YotesGames

June 2023 Progress Report (Sprites, Camera... ACTION! 📽️🦄)

Strutting straight into Summertime. 😎 Now that the vacations are over and Zelda is finally out of our system (now transferred into powerful inspiration to make the best game possible) we're diving right back into workhorse mode to meet our 2023 goals!

With the biggest accomplishments this past month being an improved animation pipeline and a functioning cutscene system.

Animation Progress:

We've got lively ponies coming in HOT!

TexturePacker has been purchased and it's a huge help for automatically slicing up the Sheets exported from Aseprite into individual (properly named) frame files Unity can read and display. And it's been super easy to palette swap them too for Chroma variants. An all-around super smooth process to get 1 to 3 ponies fully done and fine-tuned per day (based on complexity of moving parts).

We've been making sure each pony has a range of emotions to ensure something is likeable about each design. Always going into each pony's sprite rig thinking "This pony is going to be someone's favorite."

There's quite a bit left to be done, and these are the most complex artworks in the game by far, so it'll be nice to have these cleared off the To-Do list well before the next Progress Report.

Cutscene System:

One of the final enormous undertakings on Psyaryu's plate was making an efficient cutscene system we can animate the story with. Took tons of tinkering and scrapping convoluted ideas, but he's landed on a pretty elegant solution combining his Non-Playable Entities prefabs with Unity's built-in timeline features.

To put it simply (ands leave all the boring technicals out), We have something we're calling a Stage with a bunch of Actor objects placed on it that we can plop down anywhere and even test in isolation for bug hunting. The stage can tell the Actors what to do based on a sequence lined up on a Timeline that progresses forward by having Actors complete their given tasks.

And all the tasks are simple behaviors we already have NPCs set to do. Like walk, talk, hide, animate, emote, etc.

[ You can check the attachment below, our Discord, or the Kickstarter Version of this post to see a quick video of a test cutscene playing out! ] 

What you'll see there is a simple proof of concept. Getting all the basic pieces working in the way we'd expect. This system can make puppeteer multiple Actors at once, change the music, play sound effects on cue, and manipulate the camera for effects like panning shots, fading in or out, and shaking all about.

We can even stop the flow from proceeding until a dialogue prompt is dismissed, show different events or text based on player's choice in a question prompt, change the map you're on mid-cutscene, affect the state of maps based on event triggers, and animate things not related to any of the visible actors (spawning in special effects and stuff as needed).

It's beautiful! 🥹 And powerful enough to start crafting the game's planned out story beats with. So we're super excited to get started on that.

Conventions Coming Up:

We've got a TrotCon booth showcase all set for July, scored a last minute Everfree Northwest vendor table for August, and we've got Ponyville Ciderfest in our sights for November, all before starting the cycle over with Magfest in January. After those, the game ought to finally be out and we'll be pulling out all the stops to get it into people's hands.

Looking forward to showing off all the new ponies and see which newcomers become crowd favorites. We're making sure to put love and care into each one (and having the results peer reviewed for critique) so they turn out almost as expressive as they are in my head.

And after all that fuss with the Cutscene System, the scariest thing on the programming horizon is probably the Battle AI. And once that, the localization system (text replacer), and some Ponipedia Sub-Menus are complete, it's all bug hunting and edge case testing on the programming side of things.

It's gonna be such a breath of fresh air finally having all the hardest stuff behind us. And all the focus will be on polishing this game like crazy! Can't wait to share it with you all. 😌

Thanks for following the development of Battle Gem Ponies throughout Spring!

May 2023 Progress Report (New Hardware & Horizons 😎💻)

New Laptop:

Psyaryu found an absolute STEAL of a deal on a nice laptop and got it for me as a surprise gift. A massive productivity upgrade over the $600 Pawn Shop PC I got in 2018 that's been hanging on for dear life.

Things like opening Unity that used to be a 20 minute commitment now take about 80 seconds instead. Videos can be edited in Davinci Resolve without stuttering, lagging, or previewing at 2 frames per second. 

Getting this new station setup was a great opportunity to clear out some digital clutter over a weekend and update some really old software to a more modern standard. Windows 11 took some getting used to, but now we're cooking with FIRE! 

Excited to put this machine through its paces when time comes to configure things in BGP's Map Editor. Each and every click was painfully slow and deciding to click the Run Game button was an absolute lock-down commitment. From what's been tested on it so far, all those stacked up micro-inconveniences are now a thing of the past.

Also, for the first time since college, work is portable! I can bring BGP with me anywhere and get some tasks done while traveling or at meetups away from the workdesk.

Conventions:

Plans are underway for convention season! Shamefully, the deadline for EFNW 2023 was missed so we won't be vending there. (Notifications for all targeted conventions have now been amplified dramatically so this mistake doesn't happen again.) Also shamefully, we've been rejected from the new Mare Fair convention starting up in our hometown (literally 20 mins from the house we have Saturday meetups at.) but there's still hope we can either get a special game room spot or attend as regular guests to scope things out for next year (cheapest con yet since we don't need to buy plane tickets or a hotel room, saving about $2,000 right there).

The current confirmed lineup is TrotCon in July (with new ponies to show off to a new crowd), Everfree Northwest in August (as attendees just networking, not vendors this time), and Ciderfest in November (with a freshly launched free mobile app store build).

So lookout for these Goobers if you're attending any of those. (Psyaryu on the Left, Yotes on the Right)

Media Kit:

Updates have been made to the Media Kit so people can mess around with Thumbnails, fanworks, & such using the new elemental icons, 3D Ponatina Renders by DJTHED, and expressive chibi artworks by SugarMorning. (Many of which are now in Emoji & Sticker form on the BGP Community Discord)

Big fan of this emote in particular:

Looking forward to having a full suite of colorful & expressive pony graphics like these.

Aseprite Setups:

Getting the pony puppets all in position for the animation process. Making sure each piece is layered properly, grouped in easy-to-find ways, and connect together the way each pony's concept sprite intended.

Along the way a few designs are being tweaked for silhouette clarity and the Ponatina forms in particular are being given a more uniform body shape template.

These sprites should be fully animated and in the game by the time you're reading the next Progress Report. (Or Ponatina here will be really sad.)

UI Particles:

I'll admit, when Psyaryu discovered how to pull this off a couple nights ago, I'm sure my neighbors could hear the 2am "WOO! LET'S GO BAY-BEEEE!!" cheering going on.

This feature has been missing from the project since starting over in 2018! Unity uses a whole new thing to render the menus and interface stuff and we haven't been able to make particle effects appear over the HUD without tons of jank until now. It's especially nice for things like animating the Health and EXP bars. The Team Select background and Pause Menus too (I personally really missed it and was considering just releasing without it if we had to).

It took forever, but now it just works and the bits can travel between layers and everything. We can finally use this last element to elevate our menus, especially the Level Up sequence, into visually gorgeous territory... But that'll have to wait until the polish phase.

