Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #56 (Projections, Memorials, & YouTubers)

     I am excited to continue development after a hectic week of life getting in the way. Not much got done dev-wise thanks to all the traveling this weekend, reuniting with friends, and adjusting to my school schedule. This week, I've got a grasp on things and I can get started on my 4 hour minimum workday plan. Battle Gem Ponies needs to be out by November. And I'll make sure it happens.

My own YouTube channel reached 120 subscribers.

Pretty neat seeing that I was one of the first things to pop up when Googling unicorn sprites.
I looked over my shoulder in class as someone was looking that up
for a game assignment and there were my Equica enemies.

Speaking at my brother's memorial service.

Got me thinking about how playing with other people is a major part of the fun.

   Completed:

• Move Info Label
• KO Reset Bug Fix
• Dynamic Mid-Battle Stat Icons
• Unicorn Quest Battle System Planned

     Lessons Learned:

• My school schedule gives me plenty of time to knock out homework and still get at least 4 hours of work done a weekday.
• Cuppy Dog City continues to be an inspiration to me as a dev. His new project has me excited to tackle Unicorn Quest with my new knowledge and skills.
• My late older brother, Brian Anthony Murray played a large part in me developing this passion for video games. I will remember him as the one who helped get me on this path.
• Speaking at my brother's memorial made me realize how much playing a single player game with someone can help you bond with them. I started speaking just fine, but ended up crying when talking about how we played A Link to the Past on GBA together. My emotional connection to that game is linked to that cooperative experience.

An upcoming LGBT RPG by Bobby Schroeder has been inspiring me since the beginning.

       After a nightmare 4am drive across snowy Pennsylvania I awoke buzzing with ideas for the sequel to Unicorn Training thanks to the dream I had where I was playing it. It was a sort of pony themed Chrono Trigger with beautiful pixel art and Paper Mario simplicity behind the grid-based combat. I ended up writing down an essay's worth of details about it in my notepad app in bed. For the longest time I only had a vague idea of what I wanted for the combat, but now things are finally clear. Looking forward to executing this idea in the future.

     One of my classes is actually focused on coding random tiny projects in Unity. Extremely useful practice for what I do and an excuse to experiment with different mechanics. It's by far my favorite class. Since coding in Unity comes so naturally after 3 years of practice, I can knock out these assignments quickly and have more BGP time than expected.
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   Downloads:

   Very little Google Play Sales after the Christmas spike. Interesting thing to note. I'm watching the sales and downloads of Pocket Mortys to gauge interest in a Free to Play Pokemon style app. It's really blowing the doors open on filling that niche, but lacks the depth of Pokemon's battle system like all the similar games do. Battle Gem Ponies aims to make Pokemon style competitive play accessible to anyone who's interested.

    Featured:

     I found a couple new Let's Plays of the Battle Gem Ponies Demo this week! Always fun to see what people think of the game in it's current state and hear what they'd like to see in the future. I hope, in the end, that BGP will be a game tons of people will want to make videos about. Videos like the ones by Ultra Mag64 and Hrothgar The Brony.

     Just like other Pokemon fan games, there's a ton of interesting things to see and even more ways to go about playing through. Branching choices everywhere combined with an emotional story should really grab people's attention and make most want to share the experience somehow. That could be by recommending it or uploading gameplay to YouTube.
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      This year is all about big turnarounds. Working out, finishing my game, and getting this school thing over with are all on my resolutions list. I'm also heading to MAGfest a month from now, and I'd feel a lot more confident if I had demo 4 out and working on my phone by then.