End of 2024 Progress Report (Winter Wrap Up🎄🥂)

 

A new development update is here! Last one of the year.

Lots to celebrate as the year of BGP's launch comes to a close. But there's so much content yet to come that we feel like things have only just started!

Head on over to Patreon to get the details on progress as of December 2024, plans for 2025, and screenshots of the lovely places you'll get to explore in Act 1 a few months from now.

Unity Fees Won't Stop Us

We've been getting messages from Battle Gem Ponies backers with worries that the Unity Per-Install Fee could delay or even cancel the project. Here to say now, that won't happen. ❌

Not only are we expecting to not come close to the 1M downloads & dollars a year mark to trigger it, but this project's been through way worse hardships than an engine change over the years. We'll do what we've gotta do to make BGP a reality and not allow a greedy company to bankrupt us with poorly thought out monetization schemes. 💸

Especially in order for us to keep the promises made to every person who supported this Pony RPG dream with their own hard-earned money! 🦄 

What makes a game like Pokémon Scarlet or Violet so dang FUN despite all the cut corners?

Pokémon SV has me thinking about what order to put Game Direction priorities in... 🤔

(List & Thoughts below the break!)

The Big Rebrand: Yotes Games is Now YotesMark

Some people have been wondering what's up with the name change, so why not answer it here?

To keep it concise, it's about looking way into the future. Beyond making games alone. Could be shows, movies, toys, board games, conventions, anything involving delivering people a good time. As well as any number of other business ventures to keep this thing independent and afloat as we strive to create the best of the best in entertainment.

We could talk at length about this and the overall vision for hours on end someday, but perhaps for now it's best to be vague and just focus on getting the immense amount of work to be done out of the way so everyone can just see what we mean.

The past 10 years have basically just been practice for what's to come. And we look forward to having the YotesMark name really mean something to millions of people someday.

Battle Gem Ponies Combat Demo Tour

 

Made a walkthrough video going over the game's development history and unique mechanics. (Timestamps included)

Showing how a Pokemon Uranium inspired MLP mashup turned into a fully-fledged commercial indie effort. As well as all the special little touches that makes BGP an interesting take on the Monster Tamer genre. Check it out and give our YouTube channel a Subscribe while you're at it.

We're gonna start posting a lot more content very soon.

Battle Gem Ponies (April DevLog): The World is on FIRE!!

We're mid-apocalypse as showtime approaches! I'm sure April 2020 has been rough for pretty much everyone. And the team here at Yotes Games is no exception. 

Spritework, cut budgets, major losses, and hard lessons finally learned. It's been pretty busy.

Get a full update on the new decade's most destructive month yet as it relates to Battle Gem Ponies and see how we plan to rise from the ashes, developers reborn!

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.

Battle Gem Ponies (July DevLog): Aha! Now I see...

     Still chipping away at this project one day at a time. Real life hurdles still slowing me down and demotivating me, but even just looking at the roster of pony sprites on my phone throughout the day inspires me to keep pushing forward to make this thing real. Another devlog went up and I want the world to know about it.

See the full Patreon Exclusive post here!

Otherwise come get a brief summary of the game's progress below.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #198 (Thoughts in Order)

     Nothing impressive to see here, kinda just another week of getting my ideas straight. Converting messy notes into legible text, then giving that text some context to make sense with the rest of the vision.

     I'm working on the design doc some more, basically. Combing through each and every detail of the game again to make sure nothing is boring, too derivative, tedious, or pointless. I want to charm the pants off of folks the whole way through. And I absolutely want to make sure to vaporize any accusations of this being an uninspired Pokemon clone.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #197 (Sick Day)

     Not even gonna pretend much got done this time around. Flu season is in full swing, and I've been feeling downright horrible for days. Some way worse than others. Gonna shake off this crud and try to enjoy Thanksgiving break off work (by finally getting design notes organized & integrated). 

More big news next week!

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 #191 (Not a Single Thing Checked Off the List)

     I am shocked at how quickly this Wednesday snuck up on me. Guess that's a good thing. Another week closer to my short term goals, but on the other hand there's still next to no progress being made on BGP. So caught up in the daily routine and so mentally drained after hours of office work, it's incredibly easy to understand how people fall into "the grind" trap you know? 