Renames:

There's going to be some name changes to things once we get around to game architecture again. Small stuff with big implications. Like calling Earth class Geo. Or switching from User & Target to Self & Foe. Getting a consistent language going at this stage will help keep us from forgetting how things are meant to work, making debugging easier. And aesthetic changes like going from Magic to Fairy class gives us more options to do interesting things with the lore. 

But every small change comes with a laundry list of things to check on for bugs, so it's best to do these types of things in batches after reaching and cementing an otherwise stable build.

Custom Window:

Psyaryu's experiments are beginning to pay off. We're trying to find a way to make our own special Unity Editor Windows to configure things like Move Animations, Cutscenes, and NPEs with instead of the cluttered Inspector interface we're dealing with now.

We imagine being able to see the end results in realtime on a little preview screen without having to run the game and click through a bunch of setup and loading screens. Because animating 360+ moves would be a much smoother experience if we didn't have to setup the test scene and run a custom battle every time we wanted to see the current draft in action.

And making cutscenes quick, easy, and precise will be an enormous time-saver. We've heard gamedev stories about the nightmare of getting cutscenes to look right up to the last minute.

Yotes Text System Complete:

We've cleaned up all the assets that broke after converting all the text in the game to our own custom type so we can have more precise control over how everything looks.

In the end this'll give us the ability to make some super expressive animated text in battle, across menus, and in the overworld. We look forward to showing that off in this Summer's demo.

Item Sprites:

Pretty much every Item & Equip in the game has a little graphic now, so you can see things besides a big question mark in-game now. Some nice warm-up pixel work that was done before diving into each of the ponies.

New Matchup Chart:

After some feedback and flip-flopping we've decided to make the Matchup Chart a little different (again). This time cycling through icons one at a time instead of flashing entire pages (resulting in lots of blank spots for seconds at a time.

Diving WIP:

We finally wrapped up the functionality portion of the remaining major overworld Travel Moves. That's Dive and Whirlpool. You can now dive underwater at designated spots to explore the seafloor and enter special areas like the post-game dungeon mentioned in the Kickstarter.

Of course there's lots of polish to be done, especially in regards to the wonky text after the big overhaul, but that stuff will come after the big ticket items are finished. We're dead focused on Pony Animations and the Cutscene System right now.

Tears of the Kingdom Hype:

This is a historic event for gamers, c'mon. You already know.

Even original programmer Royal Pizza reached out for the first time since moving across the country to express excitement about the Zelda hype (inspiring him to take up gamedev again while waiting for the release).

Current master programmer Psyaryu has already told me to expect a minimum loss of 200 hours of productivity from him starting next Thursday night. Can't say I blame 'em either. I expect to spend 4 days straight exploring Hyrule again myself (and jotting down game design & idea notes like I did with Pokémon and Metroid). 

A lot of the small details, lore, mysteries, and secrets you'll find in BGP have roots in my own Zelda nostalgia. Something is truly magical about these games where there's new depth & details to notice even decades later. It's what makes them works of art to me.

Potential Delays & Stepfather's Passing:

A few months ago my stepdad was hospitalized after having a stroke. He was then comatose for a few weeks before peacefully passing on. 

At some point in the near future I'll need to take a roadtrip with my Mom to see family up north and scatter her husband's ashes at his favorite beach like he wanted. Not sure how long it'll take but we'll be taking that time off into consideration for meeting BGP development goals for Spring. We've had some time to grieve and carry on now, so I feel fine bringing it up and letting people know how this affects me.

I grew up with my biological Dad and Stepmom, but Mom was always a few hours of driving away. Since I started going to GameDev school she's been taken care of by Melvin here. We'd bond over tech career and business stuff  and he got me every nice watch I own as a holiday season gift. Been wearing them everywhere these past few years...

I really wanted to show him the end result of the past several years of work. At first it took some convincing, but he came around to believing in me and this entrepreneurial venture of mine after seeing the demand for it on Kickstarter and how far back the Patreon support goes. He was proud of me. It's another reason fulfilling all the development promises means so much to me and how I can't thank you backers often enough for the money, belief in the vision, kind words, and sheer patience.

Plans were made to drive across the state and spend Mother's Day weekend together with Mom (yes, even if that means I gotta hold off on Zelda) but something came up on her end and things are being postponed until she's good and ready. And now with the new laptop, even if I end up out of town for a week or so, I can still get some things done development-wise in the downtime.

The pressure is real to get this whole thing finished. Personal problems or not, the deadline is set-in-stone and missing it means devastating financial consequences. It needs to be out by February. Or else...

On top of all my stuff, Psyaryu's been dealing with roommate switcheroos in his household (helping multiple people move back-to-back has been a time sink these past couple weeks). And he's gotta put in some overtime on the Hearthstone team to make up for the vacation time he's spending on conventions later this year, plus the unexpected week-long PAX East trip he took earlier to help another friend of ours run a booth because he's just kind and helpful like that (Psy is truly the MVP of any friend group he's in).

So altogether the upcoming funeral roadtrip, swapping hardware, helping folks move, and Zelda are all looking like setback fuel right now, but we won't let that stop us. BGP will be out on time. Free version by Halloween, and full release will be under final review just after New Year's.

Once the giant artwork and configuration tasks are all done, it's smooth sailing and only cutting polish stuff that can wait til the DX edition. (And possibly saving Portrait Mode for a Free Mobile Update down the road.)

Fan Art:

On the budding fandom side of things, a number of fan projects are underway and it's really heart-warming for the team to see people this excited for what we're building here.

There's two Friday Night Funkin' mods coming along nicely, a BGP card game is out there in playable form, and new artworks and commissions are appearing almost weekly. And we just love love LOVE to see it!

If you have any doodles you're holding onto, a Battle Gem Pony Character idea, box art concepts, an AI prompt that turned out surprisingly well, or even just commissioning an artist you're close to, we love seeing new BGP stuff pop up all over social media when we check on Mondays. Let's Plays, fan games, remixes, artwork, everything. It's all awesome and every bit helps spread the word and tilts BGP a little bit closer toward success.

Thank you for inspiring us, and thank you for following the development of Battle Gem Ponies.

Pony Sprite Rigs! (The Menagerie Breakdown)

The pony sprites are ready to be animated! And most of them are Ultra forms so this'll probably be the first time most people have laid eyes on 'em since the group lineup shot posted in the Kickstarter description.

Take a gander at all the pony sprites that have all their separate little pieces posed out.  Keen-eyes might even detect reused and recolored pony parts shared between a bunch of these guys. This is what we're working with in terms of animating each member of the roster. So think of this as like a sort of preview of an artbook section. (Even though this game probably isn't getting one.)

Ultra Rainbryte

Thinking about making this one spin around like Sonic for physical attacks and have some flashing crackling wing flaps like a Zapdos.

Ultra Simber

A flaming pegasus was the prompt, and that's what was delivered. A color change to the wings and hooves were added to make it pop more.

Ultra Thestra

A very long Longma, that is,  a chinese horse/dragon mix type creature. Didn't go H.A.M. on the wiggling body parts for time reasons, but expressive key poses should get the point across.

Posmask & Anzuari

Tricky part is going to be making the ghostly transparency effect look cool in action. And good ol' Anzu's wings were tricky things to draw. Kinda picture them being used like hands in certain contexts, but nothin' you'd see in-game.

