Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #78 (Refreshing & New)

Trying out a different look for the title screen.

(Celestia sprite via Desktop Ponies)

     I'm dressing up the game a bit this week. Adding some flair for the BronyCon build to make it look more impressive than last ear's version. By next week things will look good and feel like you'd expect. Items will work, you will be able to level up, and there will be a file select system where you can name your trainer and pony. Take a look at my progress towards that below the break.

Another Let's Play came up and surprises on multiple levels.
Unfortunately, he ran into a new bug I've never even SEEN where the action buttons vanish.

Class matchup chart!

Awwww yeah... I like this one.

   Completed:

• New Title Logo
• New Class Matchup Chart
• Added to YouTuber List
• Game Saves
• Improved Sound Effects
• Edited NPC Sprites (minor color adjustments)
• Designed 2 New Ponies
• Blacked Out Unusable Pause Menu Buttons
• Blinking Move Info Class Matchup Icons
• Trainers Spot You From 1 Space Away
• Stadium Battle Music Tracks
• Fixed Spastic Battle Cam Bug
• Disabled Controls During Load & Battle Start
• In-Game Text Transferred to Spreadsheet (easier for localization)
• Drafted New Title Screen (Work in Progress)

     Lessons Learned:

• I know how to say Battle Gem Ponies in Japanese thanks to Google Translate
• Google's Noto Sans is not required for copy/pasting foreign text and symbols.
• I should have more confidence in BGP. The premise is strong enough to grab plenty of positive attention. The real challenge is giving people a good time once they're in the door.

       The soundtrack is coming along nicely and both musicians are really putting their hearts & souls into it. I hear the villain team's battle music in my head all the time and love it! This week stadium battle themes were submitted and are making the battles really come to life by adding that layer of excitement and intensity only music can provide. Players are definitely in for a treat in that regard.If you want to follow them on SoundCloud and possibly get some sneak peaks of the OST as well as their other projects, just follow Bluco and e^2! And send them some love while you're at it. They need to hear how great they are from someone who isn't me more often.
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   Downloads:

Nice even number milestones here and there. Almost got 2,000 BGP players!
This may be the first week SlideMe downloads have reached a standstill.

     Doing pretty good numbers here. I'm eager to get the BGP demo close to that 25K mark before release. The big Greenlight push should help a lot. Also, checking up on Ambient.Prologue's Patreon after they launched a beta ($869 a month! Good lord that's rent!), they're making more than ever and makes me both envious and optimistic at the same time.

     On the envy side of things, I keep thinking about how I'd be able to go to way more cons with money like that. But knowing that there are bronies out there just itching for a good game with the pony aesthetic makes me believe Battle Gem Ponies is destined for success.

    Featured:

The translation was likely inaccurate, but I got the gist of how he felt about the game.

     Then this video popped up and I saw it had over 1,000 views on day one! Now it's sitting around a healthy 3,800 views, making it the most popular BGP video by a long shot. Must have something to do, in part, with My Little Pony being so huge over there. It seems like most of the reviews and downloads I get for Unicorn Training are Russian and a lot of the Brony Let's Players are from overseas too. It'll be interesting to see how BGP does in that territory and others.

     Attention like this makes having translations feel like more of a priority. Which is why I'm making a dialogue system that makes it easy for me to implement the language text swaps as soon as I get the money to pay translators. (Auto-translating will not go well in this case.)
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     Back to the ol' grind. BronyCon is just two weekends away. At this pace, I might just barely make the deadline. See you on the other side.