BGP at EFNW 2024 🌲 (+ Official CONFIRMED Release Date 🌟)

Big thanks to everyone who came by our booth this year. Feels great to share the release date of the project you guys made happen.

On September 2nd you guys will be able to download Battle Gem Ponies right off the App Store, Google Play, Itch, and even Amazon Apps. 📦

Pre-Orders for Google Play and iOS are live!

Sign up to be there on Day One!

And we had a blast sharing our new BGP trading game with Everfree Northwest! 🌲
Every con gets more magical. 🌟 (So we really can't wait for the next!)

Back From TrotCon 2023!

Our first TrotCon was magical! 🤩✨ 

Can't wait to come back with a finished game and do it all again, but bigger! 🌟

Tons of new people are now interested in the game, our Discord numbers have shot up 15%, over a hundred people downloaded the demo, and we gathered lots of feedback to further improve the game and booth setups! 🎮📱

Plus, we caught the eye of some pretty large streamers, finally met some BGP community members face-to-face, and we met several cool folks to collab with someday. 🤝📈

Battle Gem Ponies Made Waves at Magfest 2023! 🌊

You might've caught this over on our Twitter already, but...

Our showcase at Magfest was a huge success! It proved to us that BGP has the appeal necessary to capture viral opportunity. Once you see it, you can't help but take a closer look (and like what you see!)...

We've now had literally hundreds of strangers come up and play the latest Battle Gem Ponies demo, follow us on social media, and give us the precious feedback we need to take things to the next level. Our next in-person appearance is likely to be TrotCon in July (fittingly celebrating a video game theme this year) and if we're lucky, we'll get in touch with someone willing to install BGP on devices in the Arcade at BABSCon this year too.

Notes have been taken on how to improve our booth for future expos and all of this makes great practice for when we try to go stand alongside the big names in gaming at PAX one day.

BGP is Coming to MAGFest 2023!!

We're In!! 🤩🌟

Battle Gem Ponies will be at MAGFEST in January! 🎧🎮👾

Looking forward to constructing our biggest, best booth yet and putting BGP in front of more eyes than ever before. Hopefully we'll see a few of YOU guys there as well with our brand new demo on display!

The 2022 Everfree Demo has Arrived!!

Come see the demo we spent the past year building from the ground up! 🌎

The New Kickstarter Anniversary Demo is finally available on Itch.io! 🎮 

This here is the demo we just debuted at Everfree Northwest showing the brand new overworld and improved battle mechanics for the first time.

Download the Demo!

Battle Gem Ponies Are Coming to Everfree Northwest 2022! ~

 

Be sure to stop by the Vendor Hall and play the newest #BattleGemPonies Demo 🎮 at EFNW 2022! 🦄💎🌟

Battle Gem Ponies (March DevLog): Corona Con Cancellation Craze

Some crazy new decade we're having, huh? Should come as no surprise now that delays and scrapped plans are happening left and right, even here at little ol' Yotes Games, thanks to ya homeboy COVID-19.

Get some details on how we're handling the situation below.

Babscon 2020 is Cancelled, but the Show MUST Go On!

Unfortunately, the Babscon Arcade Showcase won't be happening this year. But we're going to make the most of this and take some extra time to get an even more polished Battle Gem Ponies combat demo out to everyone over the convention season!

Hope you can look forward to it with us!

- Yotes Games Dev Team

Battle Gem Ponies @MAGFest 2019! (The 1st 4-Day Con Booth)

     This past Magfest certainly was an adventure! Supplies were gathered, 2 friends volunteered to help, and we ran the biggest Battle Gem Ponies booth yet. And for 4 days straight! I thought some folks out there would like to see what that adventure was like so catch a write-up on this indie dev experience below... 

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog (January: Foundation Framework)

     Itching to kickoff the new year with great progress on Battle Gem Ponies! Gotta admit, I'm sorta stumbling out the gate in this race here, but I'm getting a rhythm down now.

See what I'm talking about below the break.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #196 (Showcase Dreams)

     Can you picture it...? Yotes Games, out there among the other young hopefuls, trying to convince anybody walking by to give this little pony RPG a shot. By all means, it outta do as great as it did at Orlando Overdrive but with a much bigger crowd over the span of 3 days instead of 1.

    Serious planning has begun, so far it's only been preemptive measures and bookmarking things to come back to later. Now I'm getting down the fine details of everything I need to know, do, study, and purchase in order to make the most out of this Magfest trip.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #195 (Inspiration Manifestation)

     My entire past week revolved around a game that wasn't mine for once. I took the time to play the newly released followup to my favorite indie game of all-time (Undertale, in case you didn't know) and it was time well spent.

     I came out the other side of those credits re-energized, inspired to work harder, and pumped up on well-designed RPGs and quirky/interesting fantasy worlds. Overall, a nice reminder of why I love gaming so much.

