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Friday, December 30, 2016

Making 2017 My Year


     This is it. Go For Broke! 2017 has to be the year Yotes Games either becomes a respected name in the industry, or I find out Battle Gem Ponies was a miserable failure. Either I release a successful game and finally move into a home of my own, or sweep up the pieces of my shattered pride and find a job as an entry-level designer somewhere.

     I'm kicking the year off fanfare by releasing Battle Gem Ponies on Steam Greenlight at 10:00am January 1st. All hope lies on that getting some games media attention and giving me some indication that the 25K minimum customer count is possible.

     Life is hard. Indie development is risky. The unknown future is scary. But I gotta go for it to get the good ending, you know? The year 2016 curb-stomped a lot of people, and I certainly haven't healed yet. And I'm certainly not the only one taking new year's resolutions seriously this time around. Things really need to change, and at the very core of it all, the best way I could improve my life is by getting the finished version of this game out there.

     So here's to the final sprint! One last crunch-tastic year to finishing Battle Gem Ponies once and for all! To finally putting my dream RPG out there for others to find, play, and love! To finally obtaining financial independence and living with the freedom I dreamt of for at least a decade now!

Here's to making the greatest super-powered pony RPG anyone's ever seen!

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #104 (Holiday Week)


     Christmas and Hanukkah passed over on the same weekend, Super Mario Run came out, and the app store exploded. So while some devs are rolling in dough at the moment, I'm still chipping away at my project for the next winter rush.

Take a look at this week in gamedev below!

Friday, December 23, 2016

Panel Submissions Open (BronyCon 2017)

Submit Panel Ideas!
     Alright. Here we go again. Another chance to make or break Battle Gem Ponies in the eyes of the public! I'm sure I'll get my panel through again going by other gamedev panels' BronyCon legacies. Just a matter of getting another golden time slot like last year so I can actually leave a STELLAR impression this time instead of just a good one.

     By the time BronyCon comes around, my game HAS to be done. I'll be showing off a finished build this time and how this presentation goes over will determine how other conventions will treat me. Either I become the next Fighting is Magic, or never achieve the coveted Horse Famous status.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #103 (Your Moves)


     Feels good having this functional. The moves are the juicy flavor centers in this metaphorical meal of a game. Scrolling through what your pony can learn and seeing what they can do delivers on that RPG feel really well. Now I just have to animate a bunch of them for the demo!

Friday, December 16, 2016

Vacation: Holiday Matsuri 2016

Holiday Season Con in Florida!
     Gonna be straight up with you. No kind of productivity is happening this weekend. I'm going to be at a convention here in Orlando for the next 3 days so I won't get back to business until Monday. If work goes smoothly, I might have Demo 6 out late Tuesday night and include it in the next DevLog post. You can finally try out pony surfing and capture gems!

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #102 (Pony Surfing in the USA)

I can't get over how cool this is.
     The pony surfing mechanic is so fun and feels so good that I feel like doing even more with it. All I had in mind before was quickly traveling across water, diving into a secret dungeon, and navigating whirlpool puzzles. Now I feel like adding some simple minigames and speed challenges to make the Sapphire Sea segment of the game even more fun.

     It'd be so great to have it be the opposite of the Hoenn ocean segment and be one of this game's highlight moments instead of a boring grind like ocean exploration parts feel like in Wind Waker and Pokemon Emerald. Plus, this gives players a way to bond with their pony. Can't help but love your little buddy a bit after speeding around like this.

Get a few GameDev Updates below!

Friday, December 9, 2016

Pony-Surfing is Cool


     Remember a couple weeks ago when I wanted a cool reason for surfing with your pony to make sense? I think I came up with something pretty good here. You get on a little surfboard and your pony tugs you across the sea! This way your clothes don't get wet, your pony has an excuse for being in the water, your avatar only occupies 2 tiles of space, and you can move very quickly over water.

     You can either go at a nice, cruising pace, or dash like crazy to cover some serious distance. As simple as toggling the run button.

     It has a flaw in that it means you need an Aqua pony, or at least something that swims well, whenever you want to cross water. On one hand, this is people's natural inclination going by the Let's Plays of the BGP demo. On the other, I wonder if it'll annoy players like HMs did by having them need to go back to the nearest town to put an Aqua pony on their team in order to explore the Sapphire Sea or Spinel Ridge waterfalls.


