Battle Gem Ponies - A Pony Tamer RPG

[Yotes 88]

Battle Gem Ponies! The fully-animated action-packed RPG adventure! Where tons of Pony OCs duke-it-out like Pokémon!

Rotation battles, specialized move slots, new types, gym leaders specializing in strategies instead of types, EVs & IVs that can be altered with a slider instead of breeding, a balanced roster without intentional tiers, and a version of Eevee that can switch between any of the types at will! All ideas that went into this project's conception.

Sound good? Then come along for the ride!

Developed by the Yotes Games team with the Unity Engine

Version 0.32.2

Play the Latest Demo Here!

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BREAKING NEWS:

The Battle Gem Ponies Kickstarter is COMPLETE!! (138% Funded!)

The Battle Gem Ponies Kickstarter has ended with 414 Backers that pledged $34,695.50!!

For anybody late to the party, Our Patreon is up so you can pre-order the game there as well.

We couldn't be any happier with how this turned out. Flew past every Launch Day Stretch Goal with an extra month's budget to spare! It's all an indie team could ever want.

Thank you. Thank everyone who pledged, followed, shared, liked, or anything to support us and show that we aren't just shouting into the void hoping someone out there cares. This campaign proved to us this game has an audience. And now we have names and faces for the people we're building this for.

We won't let you down.

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About:

Command super-powered, shape-shifting ponies in strategic turn-based RPG combat. The battle system is a variation of Pokemon's Rotation Battle in that matches are 3 vs 3 and either player can swap out their current fighter at the beginning of the turn (but at the cost of attacking last). Your pony will shapeshift between these 3 forms until each one's individual HP reaches zero.
 
To catch wild ponies you have to weaken them and use capture gems that "download" the opposing pony's data and allows your pony to transform into it. In order to complete the capture process though, the wild pony needs to be defeated.

Elemental Classes

 

 

There are 18 elemental classes each with their own strengths and weaknesses. In place of the "Normal type" there is a neutral class with no special advantage or disadvantage, thus being able to cause a regular amount of damage on anypony.

Ultra Forms

 

A major aspect of battle is the Ultra transformations. Like with mega evolution, finding special objects in the overworld will allow you to transform any one of your party members into a powered up version of themselves (sometimes with alternate elemental types too).

 

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FEATURES:

 

Fully Animated Battle RPG!
     Every single pony and attack is uniquely animated to bring these pixel art battles to life!
 
Explore a Vast World!
     An enormous, vibrant region awaits! Travel through deserts, mountains, forests, graveyards, and underwater temples on your quest through the Pinto region.
 
Power Up Your Pony!
     Form a powerful bond with your shapeshifting pony companion and watch it grow stronger, learn awesome new moves, and take on the toughest of enemies.
 
Travel with Your Pony!
     Surf across oceans and lakes with any swift-swimming ponies. Teleport to the nearest Health Center whenever you like with a simple phone call. Even have whatever pony is with you smash any boulders in your path, just because they all can!
 
Customize Your Team!
     Choose who you take into battle from a selection of 60 Ponies and their Ultra Forms. You can alter their moves, stats, and equipment to become an unbeatable trainer!
 
Hundreds of Different Moves!
     Using attacks grouped into Light, Heavy, Status, and Tutor slots that make you think more carefully about which moves to take into battle.
 
Discover the Secrets of the Legendary Alicorns!
     Powerful, winged unicorns that embody the Sun and Moon are said to be the strongest ponies to ever live. People have wanted to harness their power for personal gain since ancient times. With recent advancements in technology, however, it might be easier than ever for their power to fall into the wrong hands...
 
Collect Badges and Save The World!
     You’ll have your skills tested by expert Mavens and fight for your life against the evil Paragon Cartel. Simple story objectives that fans of Monster RPGs will be familiar with, but perhaps with a few surprises along the way...

 

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THE PINTO REGION:

 

A whole new world of branching paths and hidden secrets to explore…

 

 

A colorful and varied region with a gemstone motif and mysteries scattered across the map. It's meant to be an adventure lasting at least 6 hours on average. Preferably longer, and extended indefinitely with post-game content. The environments should be visually varied and filled with enough story content to keep the player interested in progressing. Every single section has at least a handful of notable experiences within.
 
The scope has been thought out and written in a 200+ page long game design document along with every other aspect of the game.

 

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SCREENSHOTS:

 

 

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SOCIAL MEDIA:

 

Follow the game on your favorite social media sites to get the latest news and have your burning questions answered!