Ultra Anzuari

This one's very regal and simple, keeping stoic stances. Biggest feature being the colorful wings.

Ultra Verrow & Ultra Shyshock

A big ol' mole/bear and even bigger ol' butterfly/wasp. Ultra Verrow in particular was a fun one to see come together. (It's from when I finally felt I was getting the hang of this.)

Ultra Mauss & Ultra Poni-Bot

Lots of flashing colors on these. Mauss and has a special eye glint animation that I can see being meme fuel someday. And Poni-Bot comes with a giant missile pack as well as exploding tail orb and various symbols that can appear on its face-screen.

Joyance

Probably the most expressive of the bunch with her baby doll eyes, flowing ribbons, and bouncy poses. This one sparks joy.

Frufang

A trouble-making bat with insulting gestures like eyelid pulling and a general nasty demeanor.  The Ultra form got an extra pair of wings to help make the enhanced form feel more special, hardcore, edgy, whatever she's going for. (Don't pretend to get it. You never will.)

Primcess

The calm and majestic primcess. Ribbons blowing in the wind as if she's constantly being fanned.

Ultra Primcess

A big braid swings around as this pony moves about. With all her long and trailing bits, its like wearing a ballgown all the time. She's also got a spinning little heart gem floating between her antlers.

Ultra Mothlass

A GIANT BEAUTIFUL MOTH!! Never fully trust someone who doesn't love this fluffy beast.

Ultra Petrifus

This thing has a heck-of-a-lotta writhing cloth bits to deal with. If Vinerva wasn't already done, this would claim the title of biggest pain-in-the-butt to draw with its sheer number of moving parts alone.

Ultra Xenoir

The most xeno-looking Xenoir where the name starts to make more sense. Other than the super stabby tail, you can expect typical Dark Pony posterchild behavior.

Ultra Orscina

The colors on this pony have changed so often we've lost track. But Baby Blue seems to work best. And there's pearls in her mane to hide the transition point that would probably never make sense in pixel form. Mesmerizing, flowing, bioluminescent mermaid-like hair was the mission here. Was that accomplished?

Jacklus

A tough and sturdy fighter. Hopefully some serious power can be conveyed in the animations to show the sheer might of its strikes.

Mighthorn

Glowing horn and a wiggly string tail tipped by a tuft of hair.

Ultra Mighthorn

The mighty crystal horn gets a chance to shine here as the centerpiece of this new HORSE ARMOR. (Also, the tail is kinda like a medieval flag which I thought was a cute touch.)

Malduin

A very cool looking barely pony-like being that wins over the hearts of even the staunchest of pony-dislikers. 'Cause c'mon. This design is just Fire.

Ultra Malduin

A big scary dragon design that rocks hard especially in its medieval looking Chroma form. It's fiery Super Saiyan 3 lion's mane is a pretty nice touch imo. And hopefully the color difference with the tail gives it enough texture to come across as not-literal-fire, but just fire-like hair.

Galloop

Goopy pony with jello-y movements that can hopefully be enhanced with a special shader effect in-game just for this species.

Ultra Galloop

Muky muck pony that oozes and shimmys around everyplace. Some extra tongue poses were added after other pony sprites were made to give this one some more interesting key poses. Tricky part is gonna be getting it's goopy stringy mouth to look right going up and down.

Chryssect

Don't be fooled! This here is no alicorn! That horn is for violent stabbing, not magic. This is just a kitchen knife bug.

Ultra Chryssect

A huge mommy long-legs spider with very dangerous mantis-like front raptorial legs. You basically would never want to get into a grappling match with one of these things.

Shorral

A snooty turtle with a waterbed-like inflatable body that can retreat into shell form with just a horn sticking out. And its bigger form slowly swings its head around putting everything it has into those attacks.

Gaiza

This one's Ultra form went through the most dramatic changes, and in fact was the most recent one finalized. Lots of spinning, blinking hair highlights, and general punkish attitude. Interestingly, the base form has a light that travels back and forth across its visor when idling, which will probably give this species the longest idle animation of them all in order to get that to look natural.

Ditzapp

The cute bubbly cherub pegasus that can hardly see straight. This one has the nifty art gimmick of having eyes that sometimes swap colors with each other when she blinks.

Ultra Ditzapp

Another electric/light based pony with colorful bits that blink on and off. (Starting to think this is an animation crutch of mine 😅). The Sunglass visor thing is pretty sweet though.

Drexaroc

This species might be a lowkey fave of mine. This is just freakin cool. Blue flaming wings flare up when it's attacking.

Ultra Drexaroc

This creature is probably the single most awesome thing I have ever drawn and likely will ever draw. This is it. I've peaked.

Makojaw

Trying to really sell the weight and sharpness of this guy. Players should instinctively notice this thing radiates power and you don't want to be anywhere near whatever it takes a turn to charge up for.

Vamparas

Tried to go for something cute on the surface but creepy if you get too close. Like a sinister alien cat that was infected with a hostile symbiote.

Ultra Vamparas

A masked creature capable of absolute carnage. Kinda has an exposed nucleus thing going on representing it's leechy glass canon gameplay functionality. Sharp angles, pointy bits, and sudden movements is what this thing's all about. And one of the first wild Alpha ponies you'll encounter in the wild too.

Crabcer

The pinchiest sucka in the entire game. Crabby claws that can shoot off and a big tail one that has a flashing gem-like thingy inside where it's Energy Attacks come from. And you'll only catch Crabcer with open eyes if you really catch one off guard or get it too worked up.

And as for the weird mandible ear things... Art is a weird stream of consciousness. Can't quite tell you what possessed me to draw them that way.

Colossic

Thankfully a big pile of rocks doesn't need to move much. In fact, it looks cooler that way. Might add sandy effects when you impact it though, just for fun.

Puffus

This one's supposed to be made of little cloud chunks. It'll puff it's cheeks up and blow at you to attack like some sorta Yoshi enemy.

Ultra Puffus

A big round puffball that I should definitely make a pillow out of someday. It'll shrink and grow as it breathes air in and out. And has a little nyan type face to make it super appealing. (Noticed how most Ultras looked scary or cool and wanted to balance out the roster more.)

Skullna

The little zombie that could. This pony's got boney bits galore that need to jostle to really sell the effect. And even her tail's hairtie bone spins around like a little copter when she's firing off an energy attack. How precious is that?

Ultra Skullna

This shaman horse might look intimidating, but that's mostly just the skull mask. Underneath that thing is just a grown up looking version of the sweet little Skullna you saw before... And beneath its neckline is pure unrelenting body horror! A gaping hole that lets out a vicious lacerating tongue like a whiplash!

Lushroom

Hats are cool. You'd wear a mushroom sombreo if one materialized next to you right now. Don't lie. Or maybe you'd be compelled to after being hypnotized by this pony's cyclops eye and rattle tail!

