Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #63 (Holding Back for BYOC Bomb)

     Battle Gem Ponies features are being scratched off my task list one-by-one. Some features like dynamic text reading, special battle move effects, stat buffs, and special NPC interactions will have to wait for the next demo. I have outlines for how they work in code and I have tested many parts of those features, but putting all those pieces together and testing them as a whole is going to take at least a week. I want demo 4 out by March 18th (week after Spring Break), so there's some higher priority stuff to get out before then.

     My school's BYOC game design expo is coming up on April 9th and I need a polished build to show to strangers one last time before BronyCon. That demo needs to be awesome and include basic multiplayer and special battle mechanics. It's a lot to handle in a single month, so I'm hoping Spring Break gets me ahead of schedule by a decent amount.

I hit 560 reviews on the Google Play Unicorn Training demo.

   Completed:

• Revised Story Ideas
• Reorganized Task List (based on BYOC date)
• Tested Dialogue Option Select Code
• Basic Pony Following (unpolished)
• Dust Sprites (for jumping, caves, etc.)
• Tested Custom Talk Box Range
• Unique Name Label IDs for All Important NPCs (trainers & ponies)
• Soundtrack Improvements
• Fixed Incorrect Name Label Bug
• Pony Customization Menu Sprites & Prefabs
• Contacted by Scarlet Moon Productions for Musicians in Future Projects
• Plans for Converting Localization Text Files to Excel Format

     Lessons Learned:

• Tweeting about politics can get you a lot of retweets and likes fast.
• This interview inspired me a bit and got me thinking about what makes BGP different from existing Pokemon games. I'm going to have to answer what makes it different from Sun and Moon a lot, so it's best to rehearse.
• I googled some interviews of Toby Fox and got to thinking how I want to be perceived as well as how I want to leave much of my games' meaning up to interpretation. It's interesting how Scott Cawthon and Toby Fox handle game lore differently.

       Things are moving along pretty smoothly.
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   Downloads:

I started using commas.

    I'm just about ready for a spike in BGP downloads. I feel like there's a huge audience out there that still doesn't know this is coming. Any brony out there that's excited about Pokemon Sun and Moon needs to know this project exists.

    Featured:

     I hit 140 Facebook likes and 670 Twitter followers last week! Growing a bit every month. Let's see if I can get it to skyrocket over the summer. I'll try sharing demo 4 on EQD when it's ready and get the word out. (Hope BronyCon confirms my panel soon.)
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    Ideally, I'd do a ton of codework over the break and just keep implementing new features then spend the school week after break working on art with my dual-monitor setup. So much to do and so little time to do it... Better get back at it!