Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #21 (A Week Into Things...)

Got some tweaking to do before menus are ready.

     This is the good kind of tired. The game is all I focus on these days and the complex things are being implemented now so that they're over with when time comes to crunch for release. My biggest holdup this week was the Stats and Caps menus which took up multiple days when I expected to finish them within 12 hours. Aside from that, I'm making room for more Unicorn Training time as I get ready to port to iOS this upcoming weekend. Expect more details soon.

You can find out what happened and what's to come by checking just below the break.

May end up hiding this until it fully works.

Spent the last few days making this draft a working menu.

These things take longer to make than you'd think.

   Completed:

• Switch-Out Info Graphics
• Full Battle Flow Makeover
• Decorated Background (Draft)
• Unicorn Quest Ideas (Notes)
• Pony Stats Menu Imported
• Bag/Capsule Menu Imported

     Lessons Learned:

• Making a functional and polished menu takes longer than you'd think. A day for planning, a day for placeholders and Unity importing, and a third day for the code behind it all (and the inevitable bugs).
• The demo really needs to come out soon so I can start building an audience for the BronyCon panel.

Looking at this graphic from @gillenewnovo and remembering my girlfriend playing through 
Paper Mario flooded my mind with Unicorn Quest ideas that I just had to scribble down.

       No word from Amazon about getting credit for my old Macbook. I was planning on using that money to get joypads. Hope I didn't forget the return address or something...

     My Macbook will be arriving tomorrow and I might spend Memorial weekend building and testing the iOS version of Unicorn Training and editing the trailer to meet Apple's standards. The game may not release on iOS until July if the review process takes as long as it used to.
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   Downloads:

What's a guy gotta do to get 5000 SlideMe downloads?

   Numbers are climbing steady. I might reach 1000 Unicorn Training (full version) downloads before the iOS port comes out. It'd be cool to reach 25,000 downloads of the demo before school starts. My goal is to get at least 45,000 people to buy Battle Gem Ponies before I graduate in order to prove I can live off this career choice. The Unicorn Training demo is slowly proving that those people are out there and waiting for a worthwhile product to come along.

    Featured:

     We're approaching that Designed for Families launch, meaning a potential Google Play feature for Unicorn Training! At this rate I may end up rising in ranks there and on iOS at the same time.
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Work in progress image from last night.

     I should be completely finished with these things by Tuesday night. The Capsule menu may not end up doing anything until I implement items which won't be available until the second demo.

     Really hope I can have cool stuff ready in time for August. Even if the story won't be done until winter, I at least want some good PvP ready for BronyCon. The first demo is meant to tell people I exist and the second is supposed to get feedback before BronyCon. The third should be very close to alpha. With the menus delaying me all week, the race is on to catch up to my former schedule.