Ultra Lushroom

There's kindof a Yoshi-like thing going on here. With the color scheme, Piranha Plant tail, tounge that comes out of said mouthy tail, and its Koopa mouth shapes and everything. (I think Yoshi's come up twice now because Yoshi's Story was the first game I ever played and I'm listening to it's soundtrack as I type all this out in one go.)

Nimbula

Wanted to do something wacky and gimmicky with this pony here, like having an alt form for every weather type, but this game's development has gone on long enough. Another one for the "Save it for the Sequel" pile. So for now, the Chroma color swaps are purely aesthetic.

Manticorn

Another contender for least pony-like pony is Manticorn here. With vicious tail and claw attacks.

Ultra Manticorn

This one's got eye mist inspired by a certain Sombra and a meaner looking lion mug with a roar to match.

~ Ponatina's Elemental Forms!! ~

This next set is rapidfire since they all share the base poses with regular Ponatina, but each form has an accessory or few to spice things up.

Floratina

This is the first one of the 'Tina forms made.  Little pixie-like wings on her back (that can only flitter short distances) and a horn that can't quite do magic but can still poke an eye out.

Burnatina, Aquatina, Electina

Rounding out the starter set, these forms play it pretty safe in terms of moving parts. Webbed hooves, fluffy fire-spewing tails, and crackling hair are the standout features on here.

Dractina, Pixitina, & Havoctina

The dev team has been quite partial to the catlike pose of Dractina and almost every little girl we asked at conventions likes Pixitina (or Joyance) the most out of the whole roster. But I think edgy folks will gravitate towards Havoctina's Punk Rock motif.

Shadotina & Metatina

Shadotina is smooth and confident like a spy who's succeeded countless confrontations before and Metatina is just crazy sharp and dangerous to touch. Considering adding more spinning, slashing, and maybe even a little tornado action in new frames when time comes to animate her. Just to sell the blades all over her body more.

Venotina, Sectina, & Phantina

Some pretty self-explanatory stuff here. Including the two floating forms that'll hover in mid-air the whole time.

Bucktina & Teletina

The fluffy tail of Bucktina cannot be contended with. This is probably the pony I want to personally pet the most.

Had to make extra special overworld frames for Teletina to show how she glows when using psychic powers in the overworld. Still haven't settled on which color scheme to go with... (Lemme know which you like most in the comments. If you read this far your opinion on the matter probably means more since you're into this kinda thing.)

Frostina, Granitina, Aerotina

These sturdy-hooved 'Tinas each have very intricate hairstyles and even a different leg base from regular Ponatina.

Luxotina

This here is the fancy one. Was extra proud of the idea of a lightsaber tail when that popped up.  And tufts of hair that flicker & blink like Light Bulbs.

Mimicoh

And as for the strangest of all...

The trickiest pony by far given that it has special weirdo powers. See, this one can rearrange bits of itself to mimic inanimate objects. In terms of pixel art animation, this is visualized by having the sprite get blur-blocky and then sharpen into a final shape sorta like the transitions you see when shifting between Box Pokémon in the Gen 3 games.

Demistar

A teary streak under the eye was added recently to sell the intensity of this pony's pain. You'll uncover exactly what this demigod pony's deal is after you beat the main story and explore a bit.

Do take time to appreciate the sizzly wing effects going on here for now though. Took forever to make the wings look alright.

Ultra Demistar

This is like a Super Saiyan 2 Future Twilight type monster with a crackling hologram-like wingspan, extendable lightblade horn, and an Avatar state. Basically everything my teenage mind would've conjured up as I draw in a sketchbook in the back of the class during movie day.

Lumani

She might be everyone's favorite Alicorn given the obvious inspiration.  Thought it was important to make important bits of her silhouette bright Neon purple. As if you saw her in moonlight, she'd be glowing in a majestic way. (Kinda like the mooooon~)

Solira

A pony meant to resemble the sunset & sunrise. Visible on the title screen as is, this pony was initially drawn to replace the Celestia placeholder image used in early builds of the game.

The idea for the gradient hair came to me pretty quick but getting each frame to look right and blend together took a while.

Alicorn (Filly Forms)

Through some special and specific actions you'll eventually run into these in the story mode. They're very cute and very similar to each other. Just chibi lil' Alicorns (that look a little cornered). Basically mini versions of their towering counterparts.

The Elysicorn

The Kickstarter Stretch Goal was met, so we get to squeeze in one more Alicorn onto the roster! This is the art team (really just Yotes)'s best attempt at an EPIC AS HECK lookin God Pony.  Hopefully it's movements, actions, and special effects added in post-production can nail that.  (Observant folks might even notice a little easter egg in it's Energy Attack animation involving the halo.)

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So that's the bridled bunch. Time to get them moving, frame-by-frame at long last! No longer will these ponies just be a figment of the dev team's imaginations. Hope you look forward to encountering them in the wilds of the Pinto Region by this time next year.