 

Find All the Yotes Social Pages On:

Linktree: @YotesGames

 

Alternatively, you can always email yotesmail@gmail.com with anything you want the devs to see.

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DOWNLOAD LINKS:

 

The latest current build is version 0.32.2, now available on Itch.io!
Available for Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.
 
The 2021 Combat Demo contains a revamped battle system, new animations, and a Team Customizer!

 

The 2017 Overworld Demo contains 3 Areas to explore, 12 Ponies to catch, and a Random Battle Now mode.
(Battle calculations may exhibit bugs and unfinished animations.)

 

And they're both available to download for free on the website below!
 

Combat Demo V0.32.2  (11/1/21)

Download: https://yotesgames.itch.io/battle-gem-ponies

 

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CREDITS:

 

Engine, Development Tools, & Plugins provided by Unity3D and its Asset Store

 

Orchestral Composition & Soundtrack

Euleom

 

Chiptune Composition, Soundtrack, & Sound Effects

Bluco

 

Video Editor

Confident Cow

 

Engine Architecture

Royal Pizza

 

Gameplay Programming

Psyaryu 

 

Game Design, Production, Marketing, Pixel Art, Animation, & Writing

Tony Yotes

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Yotes

[Yotes 88]

Battle Gem Ponies Combat Demo Video Tour

We 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.

You Can Watch Right Here!

(And be sure to sub, we're gonna start posting a lot more content very soon.)

Edited July 21, 2021 by Yotes

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,785]

This is super awesome! Would you allow people to submit their own OCs in the future?

[Yotes 88]

On 2021-07-21 at 11:39 AM, Courageous Thunder Dash said:

This is super awesome! Would you allow people to submit their own OCs in the future?

One of the Kickstarter rewards will be to have OCs drawn as Battle Gem Ponies in such a way modders can go wild and implement them however they see fit. (We'd do it ourselves, but that'd eat up development time. So we're better off giving people the tools and a nice place to start, Friday Night Funkin style)

[Yotes 88]

Hopefully anyone who's been keeping an eye on BGP's development will at least give it a look. We're offering all kinds of rewards like getting your own pony drawn, creating a canon character, and all kinds of other stuff only the earliest Patrons ever got!

 

And this crowdfunding campaign comes with a New Free Demo too, so pretty sweet deal all around.

Check Us Out on Kickstarter

or

Download the Newest Demo

 

Thanks for following the development of Battle Gem Ponies, btw. One of the best parts of making this game is knowing we won't be the only ones who get to play it.

[Yotes 88]

We did it!!

Battle Gem Ponies reached its funding goal with a week to spare!
It's still up 'til Sept 3rd 6pm EST if you wanna hop onboard: on Kickstarter 

[Yotes 88]

 

The long overdue June/July Devlog is here! (And in video form!)

From now on we'll be doing these instead of the usual monthly writeups on the Yotes Games blog since its more fun & easy to watch/listen than navigate to a particular website and read. So subscribing to our YouTube channel will keep you up to speed on everything! Plus you get to hear all our voices on this rotating cast of devs in these short podcast style updates.

 

[Yotes 88]

The Battle Gem Ponies Kickstarter is COMPLETE!! (138% Funded!)

The Battle Gem Ponies Kickstarter has ended with 414 Backers that pledged $34,695.50!!

For anybody late to the party, Our Patreon is up so you can pre-order the game there as well.

We couldn't be any happier with how this turned out. Flew past every Launch Day Stretch Goal with an extra month's budget to spare! It's all an indie team could ever want.

Thank you. Thank everyone who pledged, followed, shared, liked, or anything to support us and show that we aren't just shouting into the void hoping someone out there cares. This campaign proved to us this game has an audience. And now we have names and faces for the people we're building this for.

We won't let you down.

[Yotes 88]

 In case you missed it, here's the Countdown of the final moments of this awesome (and exhausting) Kickstarter campaign:

 

[Yotes 88]

Got a fresh new demo up, with a smotherin' of Bug Fixes for ya! 
Every glitch and error we could find since vending at Everfree Northwest.

You can Play It Here!

