Hi I'm Cole, developer of Picking Up The Pieces and I recently started a video devlog series on YouTube for my upcoming game Jelly Brawl! Jelly Brawl is a fast paced physics based fighting game where you fling little jelly blobs at each other until the other falls off in a king of the hill battle royale extravaganza (sorry I'm over hyping it). 

You can catch the second episode now!

However, for those of you who are more reading inclined (bleh) or just don't have time for an 8 minute video featuring dancing to Christmas smash hits (suit yourself) I've gone ahead and done a small tldr writeup for you here.

• I rewrote the enemy AI

I rewrote the enemy AI! I've made the system more modular and uses a simple "difficulty" attribute in all of its decisions to determine how "smart" it is and how it makes it's decisions. This will allow me to more easily expand it and build upon it in the coming weeks as well as is more fun to play against now as it's less predictable.

• I implemented a fail and win state (it's a real game now!)

Now when you fall off, the end screen updates and your taken back to menu and when your opponent falls off you continue to the next round. Additionally I added some slow mo and a camera zoom in when either of you falls for dramatic effect and I feel it looks more exciting and fun! Plus this means there is now a fail/win state so it's a game now!

• I implemented a system to easily generate fake usernames for your opponents

I setup a real system to generate fake usernames to give your opponents to give a faux multiplayer look that so many mobile games go for these days. I'm not trying to manipulate the player into thinking these are real player, I just feel it makes the game more fun if it feels like real multiplayer however I don't have the time or budget to implement this... yet

• I implemented a leveling system and a UI component to show your current level progress

Finally, I setup a cool leveling system that any good multiplayer game needs to give you a sense of progression. Since this is a big component it still has a few kinks to iron out but  should be nice and spiffy soon.

There currently is not a page active here on itch.io as it's a little too early in development for me to start that up however if you wanna follow development or support me, follow me on one of these platforms below:

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/ColeChittim

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cole.chittim/

My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZAyplO0M83Vq2knyq2STNw

Thanks for reading/watching =)

Hi  everyone the third  episode of the devlog is available now!

Hi  everyone the FOURTH episode of the devlog is available now!

However, for those of you who are more reading inclined or just don't have time for a video featuring singing and goofs, I've gone ahead and done a small tldr writeup for you here.

• I implemented a stats page and the beginning of the in game shop

I implemented a page that can be accessed from the menu now showing how many quick k.o's you've gotten, how many rounds in total you've played, etc. And the store is you're classic mobile store implementation. I'll have more to say on this in the next episode likely.

• I implemented a color palette system

Now as you level up in the game your're games color palette will change too to add a bit of visual variation as you play. So for levels 1-4 there is the classic blue look but upon hitting level 5 you will have a new green and grey color scheme to convey how cool you are. This new scheme for five levels and it continues to change every five levels till hitting the max out at level 20.

• Fixed my job system implementation for the jelly rendering

I went back and improved and fixed my job system implementation of the jelly mesh rendering I stole from Kristin stock in episode 1. I wanted to do this to both make it my own as well as improve it and after this week I've nearly doubled the performance (Woo!)

• I contacted apple begging for a feature

I went ahead and messaged apple with a request to feature Jelly Brawl as a new exciting game with a little press package I threw together this week. I've never been able to do this on my own in the past so this will be an exciting experiment you'll hear about next episode.

There currently is not a page active anywhere to follow development as it's a little too early in development for me to start that up however if you wanna follow development or support me, follow me on one of these platforms below:

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/ColeChittim

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cole.chittim/

My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZAyplO0M83Vq2knyq2STNw

Thanks for reading/watching =)

The fifth episode of the Jelly Brawl is out now! Big change this week!

Jelly Brawl is an upcoming physics based fighting game for mobile and PC.  

However, for those of you who are more reading inclined or just don't have time for a video I've gone ahead and done a small tldr writeup for you here.

• I implemented Airconsole into the Game!

This past week I decided I wanted to support the airconsole platform so I've rethought the whole control scheme and local multiplayer system and implemented airconsole's api. This took a lot of time and iteration and took the whole week. I recommend you watch the video to see the process and what I learned about the platform through trial and error.

• I implemented Controller Support!

Along with this implementation came the introduction of full controller support. Throughout menus and the game. This supports plug and play so you can swap inputs on the fly and the control system and UI updates with you.

There currently is not a page active anywhere to follow development as it's a little too early in development for me to start that up however if you wanna follow development or support me, follow me on one of these platforms below:

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/ColeChittim

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cole.chittim/

My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZAyplO0M83Vq2knyq2STNw

Thanks for reading/watching =)

The sixth episode of the Jelly Brawl is out now! NEW sounds and NEW battles!

