April 2023 Progress Report (Sprite Rigs Complete! 🐴🎨)

Got quite a few different topics to cover in this update, so here's an attempt at keeping things "brief" and informative:

Priority Change

Battle Gem Ponies has been in development for several years and it's particularly bothersome that we only have 3 maps and the same 14 ponies to showcase. Basically a cleaned up version of what existed in 2017 when Steam Greenlight was still a thing. We think it's high time we cranked out the big stuff that have an estimated several hundred hours worth of work to do. Getting all 98 ponies into the game, laying out all the 500+ tilemaps, setting up every NPC you'll encounter, writing a novel's worth of dialogue, and making a sleek cutscene system we can use to tell this story.

So we've shifted focus on development tasks to put all the biggest stuff on our plates upfront so we can have these burdens out of the way, especially if the game's financing gets into trouble over the next year. Worst case scenario would be an unexpected bill coming up and Battle Gem Ponies gets forced into side-hustle status and delayed yet again. For everyone's sake it'd be best to have the game at a point where new features can be added and shown off quickly instead of being chipped away at in relative silence for seasons at a time.

It'd just be nice to breathe a sigh of relief knowing the hardest parts are behind us. We can be more certain to meet the looming hard deadline and enjoy having the game in a fully playable Alpha state as soon as possible!

Because then we'd be able to jump right into the best part! Adding cool (but non-vital) features, iterating on stuff like balance and UI, and playing the Adventure Mode over and over again, collecting feedback, and tweaking/improving the game up 'til the January 2024 deadline.

Art Progress

All the pony sprite rigs are complete and now it's just a matter of lining up the pieces and taking a "snapshot" for each frame. Like animating South Park characters. The end result will be seeing several dozen new ponies come to life in-game.

This should go quickly and smoothly, almost certainly in half the time it took to draw them all. So expect that to be complete by the next Progress Report.

Spring & Summer Plans

We plan on having all the major artwork tasks completed before Summer 2023 ends. That's every pony, every tile, every human walking around,  all the battle scene backdrops, and every attack animation. This will breathe new life into the project and give us TONS of cool new things to show off on the YotesMark YouTube channel and reignite the hype machine as we approach the Alpha's release.

While the art is being done, the backlog of bugs will be cleared out before work on the Cutscene Maker system begins. That'll put us in a great spot to start getting the game's finalized maps up and we can really start making this thing come alive. A real explorable version of the game's world is just around the corner, and we couldn't be any more excited!

Patreon Goals & Wave 2 Backer Rewards

We've gotten notice that some changes are coming to BGP's backer platforms. Patreon is getting rid of the Goals feature and Kickstarter is shutting down the backer info list, so anyone that didn't fill out a survey or update their address after a recent move will no longer be able to.

Turns out Kickstarter restricts the Backer data a year after the estimated delivery date for cyber safety reasons, but holds onto the data so we can fulfill rewards upon request when the time comes. But it seems like they might also prevent backers from updating delivery info and surveys. So if you haven't updated your Kickstarter info lately, you have until May 30th to get it in there before all your info is locked in forever. (But just to be safe, we'll be reaching out to every backer with a Wave 2 order like we did in Wave 1 to ensure everyone gets their goodies. And anyone who ignores our attempts will probably have their Kickstarter & Email inboxes flooded with "Pls Lemme Send U Horse" type messages from us until the end of time.)

As for the Patreon Goals thing, that was just a widget allowing us to explain what we'd do with hypothetical amounts of monthly income. And in short, we intend to use every cent improving this game and insuring its success. Regular Business Bills, Advertising, and Art Commissions (to advertise with).

Rest assured we intend to deliver what we promised and hope to kick off a career in delivering more and more fun at a much faster rate and an ever-growing team. And we'll never leave a backer hanging. You're always one email, comment, or Discord ping away from getting us to fix a mistake and make things right.

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You can keep an eye out for a megapost about the individual pony sprite rigs going live immediately after this update if you're curious or eager to peep at 'em all. We're really looking forward to adding them all to the game and finally crossing one of the 3 biggest tasks off the To Do list once and for all.

We can already tell you guys are gonna love this pony roster and light up once you see them in action.

- Thanks for keeping up with the development of Battle Gem Ponies