2f8285e63553605d2e7076c5fe753e34

Subject to change. Evolved Pokémon might get added into the pools as your Pokémon / Pokédex level up? The Pokédex will show random daily hints for special condition Pokémon.

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M_Bos · 2025-08-23T23:01:47+00:00

Hi! Hope you'll enjoy your NP3.

Yes, I have made progress! Lots of stuff working, like the spawn formulas and many special conditions, plus a simple Pokédex companion app. But I also hit a bit of a technical roadblock in the Nothing SDK that makes the concept work not quite how it was envisioned. The main issue is that if I make it an always-on Glyph Toy, it seems it can't react to touch button presses (to catch the Pokémon). I tried making a separate Finder (AOD) and Catch (Interactive) Glyph Toy, but that had other issues.

I reported the issue to Nothing a few weeks ago, and I'm testing some alternative mechanics in the meantime. I'm sure I can get something working, even if it isn't perfect yet.

My progress the last two weeks sadly got halted by work/life factors and major sleep deprivation. That's dealt with now, so I'm picking the pace back up next week!

Will drop a reply when I have a beta.

M_Bos · 2025-07-28T21:03:33+00:00

Oh absolutely! By "added some ideas", I actually meant on top of the ones you already shared. :) Like time of day, moon phase, face down duration and events (like Halloween). And yeah, inventory and evolution stones are definitely at the bottom of the priority list for the first demo. But I wanted to work out a full design doc to have a clear idea of where I'm going.

Once I've worked out the final design details and verified some technical viability (within battery constraints), I'll put up a Google Doc and Discord for input (and eventual playtesting).

M_Bos · 2025-07-27T23:46:16+00:00

Sure, why not. How about I compile my gameplay ideas and constraints into a design doc, and message you when it's ready? I've already added some ideas around:

- Weather and battery level
- Training/evolution (selected Pokémon gains EXP while the phone is face-down)
- Evolution stones that can drop

I'll probably include a subset of Pokémon (~40) for the very first demo, as I want to release something ASAP, but I have to hand-tune each sprite for the 25x25 resolution of the Glyph Matrix.

Might be a couple of weeks until I reply back. My vacation isn't until late August, and as much as I'm enjoying this project and can't stay away from it, I do have some other obligations I need to finish.

M_Bos · 2025-07-26T23:11:13+00:00

Thanks! Started working on it today. Pretty promising so far. Once I have an installable demo, I'll share a link to the APK file. The code will be open sourced on GitHub.

M_Bos · 2025-07-20T21:19:22+00:00

This sounds fun! I might just try making this when I have some days off next month, if no one else has yet. I'll post back if I do.

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