BGP PATCH NOTES (Sept. 5th 2021):

 

The Big News

• Passive Pony Abilities & Equips Now Work as Intended
• Menu Issues, Resolved!
• Glitchy Moves, Fixed!
• Typos, Corrected!
• Particle Effects, Adjusted!
• Background Tinting Animations, Restored!
• Shield Moves Actually Shield You!
• Attack Info is Displayed Correctly!
• Unimplemented Moves that Should Be Hidden, Now Are
• Buffs & Debuffs Go Up & Down Properly
• Pegasi Should Now Fear Flying Rocks
• The Endure Mechanic Works
• Devil Shot Deals Actual Damage Now
• The Hidden Spire Trap Activates on Forced Swap-Outs
• 2-Turn Moves Now Show Relevant Info in Menus
• 2-Turn Moves Don't Trigger Enemy's  Impact Side-Effects until they Actually Land
• Made Things More Clear When You're Running Low on Gem Power
• The Badly Poisoned Malady Now Deals Appropriate Damage
• Malady Afflicted Debuffs are No Longer Permanent

The Specifics

• Air ponies can now be hurt by Earth attacks while Burrowed underground
• Ponies hiding Underground or In the Sky can no longer force the enemy's self-targeted attacks to miss
• Pony nicknames won't disappear when you return to Team Select after a battle with custom nicknames
• Move animations that can change the background color now work as expected
• Barrier's reduced Damage Calculation now works
• When restoring HP with a leeching move, the camera will always make sure the healed pony is shown along with the healing text
• Sleep Dust will tell the player when it fails
• Moves not implemented yet have been removed
• Stats Screen won't wig out in the middle of battle when a barely noticeable  "null animation" issue comes up (the null animation issue was resolved too)
• 2-Turn Moves display the proper POW number in menus
• 2-Turn Moves exist as 2 different attacks behind the scenes now So we can have unique effects for Turn 1 and Turn 2 that won't get mixed up as easily
• Moves with POW that "varies" show up as "--" instead of "0"
• Sleep Malady can last more than 2 turns
• Change Moves screen used to sometimes show the wrong pony's info. Now it double checks for the most recently highlighted pony
• When rapidly pressing buttons, the game can trip up. We addressed this on nearly every screen in the game
• When out of GP and forced into "Tackle Mode", unusable moves get removed from play
• We can finely control where we clamp the Stat Stage Buffs. (currently set on a -3 to 3 scale instead of the initial -6 to 6)
• Speedster passive ability now works
• Poni-Bot's Battery Doesn't absorb enemies' self-targeted moves
• Thestra's ability activates every 3 turns she's on the field, instead of every 3 turns period
• Life Drain particle effect animation flows in the correct direction now
• Death Glare consistently lowers the same stats each time
• Rock Toss & Rock Riot now harm Air ponies just like the description says
• Star Spurs Equip now works as described
• Hidden Spire hurts ponies that are swapped in after a KO
• Fixed Ember Tornado trap animation
• Yawn no longer resets itself
• Gigazorb now works when used by or used on Mauss
• Bide will only deal damage when the user actually takes damage, not when the opponent uses a move that could/will eventually deal damage
• Venom is now guaranteed to apply Poison
• Devil Shot now makes its POW 1/2 of the user's EATK stat
• The UI will show you when Buffs & Debuffs are applied, right when they happen
• Getting a 9+ Combo on a Multi-Hit Move no longer causes the Hit Counter to stay onscreen
• Exiting Battle now Resets Bonus Value assignments and Toggling "Disable BVs" button won't erase what you assigned them to
• Mini Pony Sprites Animate properly in their little boxes across all menus

[Yotes 88]

Updated our Patreon Description, Goals, Rewards! A 2nd chance for anyone who missed out on the Kickstarter Hype 🚂

We now have the funds to make the game, but let's see if we can grow the studio over time and make bigger/better things. 📈

Join in on the journey (or maybe just grab yourself a T-Shirt) on our Patreon.

[Yotes 88]

BGP demos just got a second home over on GameJolt! Give it a look, play the newest build, and maybe even join our little community forming over there.

And if you wanna see what's new, just check out the patch notes on the latest build below!

-----------------------------------------------

BGP PATCH NOTES (Oct. 1 2021):

 

The Big News

• Battle Calculator Overhaul!
• (Much more reasonable damage outputs in battle.)
• Settings Button Added to Title Screen
• Glitchy Menus Touched Up
• Weather Effects now Work Properly
• 2-Turn Moves can Account for Weirdness
• Equips Work When You Expect Them To
• Random VS Match Team Loadout Bugs are Squashed!
• More Gem Power for Everypony!
• Troublesome Moves are Debugged!