     This way seems to be a bit neater than the miniboat idea (No idea how to make that look good. Both in overworld and as a battle background.) and brings some cool imagery to the game. I can already picture the pony surfing fan art in my head.

     Also, while I was at it, I added teleportation so you can get to Town Hall more quickly and customize your pony. These things together should make navigating Pinto much more fun. And you'll get to try them both in Demo 6!

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #101 (December Crunch!)


     Demo 6 is coming along. Hopefully done in just a couple weeks in time for Star Wars weekend. But likely sooner at my current pace. Being a little stricter with my time and using little techniques to keep me focused on one small task at a time is helping me get down the to-do list. Racing against the calendar and staying up til 4am every day to get this thing done!

It's crunch-time, baby!

Friday, December 2, 2016

Demo 8 for Steam Greenlight?


     With the game's delayed development in mind (from one hell of a Summer to a very distracting Fall) I'm currently thinking of ways to still keep my "Coming to Greenlight in January" promise. The one I made for myself as well as anyone who'd listen. I wanted January because I heard that the early Mondays of that month were the perfect time to get press attention.

     So the plan was to blitz a bunch of press sites and forums the Monday after Magfest and get as many people to check out the latest build of BGP as possible. By the looks of things though, that build may be Demo 8.0 (the Pinto Island demo) and not the beginning segment of the game with tons of polish like I had wanted.

     With that, I may still be Greenlit with the help of the brony community, and could even catch the eye of gaming sites looking for Pokemon fan game related scoops just as Sun/Moon hype is on the decline and Pokemon GO winter updates are either released or proven to be rumors.

     Should things go swimmingly, I'd still like to have that big story update come out piece-by-piece. I'd like to release 3 different segments (one month at a time) showing off how great the final game will be. From the beginning to the end of the first forest, then a batpony hunt in a cave further along in the story, then a level where you confront the game's villains in a way that leaves you wanting to see what the rest of the game could be like.


     I'm hoping this course of action succeeds in drawing attention to the project. A launch that gets tens of thousands of people onboard in that first month is ideal. That's why I want the Greenlight campaign to rally up as many folks as possible. When BGP comes out, I want everyone to know it! By giving people a good demo and showing the game's improvement over time, I'm hoping people recognize this as a project from a developer who really cares.

     I am promising to make a game that is worth the average Pokemon fan's time as well as anyone else patient enough to give this unknown game from an unknown developer a quick look.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #100


     Battle Gem Ponies! Two years and over a hundred weeks of development... All to will this Pokémon-inspired brony fan game into existence. A clear vision is finally in place and all that's left to do is chip away at building this thing piece-by-piece.

     I have never worked on a game for this long before (Unicorn Training only made it to 64 Status Reports) and I'm really feeling the effects of being overambitious. The hardest hump has yet to be crossed as the game's pre-alpha is still under construction. I'm coming out of Thanksgiving weekend on a tight schedule to make the January Steam Greenlight deadline!

Friday, November 25, 2016

Travel Moves Vs Ride Pokémon


     Since 10th grade I've wanted to make a Pokémon game where, instead of HMs, you simply needed to have a monster in your party with the physical capability to accomplish a task. Strong Pokémon can break and push boulders, winged ones can fly you around, and Water types can swim with you. Simple stuff that still compels you to diversify your team. The way things should be, right?

     But then Pokémon Sun & Moon does ya one better. Who says they need to be your Pokémon? Pokemon can be summoned and teleported right to you anyway, so why not just have ones like that appear at will and not affect your team composition at all? Much more fun and stress-free than worrying about party composition and sacrificing move slots. It's an elegant solution to a decades old problem that ended up being better than anything I've thought of or heard about before.

     Trouble is, I really should've thought of that sooner. Looking at my own game, the whole Travel Moves idea I've written pages about in my Game Design Document feels so needlessly complicated now. Like I should come up with some Key Items to handle overworld stuff instead. BGP can't just have players swap-in pony gems whenever they want, because that would break the balance of the game's adventure mode. So I'm currently considering the following:

Map of BGP's Pinto region (for reference).
     All ponies can do simple things like break/push boulders and cut trees. Only 10 of the 60 ponies are ridable and each will have different speeds and animations (useful for challenges I can design for Agility Road). A Sweet-Bot call service can act in place of Teleport/Fly/Dig and just be an overall simpler fast travel system to get to the nearest town or route checkpoint. And finally, a miniboat key item capsule someone gives you on Carmine Island can be used to explore the ocean at high speeds while the underwater segments can be limited to just the Sapphire Sanctum where Lumina alicorn's magic can be the excuse for undersea breathing.

