Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #175 (E3 2018)

     After such an amazing E3, I feel reinvigorated. Gotta admit to feeling pretty jaded/apathetic about AAA gaming lately, but leave it to the Sony & Nintendo press conferences to remind me of why I love gaming in the first place. The hype I felt over the past couple days is the same feeling I want people to have for the things I'm working on someday. Unprecedented levels of polish, earnest interviews and announcements by hardworking developers, shocking surprises, gameplay to analyze, and jaw-dropping tournament moments... 

     And at the heart of it all? Hours of fun promised by teams I know can deliver. I'm hype ya'll. Now I want to work hard to make sure starting next E3, I'll be there to show off something in person every year.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #74 (BronyCon on the Horizon)

     I know I announced it a month ago, but I'm still so hyped that BGP is confirmed for BronyCon and FillyCon! That certainty should light a nice hot fire under my butt to get things done in two month's time. In addition to that, the big Demo 5 release should be done next month. With no college slowing me down I have entire days to work with now.

    So, so, SO much work is getting done this week it's incredible. It feels like everything I do for the game matters more than it ever has. I don't have to worry about dropping ideas or holding off on designing something to focus on upcoming schoolwork. I can just hammer out ideas and concentrate on coding features uninterrupted! For an example of what can get done in just one week of summer, look below the break.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #70 (PCT Game Jam Spring 2016)

     I made a Game Jam title this weekend about a mermaid with a monster mouth that eats smaller fish. And yes, the text in the logo is a mashup of Hungry Howie's, The Little Mermaid, and Viral Hunger. The theme was Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

     I woke up that morning with the vision of some kind of game involving mermaids and Fish Feaster with Shantae style graphics. I managed to make that random dream fit with the theme by adding elements of escalating difficulty and humor.

Get some more #GameJam goodness below!

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #50 (Halfway There!)

I just got Clover the Cloaked in plush form!
Yotes Team Mascot ftw!

     As of tomorrow night, I'm done with the semester and putting the first half of my senior year behind. So super close to finally being full-time dev! Also, I got my very own plush of Clover from Unicorn Training! Thought I'd never see this until Adventures in Equica became a modestly popular series. A super great surprise gift.

    Get an eyeful of this plush masterpiece and see what games I've tried to port to Windows Phones this week below the page break! This gamedev week has been a good one.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #29 (Attack Sprites Galore, Looking to the Future)

     I'm all hyped up on my potential future this week. It's up to me to make Yotes Games mean something to a lot of people. I can't wait to do just that. Lots of spriting was done this week. Once I get them all to move properly, I can put out a demo for everyone to try.

     Hopefully DevLog #30 will be the last before a public demo release. Almost done here.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #28 (Making Moves, Unicorn Training Launch Week)

     Well then. I certainly thought I could draw these things faster. Turns out I'll be spending over  half of this game's development time on the graphics alone. Unless I get this done I won't be able to hire an artist in the future, so I just need to keep at it. Unicorn Training's release was fun, but the numbers really need to be higher for me to have hope of living off this mad use of my free time.

Get your weekly Yotes Games update below.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #27 (Back in the Crunch, Unicorn Training on iOS)

     With BronyCon fast approaching some extra cuts need to be made. The demo is going to have a few less things than I wanted, but the core battle experience and overworld wandering are must haves that will be present. I need to have a proof of concept to show that this game is a real thing that's actually coming. Way too much is at stake here to have a lousy first impression.

     Unicorn Training is now out in the world and I'm checking sales every day to see if it can boom in popularity just once. If this results in little to no increase from the usual $30 a month, it could take me exactly a year to become Yotes Games LLC (just barely in time for BGP's release).

Adventures in Equica: Unicorn Training [Now Available on iOS!]

     The day has finally come! Unicorn Training is available for iOS devices! For just $1 you get 9 action-packed dungeons and a monster-filled forest overworld to explore! Level up and learn magical spells to blast away any evil creatures that stand in your path to greatness!

     It feels great to finally have my first real game out there for everyone to try. Fans of ponies and action RPGs in general will certainly be getting their money's worth. If you want to try before you buy, a free demo version is available with the entire first dungeon and boss fight. Every download goes toward making my next game even better, so be sure to leave a review and tell me what you think. This is just the beginning of a wonderful series.

Watch the Trailer.

Download on the App Store.
Or Try the Demo.

The Android versions are also available on Amazon and Google Play.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #25 (E3 2015 Distractions)

     At this very moment I am in the process of moving a houseful of stuff from Pennsylvania to Florida so there isn't much time for gamedev. Even when all that gets settled, I have to catch up on E3. For those reasons I won't have download numbers ready this week. Hopefully things should be back up to speed by next Tuesday.

Get a very brief status report below.

Unicorn Training Coming to iOS (June 25th!)

The iOS Trailer is now on YouTube!

     Unicorn Training will be available on iOS in just 2 weeks! I requested it to go up June 25th, giving it 3 weeks to go through the review process. My past games took about 7-12 days in the fall so the 3 weeks leaves me extra time to re-upload if they reject the app for something. I submitted the game on the first and the game is currently under review. Expect the demo version of Unicorn Training to go up on the same day if all goes well.

     I like launching on Thursdays because I want the game to boom over a weekend (where people have the most time to play) but my games typically won't show up in searches or show user reviews on the first day they're out. By going up on Thursday, early adopters (mostly people visiting this site) will download the game and leave good reviews for the people coming into the app store to see on Friday and let the game explode from there.