    Just wanna drag yourself home, flop down somewhere (preferably with pizza at hand) and just watch stuff, endlessly scroll social media, wish you were happier and doing awesome things, and fall asleep. But I gotta stay on track. Even if it's just 2-3 hours at a time. Even if these little tasks like "Just write 8 YouTube scripts already!" end up taking forever, just like every other small task self-assigned.

 Pretty sure I'm waist deep in burnout, but not in any particular situation to be able to aliviate that stress, so... Onward! Here's today's blog.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #189 (Feeling Heavy)

     It's been a pretty funky week all things considered. Some good stuff, some bad feels, some future happenings. Very Introspective and... Just weird this week. I chalk it up to adjusting to a new daily routine after years of indie dev followed by months of stressful job hunting. 

Satisfy your curiosity with a bit of my chaotic life in gamedev. (Maybe there's something to glean from all these thoughts swimming in my head)

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.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #187 (When Will This Be Overrrr?)

     I swear, this isn't even a Battle Gem Ponies development blog anymore. It's me applying to every Unity Programming job on Earth and waiting weeks at a time for a response. Another week flew by and BGP gets covered in dust. But at least more promising opportunities are coming up lately. Just waiting for any one of them to throw me a decent concrete offer for a mid tp senior position and I'll probably jump on it.

The job search continues in this week in gamedev.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #186 (Uncertain Future)

     It's a week of nervous pacing back and fourth. I truly have no idea what my life could be like come December and it's pretty darn scary. I could pick and choose, but there's also the very realistic chance of rejection to account for. 

     Job hunting sucks, but it looks like this is just how its gonna be all September. I'd like to get swept off my feet next week and have a 6 digit salary put in my lap to finally put a countdown clock on my stupid $50K+ of debts, but I gotta be emotionally prepared for worst possible scenarios too.

     I really hope I can just find a place to make cool games and apps. Many doors ahead... Which ones will open?

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #184 (A Mad Scramble)

     It's been one hectic week. Job searches, contract work researching, phone interviews, resume remakes, documents galore, and listing a whole lot of things that'll cost a whole lot of money over the next year. Current mission status? I'm looking for a publisher to finance the upcoming breakout hit of Yotes Games, LLC. That's right, Yotes Games just became a real-deal company! 

     It's as official as it gets. And it'll make contracts and legal protection a lot less risky for me and a lot more straightforward for anyone I strike a deal with. I made a list of compatible publisher options and I'm pitching the game to them one-by-one. Someone says no, too bad, next in line. I figure out of the 20 of em I narrowed the list down to, one will agree I'm a perfect fit and give Battle Gem Ponies the budget needed to carry on to Launch Day!

Get yourself a whole buncha hoopla and gamedev news below!

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #183 (Patron Palooza)

     I got an itchy twitch finger and put up the new Patreon ideas immediately. Still eager for feedback and willing to add any new ideas or mix things around, but I really felt like kicking off August with the new revamp and just having that ready to go as soon as my first couple YouTube videos go up.

    And new videos will be popping up twice a week at least for the next little while, just to build some momentum. It's all really exciting stuff and I can't wait to see how it grows. 

Now then... Onto to the devlog!

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #182 (Gotta Gain Marketing Chops)

     A key problem with Battle Gem Ponies right now is that nobody knows it exists. How do I let people who'd probably like it know it exists? Well, sitting here and talking about it on my website nobody's heard of isn't getting the job done. And an occasional mention here and there on high traffic blogs isn't working either. 

     How about I take it to the hypest place on the information highway? The place people specifically go to look to see interesting things they'll probably like...

     YouTube. I'm talking about YouTube. I need to take my channel seriously and start pumping out videos that show what the game is all about, what I'm all about as a dev, and for the love of all things holy get my Patreon numbers up before my debts swallow me whole (this game is officially years too late and things I've been putting off won't stay at bay forever). 

     See all the different ways I plan to save my butt financially by pushing Battle Gem Ponies under a much bigger spotlight in this week's development log!

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)