See what notable new design elements are coming (without getting too specific) along with some Earth-Shaking indie dev news down below.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #188 (Working Man By Day, Indie Dev By Night)

     Finally scored that gosh-dang job after months of chaos!

     The publisher hunt is over... The job hunt is over... The storm is finally settling and I can start making a game plan. Not a literal game design plan, but you know. An adjusted 5 year plan with branching paths and failsafes sort of thing.

     October is around the corner, and I can't stall any longer for these 50/50 chances in tech cities across the country making sweet sounding proposals but taking weeks at a time to get back to me. 

     I got a software engineering offer from a place within driving distance where I'll have a chance to learn, a chance to excel, the ability to satisfy all my financial objectives, the ability to start as soon as Monday morning, AND it allows me to still live close to my friends and family as well as the growing Orlando gamedev community!

     Excited for this next chapter in my journey, doing the common indie thing of kicking ass at a day job to earn enough money to live on, enough to kill debt, and enough to save for the long term. Burning midnight oil to bring a dream project to life, no matter how many months / years / decades / centuries it takes.

     So here's one last devlog where no progress on BGP is made, but lots of things to reflect on about these past 2 transformative months.

Brainstorming New Patreon Plans, Rewards, & Goals

I'm brainstorming some new plans for making the Yotes Games Patreon a much bigger deal. My general idea is that I need to put more effort into my YouTube channel due to the level of engagement that gets out of people.

But I'd like to hear some feedback from you! It'd be super great to hear someone else's take on where I should take this crazy train next. Or hear exactly why you personally wouldn't donate to my Patreon but would to another. What rewards would you like to see? Should the project be more polished? I wanna know how to get strangers completely HYPED about this game!

Trying to emulate the success of ALBDifferent, Exiled, & YandereDev here, and a solid YouTube effort is the key ingredient I'm neglecting. Even just read an article today about how Fighting is Magic might not've exploded if that demonstration trailer didn't get shared left and right earning 900,000 views. Nerds like me read development blogs, but everybody watches videos. I outta make some videos.
Check out the huge list of ideas about how I'ma to do just that below the break! (regular gamedev posts coming back tomorrow)

BronyCon 2018 Complete!

     Gonna spend some time recovering after BronyCon, panel went great! Update coming soon.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #181 (See you @BronyCon!)

     Can't believe I've been working on this game for almost 200 weeks. Feels more like a thousand and eighty one honestly. Nervous and excited for my panel at BronyCon, got an 11 page long story summing up everything I learned about game development. Looking to hopefully keep things concise enough to fit in the hour long window.

Here's the rundown of what I have prepared.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #180 (Coding, Cures, & Confidence)

Hope rises as pieces of the overworld are coming together.

      Weighed down by post-delay sad vibes all week and only just now getting back into the swing of things as I write this at 3:30am on a Wednesday. This week was code fever and I wore a programmer cap tight while sprucing up BGP's bones.

     Lots of things are working better than ever, and lots more are sure to come. The real issue right now is seeing how much can get up and running before BronyCon. The panel is going to be a slideshow about game development in general, some Q&A between slides, how I came up with and created BGP, and what features I have left to create and how I plan to implement them. 

     And all that will be sandwiched between a Trailer to show off the game and a gameplay demo of the battle system and overworld. Then I'd like to have some sort of teaser finale to send everyone off with and encourage them to download the demo to their phones on the way out so they can remember the game later.

     But how much I can show depends on how far I get in the next 6 days, so fingers crossed, I won't hit any more road blocks. Every precious minute counts right now, and I think I might just barely make it. So let's see what's been done in the past few days.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #178 (Refocus on the Hook)

     Starting to build out all the actual tile maps to be used in the beginning segment of the game, up to the first badge and a little beyond, just to get players hooked and hungry for more.

     Now, while the completed Alpha won't be a thing until the entire game is playable start to finish, I do believe I can get the first part of the game out within the month of July. While everyone is enjoying the new story, learning the mechanics, interacting with the world, and getting that first badge, I'll be working on getting the demo in as many Let's Player's hands as possible by day and implementing the rest of the design notes by night.

     Time to put everything I've got into a super-polished build that'll make people go nuts when they try it. Time to make sure every 30 seconds of the game gives players a Ben & Jerry's sized chunk of fun to chew on. Time to get Battle Gem Ponies on the map!

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 #167 (Orlando Overdrive 2018)

     Showcasing the game to new folks, meeting other developers, learning from their experiences, making friends, and dancing my legs off. That's the TL;DR of my Orlando Overdrive experience this past weekend. 

     Battle Gem Ponies had a booth right in the middle of the indie game hallway leading to the bar & dance floor of The Geek Easy. Turns out the whole brony thing wasn't a passing fad, and lots of people still smile when they see marshmallow horses with super powers. 

     Check out this week's devlog to see how the indie showcase went. 👾