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[Little Miracles Games]

Welcome to “Rest in Jelly”, a videogame that will test your platforming ability and precision in ways that will drive you crazy. All you will need is just a button… plus an almost non-human accuracy and nerves of steel.

We wanted to create a game that dares you to become a platformer king in a different way. We love games that do so, just like Super Meat Boy: a game where you die constantly and still feel the urge of starting again to get it right. But we did it even simpler and purer:
Jack is always running, so it’s all reduced to your ability to jump, which we believe is the quintessential element of platforming games. It seems easy, yet it is deadly hard!

You will control Jack, a clumsy devil that finds himself in the center of a terrible jelly rebellion. Jellies can seem silly, but don’t fool yourself: they plot for the demise of the world as we know it (or at least as Jack and his fellow devils know it). You will visit 4 different worlds while progressing on the “Rest in Jelly” plot. End the jelly rebellion while unlocking the 10+ secret characters.

“Rest in Jelly” might be controlled with just one button, but it features lots of content. 14 playable characters, 4 different worlds, 150+ levels, LOTS of hazards and enemies, and multiple game modes for 1 or 2 players locally. You will be fighting jellies for hours! You can even fight your friends to see who’s the real platforming master!

Nowadays new generation consoles feature controllers that feel like rocket science. New games take pride in their intricate mechanics and sometimes they get lost in their own complexity. We believe in minimizing gaming to its purest form. The result is “Rest in Jelly” a high-ability videogame where you will face lots of mazes, enemies and obstacles only armed with no more than one button; because one button can be the difference between a player and a true champion.

• Game design at its purest form - An entire game that can be controlled with just one button.
  
• Lots of challenges and dangers - Campaign mode with 4 different worlds and over 50 levels to beat.
  
• Stop the jelly rebellion - A funny and engaging plot around the jelly rebellion that will lead you to unlock over 10 hidden characters.
  
• Wit and ability - Each level will test you: you will need to understand what it takes to beat the level and then you will need to be enough skilled to do it.
  
• Multiple modes for 1 and 2 players - “Rest in Jelly” includes 2 solo modes and 2 local multiplayer modes so you can beat those nasty jellies alone or competing with your friend.
  

As a studio, we’ve always wanted to combine our skills to create quality products. Our philosophy is to treat our creations not like games, but as memorable experiences worthy of appreciation and remembrance. That’s what we aim to achieve every time we start a new project.

If all goes well, every creative process will be filled with small moments of joy that will contribute to crafting a complete piece of work of which to be proud. For us, bringing any of our creations to fruition is a little miracle. We want others to consider them as such too.

[BeautifulGlitch]

Hey, guys!

Nice to finally see you here in TIGsource

I'm willing to see this on Steam Greenlight!

btw, some of the IMGs are broken! Gotta fix that, right?

Good luck!   

[Little Miracles Games]

Many thanks BeautifulGlitch, GL will come very soon, it's time to show the game to the world :D

Little Miracles Games is an studio based in Spain and in the last months we attended 3 videogame exhibitions. Granada Gaming last december, Gameboss in Zaragoza in May and one month ago Gamelab. This last event differs from the other ones because it's professional oriented. It was a great experience and we want to share with you how it was.


Preparing Gamelab
With a new goal in mind we started crunching to finish more or less half of the game. Overall, we designed the same amount of levels we had by the end of May, added a bunch of characters, tuned up the code and interface… and decided to give Jack a real body.

As crazy as you hear. Jack popped out of the screen and we gave him a plushy shape to let him wander the exhibition and take selfies with everyone. But this wasn’t the only surprise we brought with us: we created a gamepad with only a button and the shape of a jelly using a MakeyMakey. That way, attendees could play with a classic gamepad or could hit a jelly to make Jack jump… and it worked very well.

There were hard days before GameLab, which took place between the 29th of June and the 1st of July: we had to finalize details while we tried to add all the content we could and even more. For us, Gamelab was not a place to show experiments and see how they performed with the general public: we wanted to showcase a polished version of the game where all the components worked flawlessly and could give the best general idea about the product to the public, to potential collaborators and to the media.


Later I'll write how it was the event itself, many thanks for reading :D

[Little Miracles Games]

Let's continue with our adventure through Gamelab :D

The event

After a crunchy month, some members of the team saw themselves at 6:30 AM finishing the last build with an alarming case of sleep deprivation. At 7:30 we were already driving to arrive at the exhibition before 9:00. With a lot of suffering, the objective was reached: a quarter of the game done in one month. A total craziness.

The first day was the toughest one, surely due to the lack of sleep, but everything fade away the same moment we started to set up the booth, dress up with the studio t-shirt and Jack took the first photos of his three-day-long session.

People started to came to the booth to play, to have fun, to ask. And we asked too, obviously. It’s great to be advised and to get feedback from people who understand how a game is made and, in a lot of cases, who have a wider experience than us. In Gamelab, one of our goals was to get as much feedback as possible from professionals. We do not fear criticism: we want to create the best game possible, not just receiving compliments for what we do.

The second day, Jack had his minute of fame. In the ‘Premios Nacionales de la Industria del videojuego’ award ceremony, celebrated as a part of Gamelab, our little friend took the scenery to receive a prize. Sadly it wasn’t us who won, but Arturo Monedero, from Delirium Studios: he took home three awards for ‘The Delusions of Von Sottendorff and His Squared Mind’, and he carried Jack when he received the third. At least our beloved devil will be able to say he’s been near a “Flea” (that’s how they call the awards, because of their shape) when he’s asked about it.

