Battle Gem Ponies - A Pony Tamer RPG

[Yotes 156]

One of the main priorities of the game is making each pony character expressive and visually interesting. We want people to connect with them. 🐴💖
Each pony is meant to be someone's favorite for multiple reasons, gameplay related or otherwise.

[Yotes 156]

It took about a month and a half, but ALL the pony sprite pieces have finally been drawn and as of right now I can begin the frame-by-frame animation process!

Should be done and in-game by April's end (we'll see how that goes 👀)

[Yotes 156]

Our biggest accomplishments this past month have been an improved animation pipeline and a functioning cutscene system.

2 ENORMOUS steps forward (despite the Great Zelda Distraction 😅 )

The June BGP Progress Report has just landed!  (So you can read all about it) 
Get ready for "Sprites, Camera... ACTION!  📽️🦄"
https://www.patreon.com/YotesMark
 

[Yotes 156]

Gears have shifted towards the tasks weighing us down. Luckily, we've made great headway and both the story and the tools to make it are really coming together!💡

Come read the July 2023 Progress Report (The Makings of a Story 📖), now Live on Patreon!🗞️
https://patreon.com/YotesMark

[Yotes 156]

Back From TrotCon 2023!

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. 🤝📈

[Yotes 156]

BGP Progress Report Time!

New maps, bug squashin', giant vehicles, conventions, & overworld effects.

Got 11 headlines for ya, so come see how things are going in gamedev as Summer comes to a close, over on Patreon!

https://www.patreon.com/YotesMark

The next Progress Report will be at the end of September. And hopefully with tons of exciting news! (Like when the Alpha will finally arrive)

[Yotes 156]

Back From Everfree Northwest 2023!

 

Love how the #BattleGemPonies #everfreenorthwest booth turned out 💜

This man was fixing bugs LIVE ON THE SHOW FLOOR!! #EFNW #Convention 

By Day 3 we had the super nice & new cutscene/tutorial build working and took careful notes on how different players explored it.

[Yotes 156]

The Big Fat Kickstarter 2nd Anniversary Writeup! 🎊

It's officially been 2 years since the Kickstarter now and the Battle Gem Ponies dev team is happy to see things finally taking shape!
There's a celebration/progress report post on our Patreon blog to commemorate the occasion: https://www.patreon.com/posts/big-fat-2nd-88688631

 

One of the main design goals for Battle Gem Ponies is making the choice between these three for your first transformation an excruciating decision. 

Very early on in your adventure, you'll come across a strange old woman beckoning you to take one of 3 mysterious, colorful, vision-inducing stones that your buddy Ponatina will have an interesting reaction to... 

[Yotes 156]

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! 🦄

[Yotes 156]

 

 

 

That September Demo we promised is finally here! 🤩
Grab a Backers-Only Password from the post on Kickstarter or Patreon to play it right away! [ https://www.patreon.com/YotesMark ] ⭐

[Yotes 156]

Enough messin' around. We're charting a course to get Battle Gem Ponies out in Five Months (or collapse trying). Here's details on how we intend to pull that off.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/almost-november-91825382

[Yotes 156]

This is it... this is the year #BattleGemPonies comes out... My entire #gamedev life has led to the number 2024 being on the title screen of my high school #ponymon dream game 🦄🎮

- Got 120 days left to make it happen! 😤🚀
#NewYearsResolution

[Yotes 156]

Progress Report: Final Crunchdown [Part 2/5]

The latest and greatest progress report has arrived! As of the 15th of January, it's officially the end of Map Month! That means ALL the maps are IN the game!

Well, the 1st draft unconfigured foundations at least. But you can SEE them!

(All that's left now is to polish them up, replace the placeholders, sprinkle some characters around, put the story together with cutscenes...)
 

Foundations are set for all 600+ rooms you'll be exploring once the game comes out. Take a peek at what's going into them with the Patreon Update below:

Patreon.com/YotesMark

[Yotes 156]

Progress Report: Final Crunchdown [Part 3/5]

The pieces are coming together one-by-one as each map gets fleshed out. But it'll still be a little while before it's considered to be in a "playable" state. Check it all out in the latest BGP Progress Report! https://www.patreon.com/posts/progress-report-99080476

Really looking forward to seeing people run around all these maps! I wonder what things will captivate people's exploration instincts most...

There's going to be branching paths to let you do things "out of order", different ways to get certain ponies on your roster early, countless customizations by the time you reach the end of Act 1 of 3 and (if I do my job right) lots of fun and memorable moments around every corner.

[Yotes 156]

Never appreciated the true tedious chaos of labeling and connecting doors together until this week. 😵‍💫

Every city is like this and the mountains are worse.

But then there's those simple little linear paths. Those are a treat

[Yotes 156]

Progress Report: Final Crunchdown [Part 4/5]

The game is being split into 4 parts and releasing throughout 2024. Get the details here: 
Download it Through Patreon!

The BGP Alpha is finally here! Backers can go grab it from Itch.io now!
Battle Gem Ponies Alpha on Patreon

Edited May 7 by Yotes

[Yotes 156]

Progress Report: Final Crunchdown [Part 5/5]

Catch the Newest BGP Progress Report! 🗞
Going over the final steps towards Beta testing and what's standing between that demo and launch day. 🪧

https://www.patreon.com/posts/105518340

[Yotes 156]

Battle Gem Ponies Beta 1 Has Arrived! 🚅🚉

The #BattleGemPonies Beta is playable TODAY! ⭐️
$10+ backers are welcome to grab a password from the latest devlog and hop hooves-first into the Pinto Region! 🐎
💎https://www.patreon.com/posts/107700911

[Yotes 156]

#BattleGemPonies Sunday Beta Update, as promised! 🎮
(And some new goodies too! 🛍️)

https://www.patreon.com/posts/108130804

[Yotes 156]

Probably the coolest (and softest) thing we've ever made. Up for sale here: https://epiclootllc.com/collections/battle-gem-ponies

[Yotes 156]

Fresh-Baked Beta 3 Update! 🍪📲

Check out Itch for Backer Beta Update #3!

Approaching the final few issues between this demo and launch day...
Play the Early Access Beta!

[Yotes 156]

Check out Patreon for Beta Update #5!

We've got big plans for marketing efforts and look forward to announcing a definitive release date soon.

Game's just about done cookin' but we can't just push it out without rolling out the red carpet first.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/arrival-storys-5-109066570

[Yotes 156]

Time's Up! 🕰️ Prepare for Launch... 🚀

It's clear that we could spend eternity hunting and squashing bugs and we just need to hit the GO button already! ⏲️🚀

https://ko-fi.com/post/Times-Up-Prepare-for-Launch-U6U2122D9K

[Yotes 156]

Big thanks to everypony who came by our booth this year.
We had a blast sharing our BGP trading game with Everfree Northwest! 🌲
Every con gets more magical. 🌟

[Yotes 156]

BGP is coming to the Monster Taming Direct! 💎📰✨

Exciting BGP news and reveals are coming to the Monster Taming Direct! 💎
The event will be hosted by Gym Leader Ed on YouTube, featuring tons of exciting news on Pokémon inspired indie games!

The BGP team has seen this channel rapidly grow from 14K subs to over 90K over the past few years since plotting our own Kickstarter they promoted. And these Monster Taming Directs always exceed the sub count in the long term, so this might be pretty big deal. (100K niche targeted warm-lead views for FREE? It's an indie's dream breakout moment!)

Be sure to look out for it Labor Day morning!

Edited September 1 by Yotes