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.

~~~~~~

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

March 2023 Progress Report (Ponies Under Construction 👷)

So far, 2023 has been all about sprucing things up, planning for the future, and setting us up to knock out enormous month-long tasks back-to-back. Immediately following our Magfest showcase, we implemented some changes to fix some fun-killing flaws and unclear interfaces.

Touch Screen Joystick movement and size have been adjusted based on player feedback in January, a general settings page has been implemented to let folks customize what's skippable or what types of numbers to display, and we've even touched up some menus missing vital information like the Move Swap Screen's new "Best At" indicator letting you know which types of HIT moves your pony specializes in (Contact or Energy attacks).

There's some simple aesthetic improvements too, especially with the Go Ultra button in battle. You'll see this and other little additions too numerous to name here when the next milestone demo drops sometime in April.

But what's probably the most interesting thing going on this month is the drawing of all 95 ponies in the game! By drawing each of a pony's individual pieces in different poses, animating them becomes as simple as snapping Legos together and taking a picture. So getting this step outta the way for each pony is gonna put us in a good spot for releasing them alongside upcoming demos to keep the hype flowing throughout 2023.

So, all-in-all, what've we been up to lately?

• Patching the Post-Magfest Build (Version 0.5.6 now available as of mid-February!) 🎮
• Polishing various game interfaces 📱
• Mid-battle character chatter 💬
• A functioning Settings Menu ⚙️
• Resubmitting BGP for the Black Game Developers Fund (who knows, might win it this time) 💰
• Testing the effectiveness of YouTube Ad Campaigns 📈
• Planning conventions to attend in 2023 (TrotCon, Mare Fair, and Everfree up for Consideration) 🎈
• Upgrading remote setups with High Speed Fiber Internet 🖥️
• Figuring out how AI tools can aid in development (mostly localization) 🤖
• Creating a new Animated Text system to let us polish that stuff exactly how we want ⌨️
• Editing the YouTube videos that should've been released months ago 😅
• Drawing Sprite Pieces for every pony in the game so we can hopefully have them ALL implemented (as in fully animated) in battle by the end of the month! 🐎

If we manage to keep knocking out 3 ponies a day out of the 33 remaining, we're all set to get them all done and in the game before April. There's a big 4-Day crunch session planned 2 weeks from now to go in and animate all the ponies we made pieces for.

We're looking forward to having these 2 HUGE To-Dos off our list by month's end, and step into April with a new demo and the next big prototype finishing tasks in our sights. All for the sake of inching towards the most exciting task of all... Spending all of May actually building all the maps of the world!

- Thanks for following the development of Battle Gem Ponies!

Backer Rewards (Wave 1): Complete! [New Merch Shop on RedBubble]

Everyone should've gotten some special stuff in the mail recently, or can at least expect it to show up before March 1st.
(If not, double check your address listed on Kickstarter and let ol' Tony Yotes know if there's been a mixup.)

It's been so nice to see the posts of people opening up their packages and we can't wait for the next wave with all the international ones and the PILE of T-Shirts to come!

With this stage complete we're also free to let the ol' Shopify site hibernate for a while. It's currently been burning fuel in the company wallet for a while, we'd basically need to sell at least 2 shirts a month to keep it sustained, but that's not been happening for at least a year now. So we're changing things up to a more sustainable model where folks who really want it can still get it, without any extra cost to the YotesMark studio!

Our New RedBubble Shop is where you can get BGP merch from now on!
(Which is nice because they handle all the orders, inventory, and shipping stuff so we don't have to pay up and reach out to different websites every time an order is placed. 😁)

Just pop over there and see all the crazy stuff they've got with our ponies' faces on 'em. It's a greater variety of stuff than we could ever manage by ourselves! 

And you can expect a lot more where that came from once the other T-Shirt designs are done and the game is finally out there.

In the meantime, thanks for making all this possible by following the development of Battle Gem Ponies!

Available Now: The New Battle Gem Ponies MAGFest Demo!

The new February #BattleGemPonies demo is up!

Jam-Packed with improvements based on feedback from #Magfest2023!
You'll see improvements like:

Play It Here!

yotesmark.itch.io/battle-gem-ponies

(And let us know whatcha think about the Quality of Life changes!)

Wave 1 Backer Rewards Are Now Being Shipped!

The Wave 1 Kickstarter merch is flowing out towards everybody in the United States this week! Many of you should have received a package by now, but give it an extra week or check your email if you haven't spotted yours yet.

(Note: Any orders with a T-Shirt of Size 2XL or above should expect their package by the end of February due to Spreadshirt restock delays.)

Rewards sent out this month include Stickers, Lanyards, Buttons, and the FIGHT! T-Shirts for everyone in the U.S. that ordered them! Any other T-Shirt designs, along with all International orders, will be sent out all at once in Wave 2 after the mobile version of BGP launches in 2024.

We know it's been a long time coming and we don't want you folks waiting to get your hands on what's yours any longer! Plus we wanted to send out a little something extra to the folks who've been on our Patreon since the beginning. 

Pics like this are popping up on our community pages and really invigorating the dev team!

Holding a physical piece of BGP just makes the project feel that much more real and special. And we want you guys feeling that same pride and excitement we feel every day working on this thing and watching it come together.

(Also, you might even be able to consider these original rare collectibles since so much is changing in development. Some of the sprites or icons you see printed on those lanyards and buttons might never be officially printed again!)

We're looking forward to seeing more pics of your Pony Swag hauls all over social media! Be sure to tag @YotesMark and #BattleGemPonies to grab our attention.

All of you can keep up with our progress on development in the Daily Neigh channel on our Discord. Just give us a poke if you haven't received your Backer role already so you can check it out.

Thanks for making all of this possible with your contributions, and thanks again for (patiently) following the development of Battle Gem Ponies!

Battle Gem Ponies Made Waves at Magfest 2023! 🌊

You might've caught this over on our Twitter already, but...

Our showcase at Magfest was a huge success! It proved to us that BGP has the appeal necessary to capture viral opportunity. Once you see it, you can't help but take a closer look (and like what you see!)...

We've now had literally hundreds of strangers come up and play the latest Battle Gem Ponies demo, follow us on social media, and give us the precious feedback we need to take things to the next level. Our next in-person appearance is likely to be TrotCon in July (fittingly celebrating a video game theme this year) and if we're lucky, we'll get in touch with someone willing to install BGP on devices in the Arcade at BABSCon this year too.

Notes have been taken on how to improve our booth for future expos and all of this makes great practice for when we try to go stand alongside the big names in gaming at PAX one day.

Full BGP Development Schedule for 2023 (and Beyond!)

To kick the year off and keep everyone in the loop, the YotesMark team figured now's a great time to share our detailed development plans (from the ClickUp app) with all the Battle Gem Ponies supporters.

Below you'll find a series of screenshots showing the tasks we have yet to do for each milestone. As we'll as self-imposed Due Dates for each of those milestones. Our goal is to have the game in Beta by December, which means it's all pretty much done but undergoing final testing and marketing prep for launch. And well before that, the free demo version will be uploaded to app stores to start gaining some traction.

Development Milestones:

Note: The little number in a box next to a task (in the images below) shows there's that many smaller subtasks inside of it that need to be done as well.

Public Pinto Demo (66 Tasks Remaining) - Improvements coming to the build that's out right now.

Accumuland Demo (43 Tasks Remaining) - Getting the bulk of the game laid out in rough draft form.

Backer Beginning Demo (36 Tasks Remaining) - Introducing you all to the BGP Story Mode. If only just the earliest parts.

