Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #76 (LAST MONTH 'TIL BRONYCON!!)

     Oh. MY. GOD!! BronyCon is right around the corner and build 5 isn't close to done yet!! Gotta kick it into overdrive man. There's so much to do and here I am fiddling with item menus and sound effect files! Summer 2016 needs to be the time people start telling their friends about the game. Without a hyped up audience the Steam Greenlight Campaign could fail, so this demo needs to be awesome sauce. I have just under a month to do 20 days worth of things on my task-list. Find out what steps I'm taking toward getting there down below.

Check out this Inventory Menu

Everything works as expected, but I have my gripes with the navigation and color-clashing.
Main goal for now is to get something that works though. I can make things more elegant later.

   Completed:

• Added to YouTuber Contact List (found some new big ones to impress!)
• Some Item Sprites (Capture Gems, Sweets, Move Tutors, and Oats)
• Fixed Many Bugs
• Studied Unity Particle Effects
• Door Sprites Open/Close
• Pony Waits 2 Steps Before Becoming Visible (needs time to stabilize)
• Accurate Health Measurements in Menus
• Menu Scan-Line Effect
• Working Dialogue Tree System
• Item Menu (fully functional)

     Lessons Learned:

• I can just animate tiles directly. I don't have to keep spawning layers on top of them.
• This election has my heart pounding with every article I read and video I watch. Things are getting really intense and today is the day of destiny with the California Primary deciding how the next few years in politics are going down. 
• Sometimes I hate caring this much about elections (combating hopelessness and seeing new levels of corruption uncovered everyday can be quite a downer), but you kind of have to care since almost half your money goes toward it. Gotta at least try and push things in your favor.
• Despite being into analytical videos myself, I have to stop fussing over the minor details of my game's world so much and just go on my instinct of what feels right. I can find excuses for it to make sense afterwards. 
• I spent too much time trying to make sense of how items work in Battle Gem Ponies and how their sprites should reflect how all the hi-tech stuff interacts with each other. Nobody is going to see how the Equipod works because I'm not even going to animate it. I can just leave a lot of stuff abstract or up to imagination. I'm not selling these things as toys anytime soon, so I don't need to think so hard about how they fit into a physical 3D space.

       They're just doohickies. They're so pixelated, like the rest of the overworld, you can just imprint what you want them to be. Is that bag of oats an open sac or a rolled up To-Go bag? It's whatever your imagination tells you. It's main purpose is it's function, the picture just adds flavor.

     I'm interested to see if people interpret the Move Tutors as keys, prongs, rods, buttons, orbs with gems protruding on the side, or something else in-between. Even I don't know what they look like on the back side. Where do the company logos go on these things? How about the sell by dates and copyright printings? All in the imagination. I don't need to think so hard about these things.
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   Downloads:

50K confirmed people who want to play pony RPGs on their mobile device...
If I can turn just half of them into BGP customers, I'll be making a living.

   Over 1,500 people downloaded the Unicorn Training Demo on Google Play last week. That tells me there's still a lot of untapped potential sitting there, just begging for an awesome pony game to come out. One worth slapping down money for without a second thought. I hope to provide that with Battle Gem Ponies next year. I pray people have money leftover for me once Nintendo's next console launches around that same time. It's really suck to be eclipsed out the news just like that.

    Featured:

Reached 700 Twitter Followers

     Glad to see new blogs listed under popular posts to the right, by the way. Scrapped Custom Avatars is still there, but my most recent posts are starting to take over. That means I'm growing over time right? More people are reading my stuff than ever it seems. That feels nice.
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    The last march to the convention... I need to make people say "wow" with this game. I may have to put PvP setup and new ponies on the want, not need list until all the other Demo 5 requirements are met. I do want at least some primitive form of multiplayer up though. I also want pony capturing to be implemented in time for FillyCon so I have something new to show there.