Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #154 (Story Beats & Maps Aplenty)

     A whole week of wicked coughing and drawing maps on graph paper. It's been a drag-myself-through-the-mud kinda week but I finally got there. The maps are done, detailed, and ready to be tiled in-game soon as I line up all the placeholders.

     Also handled some story details and progression design. The game's design document has been updated with new overworld interactions, cutscenes, object placement, and more to make for a more fun/smooth/professional experience. I want people playing this game to be blown away by it's quality and looking at the overall vision now, I think this'll be a pretty great attempt.

All I see when I close my eyes...
Page after PAGE of graph paper...
😩💨

   Completed:

• More Research Into Which Unity Plugins are Best for 2D RPGs
• Bought Playmaker, Grid Framework, Dialogue System, Super Text Mesh Unity Assets
• Finished Remaining Tile Maps on Graph Paper
• Studied Lots of Booth Layouts and Articles
• Charted Out Some Autumn/Winter 2018 and Spring 2019 Expos to Showcase At
• Plans to get BGP into the Indie MiniBooth and get BGP2 in the Megabooth Afterwards
• Wrote More Overworld Interactions
• Adjusted Story to Flow Better
• Double Checked Each Area to Ensure Every Map is Fun & Memorable
• Added Jokes to Boring Places
• Double Checked & Added Fun Interactions to Counter Possible Game Breaks
• Brainstormed More BGP Merch/Promo Art

     Lessons Learned:

• How to Make an Exceptional Indie Booth
• Different Levels of Success in Indie Dev
• I'm making a point out of complimenting or replying to someone every time I idly open Twitter in hopes that it boosts my popularity and improves my relationships with other devs. I want my follower count to mean something. Actual people who actually want to hear me out.

       So glad to be done with the maps and details. Yet another task that took five times longer than expected to do. But lord knows I'll need to go over the story beats and order of quest objectives again just to make sure it all makes sense to at least the majority of players who will pick up this game.
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   Downloads:

     Monthly download numbers update! Let's see how many people found my games since Christmas... And it looks like a couple hundred on each app store. It certainly slowed over the 3 years, but it's amazing how there are still people who come across Unicorn Training organically somehow. I hope BGP's quality gives it super good long-term sales that can pay the bills while I focus on the next game.

    Featured:

     Only new thing up this week was a Unicorn Training Let's Play from Russia. Skimming through it was kindof a nice reminder that my last game wasn't so bad. It had lots of interesting ideas, cool art, fun enemy designs and some interesting progression.

     I gotta keep reminding myself that I am a game developer. I can make cool stuff. I can finish projects. And I will finish Battle Gem Ponies and people will love it.
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     Mid January and I'm not in alpha. Not good. This is the month I should be pushing my game from press to press. Gotta put a hurry on this while the gaming scene is still relatively quiet!