Public Maven Demo (37 Tasks Remaining) - Polishing up the game to create flashier marketing materials.

Vertical Slice Demo (21 Tasks Remaining) - Preparing a huge demo for the year's most important marketing effort. We need tens of thousands of people to try out BGP. This is the demo meant to draw those people in.

Alpha Build (40 Tasks Remaining) - Setting up the game to be playable start to finish, even if graphics are placeholders and cutscenes are text only. Also we want to make sure all the music gets done in this phase.

Free Version Launch (26 Tasks Remaining) - A polished playable portion of the game wrapped in a neat package and uploaded to the app store. (Almost like practice for the real thing coming a few months later.)

Beta Build (21 Tasks Remaining) - Ironing out the very last bugs and making things look and feel gorgeous. Also building up hype for release.

Full Game Launch (17 Tasks Remaining) - Going Gold and FINALLY getting the game out there after 9 long, LONG years!

DX Edition (57 Tasks Remaining) - Adding in more ambitious features for the Steam release and porting to consoles.

Special Backer Edition (17 Tasks Remaining) - As promised, a little something special for Kickstarter supporters. Fitting as many fun surprises we can into an exclusive version of the game only our supporters can get hands on.

Some tasks may be shifted around and the Time Estimates lean towards the pessimistic side, but it's all there. We finish every single one of those and this game is DONE! Just a matter of getting to it every single day...

We hope you're that much more excited to see all this come together and now better understand why it's taking so long. (This year is certainly going to be the busiest of our lives.)

- Thanks for following the development of Battle Gem Ponies!

End of 2022 Progress Report (Approaching the Final Year!)

Gonna keep this one short and snappy since an upcoming devlog in January will be showing off most of the visuals and details on recent accomplishments.

The Big Picture: What's the status on the BGP Project overall?

• We have a stable public demo available for everyone to play for free.
• That demo includes major features like an Overworld, VS Mode, Turn-Based Combat System, Shops, Surfing, Pickups, Music, Sound Effects, 14 Playable Ponies, Ultra Forms, a Capture System, Polished Menus, Fast Travel, Healing Items, Team Customization, and Hundreds of Attack Animations.
• We've currently developed Ridable Ponies, Overworld Obstacle Interactions (Cut Trees, Push Rocks, etc.), Configuration Tools, and settled on New Class Icons and Names to update the game with in the coming weeks.
• There's changes to the game loop coming including new rules for catching and keeping ponies on your roster, when and how you can Go Ultra, new ways to grow Base Stats, fully functional passive abilities, 18 Ponatina forms to choose from, and all sorts of helpful new menus too!
• We've also planned the layout of the entire Pinto Region, outlined and detailed the story and characters, created spreadsheets and data management systems for all variables, made template & example sprites for all NPCs (except backer OCs), came up with countless scenarios to keep the Adventure Mode interesting moment-to-moment, and prepared nearly all the game's ponies for animation. 

In case you're dying to see, here's the new class icons going forward. As well as the newly renamed "Magic" class now known as "Fairy".

Details on why & how all this happened will be in the next DevLog.

So, in short:

• The game's lookin' good and publicly available.
• We've thought the whole project through.
• Nearly all the features are done.
• And we'll be using our custom tools to craft the whole Adventure Mode starting Spring 2023.
• Keeping us on track for a Worst-Case Scenario Release in February 2024.

A new backer demo will be up by the end of January / start of February featuring new ponies to collect and battle with, and new places to explore on the demo island where you can test out new puzzle elements and slightly more cinematic boss battles.

We're still planning to only release public demos at the end of major milestones, and this current milestone basically just absorbed half of the upcoming Accumuland one so we'll be in here tinkering for a while longer. 

All for the sake of getting to the point where this isn't just a "prototype of the game loop" anymore and we have a solid foundation to build the rest of the full game with. And then that'll be several months of laying things out, conducting playtests with you guys, and polishing things up to a ridiculous degree to bring the full vision to life. 

We wanna thank you for your patience thus far, and hope you can forgive the extra year long delay it'll take for our small team to do this right.

- Thanks for following the development of Battle Gem Ponies into 2023!

It's our Patreon Anniversary! (From 2017 to 2022...)

Exactly 5 years ago it looked like this in here:

It's truly amazing how far we've come and how long we've kept going despite the hurdles. 📈

Big THANK YOU to EVERY backer keeping this indie gamedev dream afloat! 🛳️🥳

The YotesMark team is really looking forward to the huge paradigm shift that comes with finally releasing BGP.

The Making of 3D Ponatina: DJTHED Timelapse & Commentary

Get a look at the full process of modelling, rigging, lighting, posing and rendering this fancy RTX Ponatina on the YouTube channel of the artist, DJTHED!

The Finished, Fully Animated 3D Ponatina Model by DJTHED!!

The Ponatina model by DJTHED is coming along great! With the core setup complete we're free to animate her however we please.  And what could be a better start than a smooth idle, smiling at the camera, and showing off a mighty KICK all-in-one!

So we got crackin' on just that.

First we did a nice turnaround to get a good look at full-on 4K Ponatina from all sides in a simple and clean room. (With dramatic lighting for flavor.)

Then it was time to setup the action shot.

Needed to get the lighting just right so every frame looked nice and all the key frames were lit perfectly, conveying all the motion we want your eyes to catch within the couple seconds it's going on. DJ used a special lighting room in blender seen with his other creations on his channel.

Messed with all sorts of lighting scenarios to get the contrast just right. Also taking into account we'd need a "green-screened" version so we can put this anywhere in future videos, DJ had Ponatina and the background rendered on separate layers.

First result ended up like this.

The shadows were a bit too harsh and the background felt to "heavy" so we tried adding some color and brightening things up a bit. By adding lavender of course!

To no avail. Just didn't feel right. Too soft. Too lavender. Too washed out. Other colorful variants were a no go as well. So it was back to white.

Which worked a lot better anyway. And certainly less hassle than our original concept of rendering a whole blurred out nighttime stadium in the background. Less is more ya know? (Also the budget was reaching it's limit.)

And once the look was settled we got to see her breathe!

So next was a matter of posing out the kick animation. The one that looks like this in-game.

You can see the kick slowly coming together...

And Psyaryu insisted we have her smirk, so as a little flair:

When all was said and done, DJ proudly presented this...

And our mission was complete.

Keep an eye out for a video appearing on DJTHED's Channel in the coming weeks where he breaks down the process of making the magic happen over timelapse footage. And a video version of this blog series will be up on the YotesMark Channel soon so you can see all this in it's True Uncompressed HD Glory! (So sub to us if you haven't already, pretty please?)

It's been amazing to see it all come to life from vague idea to Dreamworks quality movement.

This whole experience has amped up team morale, given us some amazing graphics to advertise the game with, and got us thinking about eventually translating the entire world of BGP to 3D someday.

Hopes are that anyone reading all these blog posts about Ponatina are excited to play the game she's from as well when it finally debuts sometime within the next 14 months on mobile platforms everywhere.

You can keep up with the game's development on social media and be the first to play new demos every few months by joining our Patreon Squad!

Our Discord's popping off as well, so you can chat with the BGP Community there.

Til' next time folks. New demo drops January 5th in time for our Magfest showcase!

Magfest 2023 Sizzle Reel

Here's a 30 second mini trailer of the gameplay showing off the Ultra Demo for our submission to Magfest's Indie Videogame Showcase.

Keep an eye out for us on the MIVS 2023 show floor at Magfest, Jan 5th-8th. We'll be there with a brand new demo showing off what we've been cooking up in Q4 2022!

Continued Work on the 3D Ponatina Model by DJTHED