     Going with these plans instead of the Travel Moves idea gives BGP the overworld convenience of the latest Pokémon games and will make for an overall more fun experience as player's won't have to worry so much about who's on their team just to progress through the game and find hidden items.

     How do you feel about this change of direction? What other aspects of Sun & Moon would you like to see BGP learn from? Let me know in the comments and I'll respond as soon as I read them.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #99 (Getting Somewhere)

New "Spotted!" letterbox, inspired by Sun & Moon
     Can't believe we're on DevLog #99... Last of the double digits. That means I've been at this for well over 100 weeks now counting pre-announcement dev time. Vacation week is coming to a close and I'll soon be putting a hard limit on my Pokemon playtime. Gotta get back to cracking down on that Greenlight build.

Catch up on this week's progress below!

Friday, November 18, 2016

Halted BGP: Vacation Weekend


     Can't talk. I'm busy.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #98 (Mid-November)


     I know for a fact that I won't have Demo 6 out in time for Sun & Moon. And I'll likely spend a week playing Sun and feverishly taking notes and looking into what improvements fans are latching onto to make my own game better.

     In light of that, a midway build was released on Itch.io to at least give players a build with some bug fixes and a tiny bit on polish. Get the rundown on recent events below. (You can even take a peek at my new OC pony if you're curious.)

Friday, November 11, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies: Bonus Demo Release! (Version 5.5)


     Due to recent life events and the upcoming Pokemon Sun & Moon, Battle Gem Ponies is surely going to be facing delays. In the meantime, enjoy the current build of the game. Now updated with bug/crash fixes, improved battle calculations, and more polished battle animations.

     This is no Demo 6 (which is still set to come by the end of the month) but it's something to keep everypony distracted until we can all get our hooves on the new Pokemon games, right?


     Version 6 will include Pony Capture mechanics, Move Customization via collectible Move Tutor items, and the ability to interact with your pony in the overworld!

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #97 (This is Taking Forever)


Oh, GOD I'm still working on this thing? And it's not even past pre-alpha yet? 

     Feels like I've been working on this game my entire adult life. And I kinda have, considering this started as a Pokemon fan game when I was in 10th -11th grade.

Friday, November 4, 2016

Plans for Markets & Pony Health Centers


     When thinking about what I want Pony Health Centers (still not sure on the name, but the default is starting to stick) to look like, I think about the functions they serve as well as how they fit into a city's layout. You walk in, approach the giant glowing crystal or healing machine, a heart symbol fills up, and your pony is completely healed. While you're in there, you can walk over so some computer/machine that lets you customize your gems. Throw in some NPCs, gemstone motifs, and decorations to make each one feel a little different, and there ya go.

     Unlike Pokemon though, I feel like there's a benefit to keeping shops separate. Makes you want to move around the city more, gives you a different song to listen to, and allows for a mini mart to have a distinct feel. Like it's a real place in this town everyone goes to for groceries and trainer supplies. To make them a tad more special I want to have each town sell a different set of specialties. Like maybe one town sells a certain set of move tutors and another sells battle items that match the town's theme. Maybe one town's store has a little bakery built into it.

     All these things service the gameplay and world building needs of Battle Gem Ponies. I just felt like sharing what's on my mind for them with you this week.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #96 (Don't Let It Keep You Down)

New birthday fan art by FadedSketch I'm currently in love with.
BGP's first pixelated fan work!
     With spooky season behind us, it's time to move onto the Great Greenlight Crunch. I put myself about a month behind schedule doing all this Orlando networking stuff and I need BGP's Greenlight to be a success if I truly what life to get any better. So it's time to buckle down, and whittle away at that to-do list of mine.

Friday, October 28, 2016

Yotes Games, Hopes, and Dreams (Birthday 2016)


     This is actually the last time for another 7 years that my birthday falls on a Friday so I should try to make the most of it with what I've got. Unfortunately, one of the things I don't have ready is a new BGP demo... Distractions got the best of me.

     By this time next year I'll be at Beach City Con with some of my very best friends relaxing on the beach at the peak of BGP's launch popularity. (Well actually, it'd be one week after that and I'll be mid post-con depression.) 

