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!

Animating Battle Gem Ponies

     I have about a hundred ponies to put in the game and only a few months to do it. I also want each of those ponies to have at least 10 animations each. That's a lot to swallow for a beginner dev like me. To make drawing all these pixel horses possible, I needed to break it down to an efficient process. I need to establish a large "pony parts library" to avoid having to redraw poses I've done before, decide on common poses and frame counts, and limit each pony with 5 frames per animation (with few rare exceptions that have 6-7 frames).

     After taking my time building up a library of wings, bodies, tails, and idle bobbing, I can start using them to make the ponies move in-game. A good thing about limiting the designs to equines is having all the similar body shapes be so easy to animate. I'm still in the process of animating the last 3 ponies today (Orscina, Vinerva, and Sweet-Bot) and once they're done I can tidy up the battle system and draw attacks. Things are behind schedule, but they're still looking great.

Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #22 (Macbook is Here! Menus Are Up!)

     Progress is steady and the menus are functional (just for the demo). Now it's time to play with animations! A huge step toward making the battles feel alive. This week be be all about getting the moving ponies to look right. Then I'll be doing flashy move animations so the attacks are finally cool. That's when the game I see in my head can be seen by anyone else.

The Pony Stats Menu

     This here is the Pony Stats menu. You can access it in the overworld and also in battle. It breaks down all the combat relevant info for whoever is in your party. You can see the moves, class weaknesses, abilities, augments, maladies, stats, classes, items, and nicknames of any of the 3 ponies you send into battle. You can also check how close you are to leveling up here.

     An additional feature coming later is the ability to customize your pony through a pop-up that let's you alter your stats, attacks, and equipment. Right now everything works on a basic level, but some details won't function until things like maladies are put in the game. 

     The background is temporary and it can't scroll until I figure out how that works in Unity. With some time and a lot of Googling I'll have it working well enough for early playtesting. This menu was a pain in the butt to make, but now I'm that much closer to releasing the Pre-Alpha V2 demo.

See the menu in action!