The Ponatina model by DJTHED is coming along great! With the core setup complete we're free to pose and animate her however we like. Just keeping aware that each render is costly and takes time to "print" out so we can't do it forever without an infinite budget.

This 4K Battle Gem Pony was made based on DJ's existing pony template he's already spent years perfecting, so basically the unique mane was the newest/hardest part. But even this streamlined commission experience has foreshadowed just how tough it'd be to get all the BGP characters done up this way. So it's a good thing we're not planning on jumping to 3D til we're a comfortable couple sequels deep into things and could stretch a budget for it.

To get started we came up with some reference images for pose ideas then DJ got to work with bringing our Digital Ponatina Puppet to life!

Gathered all kinds of faces for emotes, a variety of standing poses we could use in multiple contexts, and some reference sprites for an attack animation. All this together should show off a decently clear vision of what 3D Battle Gem Ponies could look like.

So one of the first up was the crouching action pose.

Version 1 came out at sortof a weird angle. So after tilting her head up a bit we got a nicer silhouette.

After that it got a glow up with all the post processing effects on top and....

She was lookin' FIERCE! Ready for action! You could see this being her character select pose in a fighting game! (Which we found very amusing.)

Had to alter the face suggestions a bit based on DJ's recommendations and feedback. The Ponatina model has limits, so we can't go too cartoony with exaggerations, but can still stretch things pretty far.There was also a fun surprised face pose, the classic WHOA like in the game when a x4 or higher attack is headed your way.This one also came with the added benefit of being worthy of a meme template. Finally! A Battle Gem Ponies reaction template!Just imagine the possibilities!We also wanted to take a look at the Chroma Ponatina in super 4K HD, so we posed them up like sisters, displaying some of that feisty personality. We also played around with lighting and background colors to explore what made her look best.We settled on a dark purplish room and some warm lights. Not to harsh on shadows or highlights. And with a subtle glow on her chest gem to make it stand out.And it came out great! A personal favorite among the team. (We'll probably use that left one a lot.) And to continue riding the wave of expressive faces, we came up with ideas for Discord emotes. We aimed for a good variety of faces for as many different moods as we could.

These might even end up in devlog videos as a reaction avatar in the corner. We'll find lots of use for 'em one way or another.

We'll be posting these in the Discord by the end of 2022, so keep an eye out!

Here's a few close-up examples so you can take a better look.

It really is great stuff and we couldn't be any more pleased with how this turned out. Looking forward to sharing the big finale of the attack and idle animations soon as the render farm's done with 'em. 

With our commission money DJTHED was able to upgrade his computer and cut down processing time by a decent amount, so now ALL his future comms will proceed more smoothly and even at a lower cost. It really is special being the first ever commission customers for someone we look up to (and even play smash bros with). There's something magical about gamedev comradery...

But anyways, see you at the end of the month with the big fancy KICK!

Beginning Work on a Ponatina 3D Model Commission by DJTHED!

If the name DJTHED doesn't ring any bells, his work kinda speaks for itself, and if you're an MLP fan in the 2020s you've definitely at least seen parts of his portfolio before.

He specializes in making this kind of thing:

Super high quality pony models for making sleek TV/Movie/Game animations. In fact he was the Animation Director for the official My Little Pony Game released this past year.

We watch this guy's shorts, making of, and 3D critique stuff all the time at in-person gamedev meetings over lunch, always daydreaming about the kinds of games we could make if we had the budget to make BGP a 4K AAA console game experience. Specifically noting how we'd need someone with DJTHED's expertise to get it done right and avoid all the pitfalls certain other huge monster taming franchises go through that result in unsatisfactory experiences as far as immersive graphics go.

When DJ's commissions opened up for the first time ever it was like a lightning in a bottle moment we had to be the first to jump on. So Psyaryu took his own money and set aside a budget for getting a Battle Gem Pony rendered in 3D for the first time ever!

But which pony to pick? It took some debate. We've got like 85 designs to choose from after all. There's also Clover from our other game series to consider. But after learning how hard it'd be to get Simber looking good in DJ's current style of expertise, we went with our other mascot/starter pony: the super special eevee-like Ponatina!

You remember Ponatina, right? About yea big, cinnamon color scheme, blue accents, and a white & gray streak through her hair. Dora the Explorer type haircut kinda, stuck to a chibi body. Love that horse!

She's existed in pixel form and a commissioned SugarMorning GIF til now. Never drawn as concept art or a turnaround reference guide. So translating to 3D requires a lot of communication about imagination and interpretation.

So with those references in hand and a lengthy discussion out of the way, DJTHED got to work and came back with amazing stuff the very next day.

Starting with the first draft... This rather high horse here, A.K.A. "Tallatina"!She started of a little LONG being based on the standard MLP base model with a unique haircut on top. So to look more like her chibi in-game self, she got shrank to about filly size. We also scrapped an idea about her hair being symmetrical like the pixel sprite version. Giving her hair a unique flow on the left side. Kinda sassy/punkish which fits her Buttercup-like personality. (Psy personally despised the default cheery T-Pose smile she has here, but animating the face comes much later in the pipeline.)Looking a lot more like the Ponatina we know and love! But this is a more simplified model like you'd see in a game. What we want next is the HD super detailed stuff you'd see in a Pixar movie.

But even before that, gotta rig her up! That's getting all the bones and movable pieces right.The rig was setup in Blender (the world-famous 3D modelling & animation tool) and Ponatina's ready to be puppeteer'd!

Next step (heh) was to get the hooves looking good. Rendering takes a super long time and gets really expensive, so we gotta do it sparingly.They've kinda got a G5 MLP thing going on. Texture so rich you can feel it with your eyes. (So gosh darn plush you just wanna pet her!)You may even notice we got her Chroma colors in there. DJ used a tool to perfectly match the sprite palettes. This is the moment things started to really click. Can you already picture her moving around and getting into shenanigans?

But she's lookin' pretty bare without some iconic fine jewelry. What kind of Battle GEM Pony would she be without a Gem on her? So DJ embedded one into her chest like so.Perfectly matching the one in the game and key art from the T-Shirt (seen below).All the ponies have this magic gem jutting out of em that really completes the look.And with some fancy texturing, DJ gave it a battle-worn look that adds new dimension to the whole thing. And the detail doesn't stop there!Every bit of Ponatina got fuzzified! Particle effects, light bounces, and all sorts of industrial light and magic went into bringing this pony to life. From scrapbook doodles to Gimp sprites, to 2D tweets, to the almost tangible micro horse you see before you. Some talent and tech can really bring an idea to new heights. This whole process really has been something to behold. And soon as we got the lighting just right... Boom.Never could I have closed my eyes and pictured "Ponatina, but as a Movie Poster focal character" looking this good. (I mean, for comparison, it took Pikachu like 2 decades to get this kind of RTX treatment, right?)

Now look at her:Who's ready for Ponatina: the Movie!

Amazing stuff. DJTHED's a wizard through-and-through. And this helps a ton with envisioning the future of BGP, when the games are finally brought into the 3rd Dimension. And with access to all the Blender files, we can use this Ponatina model again for future promotional materials.  So all-n-all, a nice birthday season gift from Psyaryu. (Development of this thing overlapped both our birthdays in October and actually started a month earlier than that, but still.)

We plan to show off more progress on the model as November goes on, perhaps even have some short animations to show off by the end.

Stay tuned for more updates! Cuz for now, it's back to work!

The BGP Development Journey So Far... (As of 2022)

