BGP: Story Outline & Multiplayer

     This will be my first game with a deep story. Actual events happen and it's my job to make players care about the characters involved. I abandoned the open world approach I started with in order to take the player on a journey where excitement and mystery is around every turn. The player will be so into what's happening that they won't notice the hours go by as they try to just get to the next city.

    Something even deeper than the story is the player-to-player interaction. I need to establish a thriving online community that keeps players entertained for years to come. I need to make multiplayer so fun and complex that new things can be discovered by an individual every single day. It'll be players talking excitedly about those hype moments during competitive play that really spreads word-of-mouth and keeps the game interesting in the long-term.

     Get a breakdown of the multiplayer modes and general game progression below.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #2 (All Planned Out)

     I managed to catch the flu on Monday and spent 3 days recovering in bed. I got better just in time for the first day of 2015, inner flame reignited and ready to rocket Battle Gem Ponies to it's  complete state. I never took a break between this, Dragon Souls, and Unicorn Training, so it was nice to take a breather and just think about how I want this one to turn out. Excited thoughts of getting to a playable state certainly helped in my recovery.

Battle Gem Pony Classes (Elemental Match-Ups)

     If you are familiar with Pokemon's types then you'll know where this idea of elemental match-ups comes from. Based on a mix of real world application and game balancing I've come up with a starting point for making my game's core rock-paper-scissors mechanic. The complex way in which the pony classes interact will lead to interesting strategies on the player's part as one tries to always have the advantage on the opponent.

     There are things like stab damage and immunity to consider too. A Fire Draco class will be different from a Draco Fire class because the class in the first position does 1.5 times damage on a move with that type while the secondary class does 1.2 times more damage. Similar rules apply to defense. On top of all that I can expand move depth by throwing in rare dual type moves. The Steel Wing move is suddenly a threat to Plant, Bug, Earth, and Draco class ponies.

A cool thing about the 18 classes (and 19th neutral class) is how the starter pony will be able to change into any of them so the player can have a version of their favorite.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #1 (Scope Setting)

     I have an upcoming Mobile Game Design course for my Junior year at the Pennsylvania College of Technology and the project I'll be working on is this Pokemon style game featuring ponies. The Ponymon Dawn/Dusk ROM hacks inspired me to tackle turn-based combat, multiplayer networking, and fixing everything that bugs me about the main Pokemon games (mainly the grinding and brainless AI). There are only mock-up images right now but I'll be putting out calls for pre-alpha testers once something actually exists in Unity.

     Development is off to a good start and things are becoming clear as the design document gets filled in. Of course I took a couple days off for Christmas with family, but got right back into development and I'm about 50% done with the game design document now.  I should be nearly finished with it by next week so I can start drafting ideas for ponies and tweaking the document for game balance. Things like items, moves, and abilities will be planned out once I have a set number of pony designs and I know their strengths and weaknesses.

Get a bunch of sales data from my other games and a list of progress for Battle Gem Ponies below.