Battle Gem Ponies (BGP) Making Waves, Networking, And Building Community
Battle Gem Ponies (BGP), a game born of an eager-eyed dreamer, Tony Yotes. Described in Dec 2014 as a competitive turn-based RPG adventure game, your partners are super-powered ponies featuring a gemstone on their chest.
Highlights over 10 years of development that resulted in Sept 2, 2024, seeing its first Arrival Story public launch.
The Start of the BGP Dream
When first announcing BGP, Yotes had begun a Mobile Game Design course at Pennsylvania College of Technology. Something bigger that connected two of his passions. My Little Pony and Pokémon. In the first post addressing Battle Gem Ponies, he shared mock-ups of what he wanted to build as he fiddled with his art style, design, a collection of drafts, and story ideas.
A Beginning of Something New
Over the course of 2015, Yotes began building one move and one pixel at a time. As the community began forming around the game, networking at BronyCon became a reality. Getting the demo ready for the upcoming Bring Your Own Computer was both a success and a big lesson: put Battle Gem Ponies into people’s hands. With Junior year of college complete, all energy was on building a proper BGP that could be played at BronyCon, the first real networking opportunity to bring new players to the game.
Forging a Path for Battle Gem Ponies
With a plethora of moves made and NPCs created, coding was the next step. Dec 2015 saw the first Alpha Demo release; it wasn’t just random battles. Now there were bits of Pinto Island, wild ponies, and trainers. As 2016 went by, Demo updates were pushed on Itch.io, which would serve as a starting point for his future releases.
Yotes Games made rounds at MagFest, making friends and new contacts. A stroke of genius happened when he decided pony-movesets should be classed: 1 light move, 1 status move, 1 heavy move, and 1 special/tutor move. After seeing the success of Stardew Valley, he knew then that even random indie games from solo developers can soar. It just had to be done the right way.
In May 2016, college was finally over. It was time to clean up and get building. Prepared for debut 2 at BronyCon 2016, the trailer was complete with more pony designs, promotional artwork, and a how-to-play menu for beginners.
Battle Gem Ponies Gets A Face Lift
With the showcase for BGP once more at BronyCon, he released the BGP Demo 5.0. Every hiccup imagined happened during the panel. What Yotes didn’t expect was for others to see the potential. Despite everything falling apart from his laptop, presentation, and the game crashing, he had a fun time and brought more into the Battle Gem Ponies fold.
Battle Gem Ponies 5.1 came out with working touchscreens, mouse/keyboard and gamepad functionality, and new ponies. The end of 2016 saw capture mechanics using capture gems to get new pony forms. Yotes learned that pushing for a date to be finished by could be your own worst enemy.
Red Light Green Light
Magnus Talks Steam Greenlight for Battle Gem Ponies courtesy of The Will-o-Wisp Youtube Channel
2017 was tumultuous as Steam Greenlight started, but a lot of negativity about potential Cease-and-Desist lawsuits began. Sadly, the Greenlight for BGP didn’t quite get enough steam before it was shuttered for good in June. Battle Gem Ponies was confirmed for BronyCon 2017, time for Take 3 at the convention, and a 7.0 demo release.
The end of 2017 saw ponies and ultra forms complete, story fleshed out, and a Patreon for those who wanted to help Yotes Games truck along. Starting 2018 with around $200 a month from Patreon support, sights were set on tools and getting things straightened out. With the new tools and polish, Orlando Overdrive kicked off in 2018. The expo demo went over well with many either playing or watching those playing.
A Fresh Start
Yotes found useful tools throughout 2018 to bring Battle Gem Ponies to life. Making the tilemaps and keeping forbidden areas locked away from prying eyes, it looked like BGP was heading to BronyCon 2018 for more networking and community building.
Seeking help from Indie Incubators while hunting for a job to stay afloat became central to keeping Battle Gem Ponies going. After nearly 2 months of hunting, a job was secured, and he gained some useful skill knowledge for the game, though time for coding became scarce, leading to a bit of self-directed frustration.
Getting accepted into MAGFest was both exhilarating and terrifying, and it went great! Sadly, 2019 was off to a bad start. The work recently put into the game through 2018 was corrupted during a cloud backup. The sprites, templates, tile sheets, music, and base core parts existed, but no code, no Unity files! This time, it truly was a new beginning.
Rebuilding One More Time
Yotes was working on making a better build of Battle Gem Ponies. By June, things were kicking off, full steam ahead! An explorable overworld, clean, with tilemaps recovered from disaster. Keeping summaries simple allowed Yotes to really make progress. Yotes even began building a team, hiring a coworker he’d been working with for the past year. Now, Yotes Games wasn’t just Yotes and musicians; it was a team. Feb 2020 saw battles functioning, musicians cracking away, with programming and development on track.
Cons were getting cancelled left and right due to COVID-19, personal loss, job gone, and a core member being away didn’t help Yotes Games’ morale. May saw the first Patreon exclusive download, and July saw the team get another new programmer, Psyaryu! Human sprites and NPCs were fixed up, created, and fleshed out in vibrant pixel art. October was a moment Yotes wouldn’t forget. Psy had quit his day job to focus full-time on Battle Gem Ponies.
Forward To Success
In 2021, things began moving; a new member, ConfidentCow, came aboard to help with graphic design. The game became playable, and conventions were finally starting. June got to see the Combat Demo release, the first upload to the general public in years after the great calamity!
Aug. 2021 Yotes Games made a Kickstarter campaign, running for 30 days and exceeding their goal by nearly $10k with over 400 backers. This would keep them afloat to keep building a game people want to play. As the team charged forward, rebuilding the overworld, getting Demo Island back from the dead, it looked like things were going their way. Updates saw level up and stat customizations, the ability to capture, and Ultra Form ponies came crashing through.
Adding Bizarre Song to the music squad as Euleom was heading out kept things moving in the music department. The anniversary of their Kickstarter saw the public overworld Demo and the Everfree Northwest Convention! Sept. 2022 Yotes Games became YotesMark Ltd. To work on promotional material and boost team morale, a 3D Ponatina landed on the scene from artist DJTHED.
The Final Leg Of The Journey
Monster Taming Direct (BGP at 26:16), Courtesy of Gym Leader Ed YouTube Channel
With 2023 came renewed vigor; the team headed out for a showcase at MagFest. Kickstarter merch was sent out, demo updates crushed it as more ponies were made and added into the game. With a new laptop in tow, things could be made faster and easier! Building the story and heading out to TrotCon 2023, a whole community had formed and became a second family.
After knocking out more spritework and building maps, the goal was to fix bugs for Alpha playtests. May Alpha Demo dropped, with so much hype as pony trainers got to get into the game. The beta was launched in July, meaning the game was nearly ready! The arrival story was here, a prologue to the Pinto Region of Battle Gem Ponies.
Despite delays, the team wanted to get off on the right foot with a good release. Just before launch day, BPG got a reveal spot on Monster Taming Direct, hosted by Gym Leader Ed on YouTube. Sept. 2 2024, came around, and the Arrival Story gameplay was live.
So why go through all this? Because Yotes went from a one-man band to a full-fledged indie team. History can be learned from. Right now, full Alpha playtesting for Act 1 is live for backers, but the arrival story is on his Itch page, Google Play, and Apple App Store.
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