Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #31 (Battle Animations & Corrected Facts)

Battle Animations are done! Just have to fix some annoying bugs and release!

     Missed that mid-July demo date by a mile. It's going to be a literal end of July release now. Getting the animations to work right just ended up eating an entire week instead of the 2 days I set aside for it. But that's not the only miscalculation I've made lately. Starting an LLC turned out to cost more than I expected too. I should have enough for it by March though. It'll be the last business expense I need before focusing on finally moving out.

Get a bunch of actual completed things below.

Although this was a Fire Blast Animation test, it looks pretty cool.

 

Awesome! 200,000 pageviews! Glad I can keep people coming back.

   Completed:

• Business Research
• 25 Battle Animations Coded
• 90% of BronyCon Panel PowerPoint
• New Overworld HUD Design (Sketch)

     Lessons Learned:

• Missing release last Friday may have been for the best. I'd likely be drowned out by the news flood following the surprise release of Five Nights at Freddy's 4.
• Animating moves gets easier as I make more and more templates to start from.
• I actually need $625 to become an LLC.  (As if $500 wasn't hard enough.)

       After looking into the exact costs and benefits of becoming an LLC once again, I've found some fine print I missed before. The major discoveries where costs, workarounds, and alternative services. It turns out using LegalZoom to become an LLC with the specifications I need will cost $475 and the TubroTax services I'll need on top of that is about $150 (the alternative is $320 paid to LegalZoom with fewer services). That means I need to gather $625 by the end of March instead of the $500 by January I've been planning.

      I also plan to save hundreds by filing for things like a Tax ID (EIN) and Reemployment Tax by myself. LegalZoom offers an attorney consultation trial which I can use to draft the kind of contracts I'll be needing for my next few games (profit sharing agreements for musicians, artists, etc.). On top of all that I also have more accurate numbers for the annual cost of things I'll need to stay afloat.

     Basically my 50K units goal will be enough just to barely scrape by that first year, but if I want to cover everything without fear and have a 1.5 year safety net, I need to aim closer to 100K units across all platforms by 2017. If I execute on quality, this should all work out.
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   Downloads:

So many people playing my games! Over 15,000 devices out there with my stuff on them.

   I'm hoping BronyCon picks up the sales tail. I'm afraid on those days where I get zero hits on all 3 paid versions of Unicorn Training. If the ride stops here I won't make it to LLC status in time. There are backup plans and family members willing to help if I fall short, but I'd like to not burden them and reach this $625 goal on my own.

    Featured:

     No  big blogs or sharing this week. YouTube is doing well though. I'm thinking about what kind of video to make for the upcoming demo. Either a straightforward BGP gameplay showcase or a 45 second trailer to get the idea across. I think the second idea will get more people to click the download link in the description.
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Feels good to actually see the attacks.

     I promise BGP Pre-Alpha V2 will be out by Friday. I'm putting the finishing touches on it right now. The next blog post will link directly to it, so I hope you can give the game a try.