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The twelfth 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!
I’ve hit a pretty discouraging roadblock in the project being that I am burnt out and to be frank possibly losing my mind a little bit as I feel society crashing down around me. I’m being a little dramatic but I’m bummed out to say the least.
I’ve been taking a more critical look at Jelly Brawl these past few weeks and I’ve decided I need to stop and step back and make some very tough calls. The main feedback I’ve gotten regarding the game is that it lacks mechanical depth so I’ve been working on revamping a lot of key systems so lets talk about whats new.
Now, similar to smash you have a new percentage that raises the more you move around and are hit about. The higher this rises, the lighter your mass gets and more likely you are to be knocked off or accidentally fall. This keeps matches from dragging on. This is now always being calculated behind the scenes but visually is disabled by default however you can enable the percent display to be on in the settings for all you mlg pros.
Additionally I am adding power ups into the game to add slight strategy and planning.
Neither of these require any new button presses keeping the simplicity I want to maintain being a casual party game.
The first of these powerups is a shield. This allows you to take one hit from any instant kill obstacle such as a saw blade or a car in Hit&Run.
The second power up is the super launch that raises your jelly’s launch force and mass drastically for the next hit you take. This requires more planning as if you're not careful you’ll launch yourself right off the arena.
Both of these have a chance to spawn on most arenas adding more variability and surprise to stages. And the effects of these powerups carry over between stages if you choose to not use them making them more strategic. I’m not sure if these will be the only power ups available in the full game at this time. But currently they are all that are planned.
Finally regarding classic mode, I’ve been told a lot that the AI can be dumb. So I have done a lot in this patch to improve it while also avoiding making it too unfair. I don’t wanna dwell too much on making an AI for a game that is primarily a multiplayer focused game but I still want the single player experience to be enjoyable so there we go. The speed at which they decide when to tap has been adjusted. As well as their ground detection and evasion of drops has been improved to be more “safe” putting them further from ledges more often than not.
Now let’s talk some bad news regarding the rest of the game. I’ve been working on bringing the other modes to life for a long while now. However, I’ve struggled to bring them all equally to the same standard as the classic mode. Specifically Wipe Out. I’ve gone back to the drawing board at least two times now and I’ve decided it just doesn’t deserve to be classified as its own mode. It was too similar to other things already in place across other modes so I’ve decided to cut it as an official mode.
However, I’m not going to cut the content made for it already. I’m planning to rehash all of its various elements across other things such as a totally new boss round type and a new hazard type to watch out for. But all in all this does mean slightly less content in the grand scope of things. I made this call because after receiving this feedback I decided I’d rather focus on making sure the game is the best it can be and most fun and lack some scale in content. And at the scale I was planning I was not going to be able to verify the quality of all that or maintain the standard I wished. If you disagree with me, whoops. Currently my plan is if the game sees success I’ll continue to patch in new content. Possibly going back in and adding a fourth mode.
However, overall, my plan is just keep chugging and knock out a quality game as soon as I can but taking the time I need. I’m holding off saying any more dates cause I know now if I do I’m gonna end up pushing it. So it’s coming this year, that’s all I’ll say.
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https://discord.gg/mXMgGSc
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1278350/Jelly_Brawl/
Let me know about the new changes and what else you would like to see ːsteamhappyː
Thanks for taking the time to read/watch!
- Cole