Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #136 (Road to Alpha)

     The race to the finish starts here. Gotta whip up a game in a matter of months, no time to waste!

Details below!

Welcome to Pixel Art Madness Week!
Nothing but drawing ponies and pony related accessories for the next 7 days.

   Completed:

• BGM Remasters from Blucario (Final Boss & Heartwarming Cutscene)
• New Music Drafts Submitted by E^2 (Paragon Base & End Credits)
• Fixed Bugs in BGP Demo 7.0
• Last Few Interfaces Sketched on Paper
• Characters Evaluated and Given Personality Outlines
• Practiced Making Characters Talk to Each Other
• Studied Good Small-Scale Pixel Character Design
• Studied 2D Animation
• Found Pixel Size Standards for Tile Maps
• Sketched Remaining Pony Designs (and some redesigns)

     Lessons Learned:

• There are clear reasons why I like Classic Sonic's Design so much.
• When copy/pasting emails from a draft document, images will break. That explains a lot of problems I've had with that before...
• 
  

       Check out a bunch of pony piece sketches I did. This week I'll be converting them into sprite form, seeing which combinations work, altering colors, sketching animation outlines, and finalizing everypony's design.

     After all the ponies are drawn and done, I'll be spriting all the remaining human NPCs and characters. Then it's back to making placeholder tiles and having all the stand-ins required to build the alpha.
__________________________________________________________

   Downloads:

     A sudden surge in Fish Feaster downloads surprised me today. Wonder how people are still coming across that one...

     But the important news here is passing the 500 download mark for BGP 7.0 within a week. Mini goal accomplished. There's a small following out there that checks into Equestria Daily and downloads new versions of BGP consistently. I just have to grow it more and more so I can ensure a successful launch for the game. If I can get into the top 10 with barely any advertising before, I wonder if I can shoot for #1 and STAY there this time...

    Featured:

     The Battle Gem Ponies update was shared on Equestria Daily. Now let's see if 7.0 can get to the 500 Downloads mark in record time. The trailer view count has been going up by hundreds lately and I hope to see some steady growth in as we build towards release!

     Also, Unicorn Training has been getting a bunch more reviews. Haven't read them in a while and it looks like there are still tons of newcomers looking forward to a sequel with improved controls. I'm very much so looking forward to delivering that. The followup to Clover's adventure is going to have improvements across the board and probably be the best thing I ever make. But first, I gotta get BGP off the ground and make THIS the best RPG on mobile devices.
__________________________________________________________

     Lots of pixel artin' ta do. Can't believe I only have about a month to get this thing Alpha ready. Then basically only weeks to get all the animations done while friends are playtesting and bug hunting for me. Got a strict December deadline that I'd rather not miss, so onward we'll march!