     If the launch is as successful as I wish it can be, I'll be house hunting and getting ready to establish a new base of operations for Yotes Games! Thoughts of my next birthday are really keeping me alive. Finishing BGP and getting it in front of every brony on Earth is my final challenge. The one last insanely difficult thing to do before I can take a well deserved break and plan out where I'd like my indie career to go.

     Should I fail, things may take a serious turn. Either selling my soul and busting my back just as hard to make someone else rich, or risking it all on a Kickstarter push for BGP2 to fix whatever kept it from selling well. All I have to do is sell 25,000 copies to justify this career choice. But I know this game has more potential than that. Pokemon Uranium just proved that there's an audience for this stuff. Indie passion projects from real Pokemon fans that gets the little things right.

     Today I turn 23, and I promised myself that I'd become the Tony Yotes I envisioned by age 24. The same age Toby Fox and John Boyega hit their prime accomplishments. In one year's time I'll have a notable game to my name. Hopefully one that brings excitement and smiles to tens of thousands of people across the globe.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #95 (Birthday Week)


     A new fire is lit under my butt as I realize the value of getting another demo out before Pokemon Sun & Moon launch. Let's Players will be eager for new Pokemon gameplay but have nothing to do in the couple weeks leading up to the 18th. Gotta put BGP in the hands of some bronies before then and maybe try to reach a few of the small-fry Pokemon channels to sort of get my foot in the door.

Check out this week's progress below.

Friday, October 21, 2016

BGP Development: Some Quick Spritework


     Just animating some moves at the moment. Then I'll be doing 3 new sets of pony animations. Getting sprites out of the way while I wait to see if Unity ever fixes these annoying editor bugs where the gameplay or scene windows randomly disappear only on Mac OSX. It makes debugging rather difficult and people have been complaining on the Unity forums for weeks, if not months now.

     So I'm grinding along making what progress I can.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #94 (One Week. Can I Even?)


     One week til my birthday where I wanted to release demo 6 as a present to myself. Turns out, I can't. The next demo will most certainly be delayed until early November. This past week has just been stacked with distractions and I spent 3 full days working with my dad at work fixing hurricane damage. The labor left me sore and exhausted so I took a day off, then I had a brony meetup at UCF I've been planning for weeks, then the Pokemon Sun & Moon demo came out, and then I had to make some charts for my Dad to work with, and at the end of it all, I realize I haven't touched the game at all in like, 7 days.

     It's been a lackluster week as far as progress goes, but Yotes Games marches on...

Friday, October 14, 2016

Delaying Demo 6 (THIS KEEPS HAPPENING)


     Some quick news on how BGP is going. In short, it's not. This week has been full of setbacks and a string of bad luck going on outside of gamedev that's really been demotivating and distracting me. After some mental recoup, I'm ready to get back at it and get this game to Greenlight.

     One thing has to be scrapped though, and that's the hope of finishing Build 6 in time for Halloween. I'll be lucky to have it out the following weekend in November at this rate. I gotta step up my productivity soon though, because the one date I can't afford to miss is the January Greenlight launch. Preferably Monday, January 2nd. The perfect time to send my game out to press sites. Even more likely to get picked up now that quality Pokemon fan games are all the rage.

     In other scrapping news, Vinerva's Ultra form animations are not at all complete like I thought they were. I was mistaken and probably remembering my days working on this version of BGP where all the animations existed in my head. Drawing all the necessary sprites for that would delay the next demo even further, so they're being pushed off into Build 7.

     In order to keep things on time, I'll have to limit finished & functional Ultra forms to only Vinerva until after the Greenlight Demo. Then I can take as much time as needed animating the rest of them.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #93 (Keep On It)


     It's mid-October now. Lots of distractions and waves of depression this week. But also some moments of fun. To fight for more of the fun stuff, I need to keep going and make this game incredible! Battle Gem Ponies! Let's Go!

Friday, October 7, 2016

Challenges Ahead for Demo 6


     Sorry I haven't been posting on Fridays for so long. Some of you may remember me saying I'd lay of these weekend posts when there's nothing to talk about, but the rest of you probably feel left in the dark. Thing is, BGP is currently at that boring stage of development where most of the weekly accomplishments are getting basic features to work, fixing bugs, improving organization, rewriting ideas, and trying to figure out how to toss numbers around to program new features at all.

     I thought I'd take a minute this week to talk about some of the upcoming obstacles I need to navigate in order to get BGP V6.0  out in time for Halloween weekend.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #92 (Wrapping My Head Around This)


     Another week passed without much being crossed off the list. Making every menu screen work properly is turning out to be a week-long affair rather than the couple days I had in mind. It's like making a little game in itself with its own little systems. I'll remember that when planning for the future. That multiplayer setup menu is going to be a pain.

