Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #132 (Work Harder, and Faster Too)

     This is a week of programming madness! Gotta make sure the demo doesn't fall apart onstage like in previous years, so I'm combing through and fixing all the bugs I can before the big day.

   Completed:

• More Placeholder Tiles & Reorganizing
• New Plan for Demo 7 & Alpha After BronyCon
• Marketing Strategy Around Alpha
• New Sketches for Pony Sprites
• Battle Code More Organized
• Ability to Check for Status Effects Before and After Each Pony's Turn

     Lessons Learned:

• My main two problems slowing development down are focus related.
• For coding, I get bored and distracted too easily. Losing my place and rereading lines too often, opening web browser tabs to look up anything game development related, or staring at my to-do list instead of actually coding my task for the day.
• For pixel art, I spend too long on a single sprite trying to make it perfect instead of coming up with a rough placeholder for everything then dressing it all up after an alpha is finally made.
• Confronting and correcting these issues is essential to Yotes Games' success.

     I'd rather have yet another Pinto Island presentation, but have it be stable, than have a chaotic broken build of the story alpha with placeholder tilemaps I'll have to scrap and remake anyway. Build 7 is finally coming, and it will be the build with everything but animations and a story. It's just gonna be here 2 months later than I originally planned.

     So, here's the current plan. Fix the current game breaking bugs. Double check battle status effects manually. Make sure all the moves in the demo work correctly (with the old battle system). Build a stable version of Pre-Alpha 7.0. Then implement the revamped battle system, and hope I get it working and stable in time for BronyCon. Use any leftover time animating attacks.

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   Downloads:

     My numbers application is up and running again. I missed watching the numbers slowly grow. Even if I eventually stop sharing them here, I'd still like to make weekly updates to it for myself. It's a nice chance to read reviews, see how my games are doing, and remind myself that there are people out there that really enjoy what I do.

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One week. Super game jam time. Basically just gonna make a stable version of what I have and worry about making alpha placeholders after BronyCon and FINALLY finishing up this game.