Scrapped: Portrait Mode

Prying my eyes off the Greenlight campaign for a bit to look a couple years back at old plans for BGP.

     The decision isn't set in stone just yet, but I am considering saving one-handed vertical play for the next game. As a time saving measure, this could wipe a month of debugging clear. That's because implementing a portrait mode would mean having 2 versions of every single menu and HUD and giving the player the ability to swap between them at any moment which could break the game in all kinds of ways (I shiver at just the thought).

Take a peek into my head over the matter in the wordy blog post below.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #162 (Getting It Together)

     Finally coming to grips with the new tools and having something to show for it! There's been a real headache and a half over this, but hopefully it pays off with a bunch of dropped jaws and people saying "Oh, that's cool." when they first open the game..

     I need to settle into a groove! Time to crank out some content!

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #158 (Major Restructuring)

New Texture Packer tool is making my sprite file sizes 75% smaller!

     Time to clean things up. Look, I made a big mess of files and code while figuring out how to put this game together. But now with years of experience and new tools at my disposal, I know I can do better. So I'm basically recreating Battle Gem Ponies using everything I have, but this time it'll be much more organized, run smoother on all devices, and have some neat features I couldn't pull off before.

     This change up won't affect the release date that much since I planned to do all this for the alpha build anyway (but to a lesser extent before Patreon boosted the budget). So basically, just expect a prettier Battle Gem Ponies to come out this Summer.

Get an idea of what I mean in the devblog below!

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog (March: Warmed Up & Eager)

     The Unity project has been cracked open and filled with placeholders and tools for actually developing a playable build now. One screen at a time, one placeholder at a time, one feature at a time.

     There's a long road ahead and I can already see myself going mad trying to animate all these ponies and debug every feature, but that's what makes this work. It's the tedious price paid to get to where I wanna be. And where I wanna be is online sharing links to my finished game for folks to check out.

    A lot of gamedev went on this past month. Hope to be dishing out some videos on the matter soon enough. See what's cooking so far below the break!

Updated BGP Demo Release Schedule

     With June's delays accounted for, the Spring 2016 release date still seems possible, but the demo releases are thrown out of whack. There is only time for one public demo before BronyCon 2015 and features once intended for the convention will not be available until a number of weeks after.

Below the break you can find a modified version of the BGP demo release schedule.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog (February: Charted Out)

     Off to a slow start but settled into a decent development routine at last. Plus, I've got heckling coworkers now to poke & prod me on a daily basis about getting this game done. Also, a new Pokemon game was announced, and it looks like its following the same formula I'm getting tired of, leading me to feel more fired up than ever to deliver my take on the elemental turn-based RPG system.

     If you want to know exactly what's on my dev plate going forward, then you'll like the production document cut & paste in this February blog.

See what's been up this past month below the break!

Almost November Already, Huh?

If you remember seeing me at TrotCon or Everfree Northwest, you'll remember me excitedly stating BGP Lite would be released on App Stores by Halloween! Well... That's not happening. [More details on exactly why below.]

Next Game: Battle Gem Ponies (Competitive Turn-Based RPG Adventure)

     It's finally time to start this... I've been wanting to make this game for so many years and now I'm free to give it my all! Battle Gem Ponies is the name of the game and it's about making little super-powered horses with gemstones on their chests fight each other for sport. I plan on releasing it before I graduate college in Spring 2016 and having it available on Mobile and PC platforms for $4.99.

     This is the dream game I've wanted to make for years. The success of this game will determine if I'm cut-out for a career in indie game development so I'll be putting everything I've got into making it the most awesome game it can be.

Get a full description of the game and a bunch of details below.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #177 (Sculpting a World)

     It's finally happening! Converting the maps from graph paper notes and doodles into working sandboxes that I can actually roam around in the Unity engine! Every single map in Battle Gem Ponies is coming to life AS. 👏 WE.👏 SPEAK.👏

     Getting all the different tiles, placeholders, and animations setup took days longer than I expected, but I finally have the process down and can get to work! I'll be using mostly borrowed and temporary tile sprites to have a basic but functional version of the entire game world up and running. This is one of the Top 5 remaining extremely tedious tasks of the game's development I'll be glad to have off my back. (Read to the end to see the other 4.) 

      So I hope to emerge next week with another monumental task behind me. To see what hills have already been climbed in the last 7 days, why don't cha take a look below?

Battle Gem Ponies (October DevLog): A New Frontier!

The Yotes Games "office" (October 2020)

We're entering November with an all-new team setup, changed plans (for the better), a miles long checklist of finished tasks, a new potential source of funding, and cute little pony sprites you have to come see!

Time to show off what a couple weeks of hardcore indie development will getcha in this spooky good October devlog! 

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #161 (Wednesday Milestones)

     Release feels so close. It's like the pieces are all in my lap and I just have to follow the instructions to put them together. The final version of Battle Gem Ponies is so clear in my head now that I'm fanboying over it sometimes.

     In the last 7 days I charted out exactly how all 360 battle moves will look, I recreated every menu, rebalanced the battle system, came up with catchier names for things, sorted out details for a DLC & multiplatform launch plan, and closely studied just about everything that makes the games that inspired this one so great.

     To keep track of things I made a week-by-week breakdown of the rest of BGP's development. Counting down what's left to do to get the game to a launchable state. If you wanna find out what the Yotes Games Wednesday Milestones are, look at the list below!

Adventures in Equica: Unicorn Training (Unicorn Quest Redesign)

     After a lot of thinking, writing, sketching, and general reorganization of the mind I've settled on a game plan. I will rename my current project and call it Unicorn Training and call it's sequel Unicorn Quest. This first game will act as a prologue to my original idea.

   Making this smaller scale version of the game frees up a lot of possibilities for me while fulfilling the reason I wanted Unicorn Quest to exist in the first place. I'll have a cool RPG under my belt, I'll set the stage for a sequel that expands on the world I want to build, and I'll be able to make said sequel as my graduation project (hopefully with a budget allowing for a collaboration with a certain pixel artist I know of).

   The dragon RPG demo that was going to be my senior capstone project can now get pushed back so I can start it right after Unicorn Training (I can't start my other pony RPG until the first day of mobile gaming class). Then I'll have 2 really cool games to my name (and hopefully an income above my current zero) before starting the two biggest RPGs in my head.

   The problem of scope does not come from hardware limitations but from my desire to be done faster. I've learned so much from getting this far that I really want to start over with my improvements in mind. The improvements are so time consuming and dramatic that I might as well just make a new game, so why not just split my project in 2? One to release now and another for me to do in class senior year. I'll have more time to work on it then and I don't feel my current direction will do the idea justice.

See everything I wrote in my messy design document so far below the break.

Battle Gem Ponies Delayed (Releases Spring/Summer 2016)

     It takes 1 day to fully animate a single pony. There has to be at least 50 ponies for the game to feel interesting enough. I'd like for there to be 100 ponies for this first game to stay competitive with the others on the app store. Each pony has an ultra form that will require it's own animation set. That's about 7 months of just drawing all the characters.

    Bugs can (and will) pop up and often set me back 2 days. I'll need about a month before launch for a final beta test and marketing hype. I have yet to even start the process of combat balancing which could take weeks longer than I think it will since I've never done it at this scale before. I'm almost guaranteed to run into issues with the online features.

     At this rate, Battle Gem Ponies is almost certainly being pushed back to a May 2016 release. I'm kidding myself if I think it could live up to the vision by November. Since it won't, I refuse to force it to. I'm going to restructure plans to take all the extra time I'll need into account. Battle Gem Ponies should be truly ready for launch by the summer of next year. 

Check below the break for an updated demo release schedule.