Check out this week in gamedev below.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #91 (Pushing Past Setbacks)


     This week was spent making menus. Multiple times in fact since Unity kept crashing after an update and I had to start over on these things at least 5 times.

     What you're seeing in the picture above is the in-engine concept I have for the move learning screen. The white one at the top will always be the move currently assigned to the specified slot and the grey ones below it are a list you can scroll through to look for a new move to use.

If you want to see more, just look on down below!

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #90 (Pony Sprites & Polish)


     This week centered around making the game look better. Both in my head and in tangible form. I fleshed out a lot of details around the story, drew some characters to put faces to descriptions, and added some little touches here and there to make the game build feel more solid/professional.

Take a look for yourself!

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #89 (Drawing Ponies)


     Been working on pony sprites all week. I gave myself until the 15th before having to start on coding features and fixing bugs again. Then it'll be a 40 day march towards the next release. As you can see above, drawing pony sprites involves looking at a bunch of references that match the image in my head and eyeballing parts of each one to get the pixel shapes/colors I'm looking for.

     In the case of this Ghost class pony, Petrifus, I imagined a mummy/skeleton pony with purple fire over it's horn (now moved to just over the head because it looks better) inspired by the Delta form Charmander from the fan game Pokemon Insurgence.

Get more gamedev news and BGP stuff below!

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #88 (Drawn Plans)


     Drawing out each map in detail was taking too long and I want a demo out before the end of October, so I took a temporary shortcut and drew rough outlines of what I wanted in each level (outdoors only) just to have a basic idea of what I want for later. I'll do the maps in detail after I release build 7. I'll only need up to the Peridot Woods for build 8 anyway since that's what I'll be using for the Greenlight demo launch.

Friday, September 2, 2016

BGP Inspiration (Concept Art Gallery)


     I'm still not done drawing maps just yet so I thought I'd share some concept pictures pulled from Google Images that using as inspiration for the upcoming zones. These are the same images the BGP musicians will have as mental placeholders as actual in-game screenshots are under construction.

Check out the gallery below the break.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #87 (Contacts & Beginning 6.0)


     Another milestone down. New fans acquired. New bugs found. Long ways to go. The journey to make Battle Gem Ponies a thing continues.

Get more details below.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Now for Something Different... (The Fun Stuff!)


     I'm cracking open some old strategy guides and analyzing some of the design decisions of the old Pokemon games in order to get in the proper frame of mind to design my own world map tile by tile. After this I'm going to finally start making sprites for every single pony so I can see what they look like (and maybe show a few to you guys to keep you entertained).

     I'm excited to finally be doing something without code. And I get to lay down on my bed for this part! A very nice change of pace and a reward for getting over the Demo 5 hurdle. I'll consider Demo 5 a success if I can get 3,000 people to download it. And to help boost that number along, I uploaded version 5.2 last night to get rid of some nasty bugs I saw popping up.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #86 (Little by Little)


     Taking steps towards greatness. That's what it's all about. Feeling overwhelmed with just how huge this game is. Seeing smaller ideas being implemented makes me very envious. It's the "why can't I just poof this into existence" problem. If I could at least not have to deal with the debugging problems this would be insanely easy and fun.

The road looks long ahead, but aiming for the milestones makes the journey feel more manageable. So it's onto the next. See you below the break.

Friday, August 19, 2016

Download: Battle Gem Ponies Demo 5.1 (FillyCon Build)


     Get your hooves on the newest version of the Pokemon inspired game about bejeweled horse altercations today! Battle Gem Ponies available for Android, PC, Mac, and now Linux platforms!

     This game works with touchscreens, mice/keyboard setups, and gamepads alike (and if not, tell me in the Bug Report Forums). Next update (6.0) will feature tons of little touches and activities to do in the overworld as well as a bunch of new ponies to battle with and capture. Thanks for keeping up with the game's development and enjoy playing BGP Demo 5.1!


You can download the latest BGP Build on Itch.io!




Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #85 (A Different Kind of Work Week)


     Nothing really to report this time around. Spent the last 6 days cleaning carpets at the University of Central Florida's University House with my Dad and his crew. Trying to save up some social life money for the long year ahead. I really have nothing to report about gamedev until next week because I haven't even turned my computer on until yesterday. Most of that time was panicking over emails, travel plans, and financials anyway.