The Specifics

• Switched to a Division-based damage algorithm.
• Balanced stats using Ponatina as the base character dealing ideal percentages of damage with each move. (No more dealing 1% average damage to Furum & Poni-Bot anymore!)
• Altered the way stats change on level up to scale logarithmically.
• Made GP stat more plentiful.
• The Game Boot-Up Loading Screen is now centered and readable.
• Volume Settings have been added to the title screen and rebalanced on our end to sound reasonable.
• The Change Moves screen no longer opens or reloads with the wrong pony's info on display.
• In battle, exiting the FIGHT! button's move select HUD no longer continues to display a 'swap-to pony' if you were checking out a party member's moveset while they weren't actually on the field.
• Pony Equips now activate at the start of the very first turn instead of after.
• Issue where jumping into a Random Match right after boot-up forgets to load pony abilities has been fixed.
• Item or Ability induced weather conditions now carry on continuously instead of stopping only to trigger the effect and begin again.
• Weather bonus effects now kick-in whenever a pony enters the field instead of only being applied once when the weather first activates.
• The moves Hex, Endure, Inner Power, Hex Powder, Night Fright, Cheap Shot, and Swarm Shield work properly now.
• Outrage Aggro State now lasts 2-3 turns instead of 1.
• Counter/Endure/Reflect/Bide now deflect all hits of a Multi-Hit attack.
• 2-Turn Moves can now be configured to have different priorities on each phase.
• 2-Turn Moves no longer ignore being put to Sleep.
• Interrupted airborne state no longer continues the feather drop animation.
• Edge cases involving 2-Turn moves and triggered abilities/equips/matchups/side effects have been tested and accounted for.
• We now have the ability to clamp stat stages however we want instead of having -3 to +3 stat buffs hardcoded.
• Status moves now take the target pony's class matchup into account.
• Tutor slot moves can now be hidden if your GP is too low to use that attack.
• Removed Nullified Ability Labels that mysteriously appeared in battle.
• Devil Shot & Torment had their POW formulas adjusted to deal worthwhile damage.
• Leech moves now restore the proper amount of the attacker's HP.
• The pony-form lock state now actually prevents swapping out.
• Mauss' Thirsty ability now absorbs Whirlpool traps.
• Furum's Compensate ability no longer stacks and can activate on swap-in.
• The Rainbow Rock item has been nerfed to give the user less speed.
• Rainbryte can no longer use the Silver Scales attack (it's side effect along with her Ability was just too OP!)

[Yotes 88]

Glad to have this huge game feel update out into the world, and looking forward to something even more awesome next month.

[Yotes 88]

2nd  Combat Overhaul Hotfix is up!
Addressing issues with Secondary Neutral class affecting Ace values and Mauss being immune to Status attacks.

[Yotes 88]

See what's up with the numbers behind our Combat System in our new Breakdown series video! ⭐

 

 

[Yotes 88]

BGP Devlog #4 (Hotfix TARTARUS!)

 

New Devlog Hotfix TARTARUS! is now on YouTube, check it out!

After chipping away at development tools and setup behind the scenes, the Yotes Games team is back with an (admittedly late) update on what we've been up to! 

In short, things like new scenery, a debugged overworld, and more videos breaking down specific mechanics can be expected as we charge full-speed ahead into the next year.

The team is thankful for how far we've been able to get this year with the help of the Kickstarter, and we're looking forward to fulfilling the promise of a truly awesome video game experience!

[Yotes 88]

 

 

Patrons & Backers, check your mail!

The New 2022 Overworld Preview Demo is finally available on Itch.io!

Just read the latest Backers Only post and you'll find the password to gain access:

Download the Demo!

Get Your Access Key!

Edited April 10, 2022 by Yotes

[Yotes 88]

So tough settling on the coolest Chroma colors to go with...
Gonna have to make multiple for the DX release!

Drexaroc is lookin good in the Hellish Black and Red Brimstone color scheme. But the Wintery Lich King look works too!

[Yotes 88]

Improving Ultra Orscina's colors while I'm at it...

[Yotes 88]

We'll Be Vending Again at Everfree Northwest 2022!!

Can't wait to see people reacting to how far Battle Gem Ponies has come over the past year!

[Yotes 88]

Well, Hay! How cool is that? 🥳
Thanks for subbing everyone! 😁
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3jcBfXxX1V95ItZnfIMhdw

[Yotes 88]

Added State Descriptions to the Battle HUD in BGP for Extra Clarity

[Yotes 88]

We're gonna include FULL name labels in the Ponipedia from now on. You'll also be able to scroll to the top and bottom much faster.

[Steve Piranha 25,973]

Hey, that looks pretty kickass 

[Yotes 88]

New Horizons on PINTO ISLAND! | Battle Gem Ponies Devlog #5

See the culmination of all our gamedev efforts this Spring!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veilXnzqajI