Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #110 (The Redesigns)

     The long-promised February update is coming this Friday and one last week of bug crunching is underway to make sure it plays perfectly. This way, future builds will be off to a fresh start and development can be focused on new features.

     Namely, getting at least 3 more playable ponies in the game! Check out how the game is coming along below the break.

Pretty humans are complete.

New "Box Art" for Battle Gem Ponies

This will be the Steam Greenlight promotional image going forward.

   Completed:

• Updated the Looks of Xenoir, Poni-Bot, Mauss, Shyshock, Colossic, Rainbryte, Ditzapp, Stratos, Frufang, and Furum
• Updated Overworld Tiles
• (Re)Created Promotional Art
• Updated Game Icon (New Xenoir Spine Shape)
• Updated World Map Plans
• Renamed Moves & Ponies In-Code
• Small Bug Fixes

     Lessons Learned:

• The game feels more like it's own thing now. The inspirations are obvious, but the characters and environments are easily distinguishable.

       Feeling excited now. The month-long detour is finally over and the game is actually looking better than ever because of it. Now I can focus on getting the game to a code-complete state where all the systems are in place. Then I can finally start shaping the adventure and flex my game design muscle to craft an unforgettable experience!

     Just hoping I can reach code-complete by the end of March and release a new demo to show some of those features off. I really want the game to pass through Steam Greenlight before that service gets taken down in a couple months too.

Current Standing on Steam

     If the Steam Direct fee is hundreds of dollars, I probably won't be able to launch there alongside other platforms. I already put my Unicorn Training earnings and PayPal donations on getting to Greenlight. The funds trickling from those things can't come near the multi-thousand dollar Steam Direct fees people are speculating.

     But no matter what happens, the game is coming to mobile and PC platforms. Pokemon Uranium didn't need Steam to reach 1.5 million people within a week, so with enough hype behind it, an Itch.io release could be successful and I'll make even better margins because they don't take a mandatory 30% cut like other app platforms do.
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   Downloads:

     New BGP demo comes on Friday. Hopefully it gets 1,500 downloads much faster than the last version did. Reaching out to more YouTubers might help too. Feel free to spread the word!

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     Once again, the game went up a notch as far as feeling like a real thing goes. I can't express how badly I want to see this finally be released, played, and loved by thousands of people on launch day.