The seventh episode of Jelly Brawl's devlog is out now!

Jelly Brawl is an upcoming physics based fighting game for mobile and PC.  

However, for those of you who are more reading inclined or just don't have time for a video I've gone ahead and done a small tldr writeup for you here.

• I implemented my own input manager

Last week I finished local multiplayer however this was specifically setup for airconsole. This week I created my own input manager that handles input detection and player controls based on platform at compilation time. This took a while to abstract some of my airconsole code behind and handle detecting various controllers and mapping them appropriately but now that it's done I can sleep a bit easier.

• I made a new shader for the player characters

I got around to learning shadergraph and made a new shader for my player characters. I think it looks great and ties together the overall look of the game. Adding some more complexity and making the characters pop on screen.

• Remade/improved the current tutorial

Finally I went back and remade the old basic tutorial. This time I spent more time focusing on getting movement of player down and introducing key concepts before introducing enemies.

There currently is not a page active anywhere to follow development however, if you wanna follow development or support me, follow me on one of these platforms below:

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/ColeChittim

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cole.chittim/

My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZAyplO0M83Vq2knyq2STNw

Thanks for reading/watching =)

The eighth episode of Jelly Brawl's devlog is out now! Feel free to either read the written version below or catch the five minute video version on my YouTube channel right here!

Welcome back to the Jelly Brawl devlog! A tale of murder, lies, and 2x the normal amount of antioxidants. Being stuck inside and having nothing else in my life, I’ve gotten a lot done on Jelly Brawl these past two weeks. So imma just get right into it!

As I'm starting to get cracking on the promotion of the game, I’ve focused a lot on the gameplay loop and how I want to describe the game’s direction. I’ve summed it up as, “The fast paced madness of Wario Ware meets, the wacky physics based gameplay of Gang Beasts and Human fall flat.” With this new vibe, I wanted to expand more on platforming gameplay and just overall variety in physics play as I feel I have dialed in the fast paced nature decently at this point. 

So I’ve put a lot of work into restructuring the game management and rules system last week. This way I can more easily implement new game modes and boss rounds into the game. And with this I've gone ahead and added a new boss round mini game called Control! It's a king of the hill style round where one person has to control the point the longest to win.

I’ve also started work on the first two game modes to accompany the main game mode that lean more into this platforming play I've been thinking about. I hope to show you these two modes as well something totally different from these brawler and platforming game play pillars in the coming devlogs to give that final bit of extra spice and variety to the game. That special sauce.

In this attempt to add more variety I also spent some time designing and implementing new stages. Some include these nice tubes as well as more physics based stages that interact with the players. I hope to have at least 50 stages in the game of which currently there are about 20. This 50 number is just a bare minimum goal I hope to meet and am planning to possibly surpass it. Along with these new stages, I am toying with the idea of a level editor for custom stages. This is a very far off idea and may not even launch with the game but rather a future update that I think would add a lot to the game but would love to hear the community's feedback and interest in creating their own stages! 

I also got some more work done on the look of the game. As always the look of the game is subject to change and I hope to keep improving it. For example I’m currently not happy with the way the pops/taps/pushes look. I think they add a lot of unnecessary noise and are really only useful when using a mouse to control or in the mobile and Airconsole editions of the game and I’m currently working on designing a better solution to this visual indication of direction you’re moving and the force you are applying.

Speaking of the Airconsole edition, for those who haven't been following the project for the past few months, Jelly Brawl has been part of a submission to the Airconsole gamejam. Which happened to end (4/1/20) yesterday! The final push is done and I can take a moment to breath now that all this content is in the game. I’m planning to release more or less what I submitted to the contest as a public demo very soon. I'm still planning the logistics of that but will hopefully have more to share with you all very soon. That way I can get something in your little dry sanitized hands and get some useful feedback from you in return.

Additional big news! Jelly Brawl is now available to wishlist on Steam! So I’d love it if you could go show that lil' bud some love and send me a wish. I’m gonna be kicking it into overdrive with promotion from here on out and sharing lots more on what I’m getting done on here, my twitter, as well as the steam page.   

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1278350/Jelly_Brawl/

Thanks so much for all the love you all have been showing the project! 
Saying the past months have been hard on everyone would be an understatement.
I hope you are all doing well and staying safe despite the situation being possibly the worst it could be. Stay strong and keep doing your best cause that’s all you can do. I’ll talk to you all again in a couple weeks. 

Let me know about the new changes and what else you would like to see.
Thanks for taking the time to read/watch! 

- Cole