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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #18 (Game Jam & Macbook Confirmed)


     Mentally preparing to do nothing but develop this game. Last week was eaten up by the game jam (more on that this Friday), more group projects, and spending time with my girlfriend before entering a 3 month crunch over summer break. As far as progress goes, I finally have the means to port Unicorn Training to iOS and confirm that Battle Gem Ponies will be on iOS from day one!

For information on what's coming and what was done, head on down below the break!

Friday, April 24, 2015

BGP Mobile Class Playtest


     My final project / test for my Mobile Game Design class was to playtest Battle Gem Ponies with a complete stranger who's not familiar with RPGs (and most games in general) and get valuable feedback on accessibility. This little session gave me a lot of ideas on how to make the game's presentation more clear on a pick-up-and-play level. I adjusted some menu elements and added a small bit of polish to my "extras" notes in the design document.

     In terms of readability improvements I'm going to have all clickable buttons shimmer every few seconds (like you see in match 4 games) and realign things in the class matchup menu to make it clear that there are 2 rows of classes to look at instead of 4.

     The playtester also gave me the idea of color theming the attacks to match that of their classes. For example, Scatter Bomb is a Surge/Fire move that looks like a bunch of tiny yellow orbs being tossed at the enemy's feet before exploding into red-orange flames. I was just going to have random things that looked cool, but this gives me a solid design place to start from.

     I'll be putting as many of these new readability features as I can into the first public demo.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #17 (Demo Plans & GIFs)

Finally tried out GIFs and I love it.
     This has been a week of GIFs and madness. New tricks were learned but development time took a backseat all week. With a truck's worth of school out of the way I can get back to building on my game. There's a ton of work to do before the public demo I want to get out just as summer break starts. Get an eyeful of game development and future plans below the break.

Friday, April 17, 2015

BGP Pre-Alpha Task List (Stuff For Demo V2)


     At a loss on what to post since I'm working on everything besides the game this week (homework, tests, extra credit presentations, and trying Mewtwo in Smash). To put what's on my mind out into the world I decided to share my big ol' To-Do List that needs to be cleared before releasing my first BGP update over the internet. It's all copied straight from my iPod Notes app, separated by what I think I can accomplish in one sitting.

Check out the list of things to do below.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #16 (Milestone Complete!)


     The BYOC is finally over! I can take my foot off the crunch time pedal. Long story short, I lost the contest and hosted it poorly, but finally got a playable version of BGP in people's hands and made some friends. My game needs a lot more love before I can go around flaunting it, but I'll worry more about that once I catch up on schoolwork in prep for finals week next month.

Get some elaboration below the break, including a link to the BYOC Build video on YouTube.

Friday, April 10, 2015

BGP: BYOC Gameplay Demo


     The BYOC demo is ready to go! The game is playable on a very simple level now, ready to be expanded on for a true public pre-alpha release over the internet in just a couple months. Lots of features were cut at the last minute to get this out in time. This build has basic battle flow, simple offensive movesets, randomly assigned teams, tons of missing assets, and a few graphical bugs.

     The main goal with this was to have something that works in time for the BYOC, so in that regard, mission accomplished. Let's see if that's enough to get me a prize in the game design competition! Check out the gameplay highlights of the demo on YouTube.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #15 (Approaching 1st Deadline)


     Final week for BYOC prep! The race is on to get this game in a base-playable form for the masses. By the looks of things, only 5 other games are in the competition which greatly increases my chances of winning one of the top 2 prizes (both of which could be really useful).

Find GameDev stuff below!

Friday, April 3, 2015

BGP Demo Release Plans


     With the BYOC demo on the way I got to thinking about all the heck I'm in for as I work day and night to get this game out before the holidays. It's going to be one very busy summer. I just wanted to share what's to come playtest-wise.

Below the break you'll find my release plans for upcoming demos and the game's potential release date. Be warned! Things can change if big problems emerge.