Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #57 (Undertale Hit Me Hard)

     Undertale has had an undeniable effect on how I'll be approaching game design. Aspects of my future games have been affected too and I wrote up a lot of design changes to Unicorn Quest in order to make it a more story rich world people can fall in love with.

     I'm determined to make characters in Battle Gem Ponies that people will quickly fall in love with. Battle Gem Ponies needs to balance tension, humor, mystery, and sadness perfectly in order to make exploring Pinto a truly memorable experience.  I understand now, more than ever, just how much emotion affects a player's attachment to a game.

Take a look at how Battle Gem Ponies has grown this past week below!

   Completed:

• Battle Stat Icon Cycle & Fading
• Text Fading Script
• Move Animation Unfreezer (for when it gets stuck)
• Created Cartrdge Project Page
• Finally Played Undertale
• Miss, Critical Hit, and Multi-Critical Hit Functionality
• Updated Website Games Tab
• Written Redesigns of Some Future Games

     Lessons Learned:

• I played and finished Undertale with my girlfriend over the weekend (Pacifist and True Pacifist runs) then spent hours on the wiki trying to fully appreciate everything Toby Fox put into that masterpiece. Undertale is honestly among my favorite games of all time.
• With Undertale being an example of masterful story execution to go by, I can improve all of my future games using similar techniques. Also, the soundtrack showed me how varied music can be for a pixelated game and still feel natural.
• The bar has been raised, and I need to jump higher to reach it.

This game is sticking with me forever.

       My design decisions going forward are certainly going to be influenced by what was executed here. The end result should be solid games that have emotional weight.
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   Downloads:

Passing milestones with Unicorn Training. Hope I can get more than a 5% buy conversion rate with BGP.

   Wouldn't 1 million copies sold be a hoot?

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    Undertale has really inspired me going forward. It proved how much you can accomplish no matter what resources you have. Just apply the rules of good design (in all components) and you should end up with something enjoyable. Use those on a good idea and address an aspect of the human condition, and you've got yourself a work of art that's sure to connect with people.

     I hope to someday make something as impactful as Undertale. I could have all the riches in the world, but having a game that great under my belt would be worth so much more.