     Yotes Games is back in business starting today.

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #84 (August... A year from now, BGP will be out.)


     Now that was a hectic week. One awful drive from PA to FL later, I'm finally ready to start a permanent Florida life. Got friends here to keep me company (and keep me from stressing out) and the genuine feeling of a fresh start on life.

     One year from now I'll be that musclebound, wealthy, gamedev badass I imagined in high school. Good times are ahead and I'm ready to start running toward them again. Take a look at how I'm kicking this off below!

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #83 (Worst Summer Ever. Seriously.)


     Yesterday was truly a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Actually, the whole month felt that way. As if everything going wrong was building up to that. I'm more emotionally broken than I've ever been, but gained a whole new reason to believe in myself and stay determined.

     Find out why this post has been delayed, why almost nothing got done since BronyCon, and the silver lining along all the storm clouds over my head by digging through the post below!

Friday, July 29, 2016

Scrapped: BGP Online Multiplayer (for now...)


     After juggling the options around in my head for a couple months I've decided to scrap online battles in Battle Gem Ponies. At least for the first game in the series. I'm shrinking the scope to avoid further delays and putting the focus on local PvP for now.

     Get more details on why this is going down and how much cooler it'll be with more time to bake by taking a look below.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #82 (Geez, It's Like All I Ever Talked About Was BronyCon)


     Spent most of the week dealing with some serious personal stuff and spent the weekend playing some new games I've been meaning to try for a long time. Namely INSIDE, Crawl, Nidhogg, Lethal League, OFF, The Stanley Parable, and Freedom Planet. With a diverse range of games like that fresh in my mind all the indie juices are fired up and I'm eager to leave my mark on the industry.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Rolling with the Punches (BronyCon 2016)


     I had a great time at BronyCon, but there was a little hurdle I tripped over that weekend...

     I had a gamedev's worst nightmare on what I was building up as the most glorious day of my life. Technical issues... See how they destroyed me and/or made me stronger below the break.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #81 (BronyCon Aftermath)


     Long silence, huh? Took a while for my determination to kick back in after post-con depression dragged me under like a hungry Kraken. The first draft of this post being deleted just as I hit the publish button yesterday didn't help motivate me either.

     I'm ready to talk about BronyCon now and get back to BGP after a solid week of no gamedev! Get some belated BronyCon details below!

Friday, July 8, 2016

Download: Battle Gem Ponies Demo 5 (BronyCon Build)


     The BronyCon panel is happening today and to celebrate, the newest version is now available for Android, PC, and Mac platforms! The panel attendees will get to see a live demonstration, but those of you at home get to enjoy some pony gaming fun today too!

     This game should be gamepad friendly (and if not, tell me in the Bug Report forums). Next update will feature tons of little touches and activities to do in the overworld as well as a bunch of new ponies to battle with and capture. Thanks for keeping up with the game's development and enjoy playing BGP Demo 5.0!


You can download the latest BGP Build on Itch.io!

Or watch the New Trailer on YouTube!

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #80 (Showtime...)


     This is it. I fly away tomorrow, reunite with friends the next afternoon, and face the crowd the day after. After working my fingers to the bone (well, more like my legs and wrists from this intense sitting position) people will finally get to see my labor of love. Emphasis on labor because this is mentally exhausting.

     The trailer is done and I'll be rounding up bugs to the very last day. I'll probably even work on the plane. Whatever it takes to ensure this game is impressive on Friday.

Friday, July 1, 2016

See You at BronyCon!! (With Battle Gem Ponies Demo 5!)


     The BronyCon schedule has been posted and the Battle Gem Ponies is listed on Day 1! The panel will be hosted in the Hall of the Planets next Friday at 3:30pm and we couldn't be any more hyped to show you all how far the game has come since last year.


If you want to know what you're in for, you can check out Last Year's Panel on YouTube.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #79 (BronyCon Prep)

It's been a busy week. The game looks and feels really different now.
Has it really only been 7 days?
     One week until judgement day. In the sense that people will be judging the game and it's popularity for the rest of the year is on the line here. 7 days left to compile a build that can impress a crowd. Can I get this done without anymore bugs? Finger, toes, and other appendages crossed. I'm staying up 'til 4am every night pretty consistently now because I just get so focused in those quiet hours. Whatever it takes to finish this demo for BronyCon...

I'm feeling that game jam pressure. It's crunch time.