For all you people out there that want to pit cartoon equines against eachother Pokemon style, Battle Gem Ponies has a big update to close out the year with. Lots of stuff has been going on behind the scenes while the game is being worked on.
Head on down below for the presser, including lots of screenshots!
Press Release:
We can't close out the decade without reminding everyone that we here at Yotes Games are not dead and Battle Gem Ponies is a game that does exist and is coming out despite countless setbacks and restarting development multiple times for a variety of crazy reasons detailed in devlogs long past.
We look now towards the bright and near future!And I say "we" now because this game has evolved from a one-man show into a full-fledged indie game effort. After hiring a professional lead programmer to help make the game run smooth as butter, and musicians to make a boppin' soundtrack, progress has kicked into high gear! I (Tony Yotes) get to focus on the game's design, direction, and art while the new programmer (who's new to the fandom and chosen the name Royal Pizza) gets to do what he does best, and that's making tools, fixing bugs, and figuring out how to overcome development hurdles. Then we have Euleom & Bluco mixing orchestrated tracks with chiptunes to makeup the emotional backbone of everything on display through music.We make a great team and have accomplished more in 3 months than I managed to in about half a year working alone. After starting from scratch after the project files got corrupted as yet another old macbook fried on me (an event known internally as The Great Calamity), we managed to recreate the mechanics of the old demo using new tools, and I took the time to make some changes to characters, namely sleek new sprites, environment details, combat balancing, and some more expressive animations (cuz lord knows Sword & Shield needed em).
Yotes Games is also slated to make an appearance at BABSCon 2020! Got accepted for 2 panels and a vendor's booth in a special location this coming year. We're taking over the Arcade and hosting panels and in-person gameplay sessions all weekend at our booth! Cons like these are always a fun chance to get live feedback on the game itself and see what people get hooked on the most, so if you're doing any pony conventions next summer keep an eye out for us!
There's detailed devlog updates on our Patreon twice a month to keep the hype going while we chip away at development and I stash work paychecks and patron bucks towards marketing efforts to get BGP noticed in 2020. We're deep into the prototype phase of development but will be conducting a lot of public playtests as soon as we get core gameplay nice & polished well beyond what was shown in the 2017 Steam Greenlight Demo or even the Booth at Magfest this past January.
So if any of that sounds fun check us out at patreon.com/YotesGames
For anyone who's been on board with this project since December 2014, please accept a big thanks from the bottom of my heart for sticking through the ups and downs. Things are finally starting to come together and this game is set to be something truly special.You can look forward to playing a shiny new demo of Battle Gem Ponies by February 2020. Soon followed by an avalanche of update videos on our YouTube Channel and through special behind-the-scenes content made just for the Patrons helping take this project to new heights.See you all in the new decade! Let's keep this fandom's creative fire burning!