A Retrospective on Battle Gem Ponies Development is up on our YouTube channel now. This marks 2 years since Psyaryu joined the project as lead dev and we've been chipping away at the task list every day since...

It's been a VERY long stay in development hell, but we're well on our way out. Hopefully this project will be all-wrapped up by 2024 and we'll be starting fresh on what's next with all this experience under our belt!

BGP Coming to MAGFest 2023!!

We're In!! 🤩🌟
Battle Gem Ponies will be at MAGFEST in January! 🎧🎮👾

Looking forward to constructing our biggest, best booth yet and putting BGP in front of more eyes than ever before. Hopefully we'll see a few of YOU guys there as well with our brand new demo on display!

First Ever Podcast with the BGP Devs!

We were interviewed on a podcast about game development! 🎧🎙📻

Talking about making a Pony RPG in Unity over many many years. 🎮

Hosted by ILoveKimPossibleALot! 💛

Preparations Have Started for WAVE 1 of the Backer Rewards!

Check your inbox, everypony!

Backer Rewards & Add-Ons are being ordered and prepped for shipping!

If you already filled out your surveys selecting which items you want and which sizes you wear, you're all set! For those that haven't yet, a message has been sent to your inbox with a link to the survey.

If your mailing address is within the United States and your survey is filled out by Halloween, your stuff will be included in the Wave 1 shipment happening in November.

Right now only Prize Packs (Stickers/Lanyards/Buttons) and FIGHT Tees are shipping out Fall 2022 across the U.S. to celebrate a year since the Kickstarter concluded! All the other stuff (as well as International Orders) will come shortly after the game releases (early 2024).  

Thanks again for supporting the YotesMark team. We're really looking forward to making this game worth the wait!

Battle Gem Ponies 1 Year Later...

Happy (Late) Anniversary to the BGP Kickstarter, Amirite?!

Check out this video about the development journey so far and the upcoming changes to how we do things here at YotesMark.

If you're in a rush, the short summary is that the game won't be out for another 12-16 months, the merch store is closing in October so if you want extra shirts better grab 'em now, the physical Kickstarter rewards will start going out in October (excluding all the stuff that won't come 'til release), and we have far reaching plans to make Battle Gem Ponies a full-fledged series when this is all said and done.

We're looking forward to all the updates to come over the next year and are eternally grateful for every backer's help in making it possible.

Thank you all so much, for following the development of Battle Gem Ponies!

- Tony Yotes of the YotesMark Dev Team

The BGP Everfree Demo is Now Available to EVERYONE!

It's the first public release since the Kickstarter launch last year and the first Public Overworld Demo since 2017!

The Yotes Games Team is entirely all to jazzed about this and can't wait to see people's reactions to this project we've poured our hearts and souls into.

We're showcasing it all weekend long at the Everfree Northwest Convention. (So if you're going too, come say hi to us in the vendor hall!)

Go and get yourself a piece of the Everfree fun using the link below!
BGP Everfree Demo [2022]

Battle Gem Ponies Devlog #6

Talking about ULTRA TRANSFORMATIONS in the 6th Battle Gem Ponies Devlog!

(Now on YouTube!)

The Backer Ultra Demo is HERE!!

Sign up on Patreon to Play Now or wait for the public demo coming by the end of August. Take a look at the trailer to see all the new stuff we jam-packed in there!

Milestone Complete: Play the New Ultra Demo!

The Ultra Pony Demo is Here! Go Play it Now on Itch.io!

The password to Play is still: THNX414&P

And you can look forward to another update by the end of August! Something to play at Everfree Northwest in time to celebrate the anniversary of the Kickstarter Campaign!

A trailer for this build will be going up soon to let the rest of the world know how much fun is being had in this little corner of the internet. And a Devlog about what we put in it has just been recorded and will come by mid-August.

Can't thank you guys enough for helping us get to this milestone when we needed the financial boost most. And we spend literally every day marching towards completing this game and fulfilling this idea's potential.

- Thank you SO MUCH, for following the Development of Battle Gem Ponies...

Battle Gem Ponies at TrotCon 2022 ⭐

Battle Gem Ponies at TrotCon was a success! Plenty of new faces got to sit down with the new overworld for the first time and the team is more amped up than ever to get the demo we're currently working on out to our backers next week.

And special thanks to Wolvan for setting this up for us. Moments like this are what we got into gamedev for.

Early July Progress Report (Ultras Incoming!)

Things are looking good! The game feels more alive than ever and team morale is super high as we're finishing up the new demo for you guys!

The biggest things done this month involved taking a hard look at all there's left to do, down to every hour of work remaining for each of us. We'll be sharing our detailed findings on all that on the anniversary of the Battle Gem Ponies Kickstarter completion in early September. But basically, we're definitely not going to be done in 2022, but we also definitely aren't giving up.

So what've we been up to since the last report?

• New configuring tools for moves
• A couple music tracks from BizarreSong
• Cleared out a lengthy list of random BGP ideas, sorted into either easily accomplished tasks, story ideas, or sequel ideas.
• Some project accounting and time estimate adjustments.
• Enabled worldwide shipping on the Yotes Merch Store 
• Setup Placeholders for special Overworld Tiles & Animations
• Reorganizing Tasks to save precious time.
• Making ponies show their KO'd poses in the overworld after being defeated.
• Creating graphics for the remaining interfaces & features.
• Progress Tracking Spreadsheets & Graphics
• Planning Marketing Efforts to Ensure BGP's Success
• Preparing for the Future of BGP and Yotes Games in General

Our To-Do List is looking real short these days, with just a handful of little features built on top of systems we've already made & prepped for.

We're on track to have the demo out by the end of the month, and future tasks have been shuffled around to ensure the public reveal of the Full Pinto Isle Demo is out in time for Everfree Northwest.

- Thanks for following the development of Battle Gem Ponies!

Late June Progress Report (New Horizons for BGP!)

We've got a HEAP of info to get off our chests in the new Devlog video!

Here's a rundown of everything we've been up to since the start of the year:

As for what big ticket items we've been up to since the last report:

• New pipeline & video style for getting Devlogs out faster.
• Deep & detailed organization of remaining tasks to complete the project.
• Saying goodbye to musician Euleom and onboarding new musician BizarreSong.
• Gave ponies maladies in the overworld that can be walked off.
• Came up with fun mechanics that give reason to catch the same wild pony species several times.
• Started sharing BGP images across Derpibooru and Manebooru.
• More detailed plans for the beginning parts of the Story Mode.
• New UI for gaining EXP & leveling up in the overworld.
• New Music for Leveling Up and Exploring Underwater.
• Completely revamped the structure for configuring and animating Moves, Abilities, Items, and everything else in Battle.

Here's some more info on a bullet point that might've caught your eye...

We've got a new team musician: Bizarre Song!

You might also recognize him as the beloved partner of Sugar Morning who drew the animated header of the last Progress Report. Bizarre is a passionate audiomancer hailing all the way from Spain. Here helping Yotes Games on the quest to make the best pony-themed video game in existence!

Bizarre arrived just in time, because one of the game's main composers Euleom was just on the way out. Euleom's currently wrapping up one last song (the Stretch Goal dungeon music) before putting music stuff on the backburner for a while to focus on engineering work. He will be missed, but is welcome to jump back onto the Yotes Games team whenever he wishes. His overworld tracks heard in the demo and compositions for the Battle music will be appreciated forever.

You can look forward to playing the new Ultra Demo build before the end of July. Something nice & juicy that'll make the whole Pinto map feel brand new.
All the while, we're still aiming to get something out for the public to play by the time we fly out to Everfree Northwest in Late August.

- Thanks for following the development of Battle Gem Ponies!

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

The Yotes Games team has been off on our own little isolation land chipping away at the game!

Come see what we've been up to all Spring in the 5th Devlog entry on our YouTube channel.

And be sure to subscribe wouldja? You might've gotten to see it a couple days sooner! 😉