     Fingers are crossed for better results than on Google Play. The game is much less buggy now, some people have heard of it, and iOS is supposed to be the platform where people buy games more often. My high hopes? 700 downloads before August. It'd be pretty cool to become an LLC before BronyCon even if I won't have time to print off business cards.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #24 (Animations Done, Unicorn Training Submitted)

     A busy week with a lot of sprite making and home distractions. I'll be spending next week moving over to Florida for the rest of the summer (before coming back to Pennsylvania in August) and I'll also be catching up on E3 2015 a few days behind (praying nothing gets spoiled since I love to watch the conferences).

     Don't expect much progress until all the dust settles. Once it does, I'll be sprinting to finish the public BGP demo before July rolls around.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #23 (Gamepads, Google Play, & iOS Setup)

Ran into a bunch of hiccups today, but Unicorn 
Training should be available on iOS very soon.

     As of yesterday I am an iOS Developer once more. Most of my early works won't make it over since I don't even have access to the original code. But you won't need them with the best version of Unicorn Training on the way!

     In addition to all that, tons of craziness happened on Google Play as they reorganized their app store and pushed me up in a completely new category. I also have controllers now so my future games can support gamepads! This week has been a busy one, so I'll leave the rest out of the header.

Get all the juicy gamedev details below the break!

Dragon Souls Prologue Status Report #4 (Convention Ready)

     I officially predict that I will not make the game in time for the Christmas close-off. I'm now aiming for January 9th - 11th. A lot of things were occupying my time last week. Between finals I was in a frenzy to get all the facts together and plan my trip to my first ever convention, which is also the first time I'll be presenting my games to a huge crowd. Sure I'll have the experience from my school's BYOC party in April, but BronyCon will be a totally different beast.

     One of the big things I did this week was make a DeviantArt account in order to be more social with my target audience (people who like ponies and RPGs as much as me). Check out a link to that along with some sales data below.

Dragon Souls Prologue Status Report #2 (Setting Up)

     Development is underway! I am seeing the pieces come together as I try new techniques I want to perfect in future games. Things like smaller/sharper sprites, smooth controls, and clean general organization.

Check out some sales data below!

Wrapping Up Unicorn Training

     Even a week after launch it's still not over. I severely underestimated the amount of testing needed for a game this complex. Bug fixes have been flying up all week at the drop of a hat as I hear about a bug from someone at least 3 times a day.

    Each time I think I'm finally done, but something else pops up as soon as I get ready to start my next project (the ever stacking amount of schoolwork doesn't help either). If something pops up I have o fix it because I don't want to leave a broken project behind. I want this game to have a long sales tail so it needs to be considered good in the long run.

     In terms of publishing experience, I finally have a concrete list of useful app stores to upload to. I also made a set of screenshot resolution templates for all of them. The artwork this time around was pretty good, so the next project should be a hit in that department. It's playtesting that needs to be kicked up a notch the next time I make an RPG.

     I also need to design a new control scheme, which brings me to my next project. I'm trying to make a small game within 4 weeks that uses a grid-based movement system that should feel much more solid than Unicorn Training's wonky collision boxes and movement.

    If I finally clear out the last of the game's bugs I can get started on that.

Get the (hopefully) bug-free Unicorn Training on Google Play!

Unicorn Training Weekend Sales

     It's an early status report but I'm sure some of you are as interested as I am in seeing how well Unicorn Training did on its opening weekend. It's doing better than I expected and my inner flame burns brighter than ever knowing that I have a real chance at being a successful indie developer! I don't see me making enough for a Macbook just yet, but I can expect my first ever payment from Google to come in next month!

Catch some rankings and numbers to satisfy your curiosity below the break.

Bugs... Bugs Everywhere...

     The release of Unicorn Training came with the expected nervous waiting for something to go wrong. In this case, many things. Being that I've never made a game this complicated, I had exponentially more bugs post-launch than I'm used to (with games like DragCore). I had some shaky internet access all weekend so there were lots of moments where I wondered what could go wrong next. The feeling disappears when I upload a new patch, allowing me to rest easy with the feeling of having a game that works. Too bad it's not permanent because I know there are some things wrong with the game that can't be changed due to the way certain systems were designed.

Status Report #64 (Unicorn Training Released!)

     A huge weight has been lifted and anticipation took it's place. All that's left to do now is wait and see how many people download Unicorn Training next week. It feels incredible having this much experience behind me and my confidence as a game developer has finally bloomed to where I feel I truly belong with the indies I've been looking up to. I'm proud to have Unicorn Training in my portfolio and I can't wait to get started on what's coming next.

You can download Unicorn Training on Google Play!
You can also check out the status report below the page break.

Unicorn Training is Available NOW!!

     It's finally here! Unicorn Training is up on Google Play (and so is the free version!). If you don't believe me, check out the games tab or the header icons on yotesgames.com! The full version costs $1 and profits will help me buy a Mac so I can port to iOS someday. Thanks to everyone who kept this project alive by following my disorderly antics and boosted my morale enough to continue working even when I felt like just dropping everything and moving on.

Now enjoy that game I promised!

Go Download It Now!

Unicorn Training Submitted! (Look For It Starting Tomorrow)

     Unicorn Training is ready for launch! I sent it to Amazon & Samsung for approval and it will release on those stores next week. The Google Play version of it will be posted at midnight tonight and go live soon after (about an hour or two). I also set up accounts on SlideME, GetJar, and AndroidPIT (android stores with a lot of international traffic) so people can find Unicorn Training there too! I'm counting on this being my most professional, polished, and popular game yet!

     Both the paid version and the free demo are sitting in Google Play waiting for me to push the launch button at midnight tomorrow. I've never been so hyped for my own game launch before and I'm really excited to see what happens next. I finally have an RPG in my portfolio!

Come back tomorrow for a direct link to the game when it's up!