Should I Make a Patreon?

     Looking at Ambient Prologue's Patreon and Path of Light's Greenlight got me thinking about setting up a tip jar for people to help me along too. Patreon allows people who are really excited and supportive to donate money to creators they like. This could make saving for things like an LLC certification much easier for me.

     There's also alternatives like IndieGoGo, GoFundMe, and the current Paypal donation button sitting atop the right side of my website. With Patreon there's a looming obligation to keep paying while with other services it feels like just a one time thing.

     If I go through with it, my tip jar push will go up the same day Pre-alpha V3 of Battle Gem Ponies does. Read on to see current thoughts and perk ideas for all this.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #48 (Playmaker vs Coding Better)

     Approaching the end of November and most of my time is being eaten by schoolwork! It's nice to have something new added to my portfolio and I'm glad to have so many ideas in my head post-game jam that I can flesh out over time and develop after BGP. I'm also facing finals after Thanksgiving, but that should be easy now that I finished all of my semester long projects. It's so weird to think that I'll be an adult making video games full time at this point by next year.

Get some #gamedev below the break!

Bored to DEATH ( @PCTGameJam Fall 2015 )

The theme was "Uninteresting Jobs"

So I made a game about watching paint dry.

Play It Here!

     Bored to DEATH is a two-button game about goofing off while your boss isn't looking. It was made in Unity for my school's 12 Hour Game Jam where the theme was "Uninteresting Jobs". The iconic boring office job came to mind. I even replaced the computer with a wet painting you have to watch dry out just to drive the point home.

     You can use Left and Right mouse clicks to alternate between goofing off and working. If you work too much you will literally die of boredom and if your boss catches you dancing around, you'll be fired and die on the spot. A happiness meter displays how close you are to dying and you can see when your boss is approaching your cubicle. This is all done using crude animations and random art assets from across Google Images.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #47 (Game Jam & RoShamBo Complete!)

The Game Jam theme was "Uninteresting Jobs"
So I made one about watching paint dry.

     The big game jam I was looking forward to all week finally happened! It was nice to put my energy into a cute little project since Battle Gem Ponies can get pretty overwhelming sometimes. The theme was "Uninteresting Jobs" so after a lot of doodles and pitching to myself I came up with a two button game about goofing off at work.

Get some details on that and other happenings below the break.

Battle Gem Ponies: Surge Class Moves

     I've always thought mastery over electricity was one of the coolest powers anyone could have. InFamous played a big part in confirming that. How can I translate the many, many ways there are to visually represent electric class moves? I've got a few ideas to jot down.

Check out some electrically-charged Surge Attacks below!

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #46 (Finishing RoShamBo)

     It's coming along now but still not done! My senior capstone demonstration got pushed back by a week so I need a build by next Monday instead of yesterday. A simplified overworld with battle encounters, game analytics, and online play. All feasible stuff. Polishing it all up for a real BGP demo release... I'm thinking it won't be done until Christmas. Everyone will be playing Fallout 4 anyway. Heck, I'd be surprised if anyone's taking time to read this when that game is out today.

Get more gamedev below.

Battle Gem Ponies Panel (BronyCon 2015)

Battle Gem Ponies BronyCon Panel

     The Battle Gem Ponies BronyCon Panel is finally on YouTube for those of you who wanted to see it. Really looking forward to doing it again for 2016 with a more finalized build to demonstrate. I was really flying by the seat of my pants here and hoping I'd get enough interest to make the Q&A last for 30 minutes. You can see me go from shakingly nervous/awkward to relaxed and confident over the course of the hour. It was my first time representing Yotes Games in front of a sitting crowd. I even spilled my water 3 times before starting. With no idea how to sit or form sentences it's a miracle that the panel left such a good impression.

     I can't fairly judge how well it went since watching myself on camera like this for the first time makes me cringe and wish I did certain things better. Things like repeating myself less, having lower volume for the gameplay demo, telling more jokes, having more audience interaction, explaining things more clearly, and more presentation stuff like that. From what I heard though, the panel was awesome and went incredibly smoothly. Take a look for yourself and leave a comment!

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #45 (Tile Layers, Fan Art, & Panel Footage)

     Battle Gem Ponies exposure is happening! Getting lots of activity on social networks and the BronyCon panel footage even hit the web. Time to kick things into overdrive since I just found out that a playable demo for my class is due next Monday!

Take a glance at some Yotes Games love and some close-ups of the demo's maps below!