Arturo Monedero (Delirium Studios), Carlos Coronado (Pantumaca Barcelona), Samuel "Fukuy" (Extra Life) and David Jaumandreu (Undercoders)

Next, Gamelab was not the only event we were present that week :D

[Theck]

I've been in Gamelab next to these guys and the game looks easy until you understand that not being able to control the character adds a whole new layer of complexity on the plattforming mechanics you are used to.

[Little Miracles Games]

Finally, I've been able to write down the last part of the devlog. As important as the event itself, it's the post-exhibition beerworking :D

Party time

And this is how three days passed. Ironically, the more days were gone, the more rested we felt. That was perfect, because by friday night there was another award ceremony: the fifth edition of the Indie Burger Awards. As a sponsor privilege, Oscar García Pañella, academic director of ENTI, gave an award, and then he took a moment to mention us as former students.

The Indie Burger Awards is an informal ceremony here in Spain, driven by indies for indies, with indie awards like "Please try again" or the "Candy award". The prize consist in burgers made of Hama Beads and the ceremony includes beer and burgers for everyone. It was great... and only the beginning.

Little Miracles in the screen when ENTI mentioned us, sorry for the poor quality

Once the ceremony ended, a big group of game developers celebrated an informal meeting, beers included, in L’Ovella Negra, one of the most popular pubs of Barcelona. That night we discovered that some devs spent a lot of their youth playing "table football", Little Miracles lost too many games. Sadly we needed to leave the party "soon" (~3am) because we live outside Barcelona and we needed to take the public transport before it ends its service.

Beerworking XXL. With Theck and Mango Protocol in the rear table

Well, here ends this devlog. We hope that the next one will be more development-focused instead of talking that much about events and trips. Keep an eye on our social networks, Jack has a lot to tell you!

[Little Miracles Games]

Saturday, a good moment to show an screenshot of the current work. We are now testing a new solution to how Jack walk, jump and die through the game physics. We are trying to add to the collider a 5 raycast combination to test what's at the sides of Jack and below. We hope this will remove a nasty behaviour when colliding with walls and ceiling at the same time :D

[Little Miracles Games]

Did you ever tried to communicate a person who does not know how games are created how many work involves? Rest in Jelly is not an exception and we want to share with you how do we create a level for the game.

Pencil and paper is the best tool ever created to start. I know so many people that starts with photoshop or even the editor, and then a simple change becomes a nightmare. Next you can see the sketch for one of the levels of the third world of the game. The idea is to outline the path from start to end and how the player will die. For example you can see an steam blast in the lower left part.

Once a level seems correct, we need to clean it up and we generate a second image with tiled to adjust sizes to be sure later in the game all will work correctly. For example, Jack can jump up to five tiles.

With this image we can create the level itself in Unity3D, create the colliders and test it out. Once the level works we sent it to Xavi Pous, one of our artists to create all the art.

When we started the game it was tile based but some time ago we decided to change the art style and one of the objectives is to be able to generate more unique look and feel. Finally we have a set of images for every level in the game (we know it's not the most optimal method), next you can see a composition showing the level and it's parts.

Many thanks for reading :D

[CarlosCoronado]

Hey, Marc Marfá, one of the developers of Rest in jelly, is the person guilty of me eating jelly in my fridge for weeks, we made a party in my home for his birtday and instead of drinks he delivered jelly. Aside from that, Marc is very friend of his Friends.

He worked for me in Annie Amber and everything was great! Had the honor to test Rest in Jelly back in the old days when it was a shitty pixel art mess and I've been following the process since then and oh boy, it is sooo much better now!

People in gamelab where playing it a lot. 100% would recommend.

[Little Miracles Games]

We are on Greenlight!!

[Marc Marfà]

WOW. Nice music and trailer. I hope you get greenlit.

[Little Miracles Games]

Today we want to share how an asset is created for Rest in Jelly. Nothing really different from other games but when it’s your “child”, it’s always special to you.

Next you can see all the phases the asset goes through, from paper to the game:

Our artist Alba Cardona starts with a fast sketch to conceptualize the new asset. In this case we are creating a “cleaner devil” that will fix the mess you create by dying thousands of times in a level. The idea is to show this little one going down, cleaning the blood and leaving up.

Once the idea is approved, next step is to create a final drawing that will be tested in the game to identify problems and other stuff.

Next we need to add a first iteration of the colors, only a base without almost any shading and we test the integration with the scenario. Maybe for this character is not very important, but with some assets that may affect the gameplay this stage is very important. A perfect example are the background assets, we need them to be visible, but they will not affect gameplay and then, they need to not stand out to confuse the player.

Lastly, the final art is created, with all the details, shadows, lights and Rest in Jelly is a little bit more polished and full of detail.

[Little Miracles Games]

Narrative

Rest in Jelly has like 1500 words describing the plot. Obviously, you can't throw a wall of text to the player and that's why we decided to create a little comic that will drive the player through Jack's adventure.

Today we want to show how it started and how much it can change when you have in your team an artist like Alba, who studied in the Barcelona's renowned Joso school. Next there is one of the sketches Alba drawn after Dani told her what the idea for the page was.

And only one more was created, she get the idea from the very beginning and started to work in the final art, shown just below.

Hope you enjoyed this little piece. Do you like the comic? Do you think it's a good idea to use it as a narrative driver?
Thank you

[BeautifulGlitch]

Love that storyboard art! 

[Little Miracles Games]

This week we started working in the game feel aspect of the game. Now that the mechanics are fine we want to add elements to enhance how the game is perceived and how it tells the player what is happening. We’ve created a video showing how a level of the game changed with every element.





0. Nonexistent game feel
The level as it was at the very beginning, it works, but it can be better.

1. Shooting animations
Cannons are the main hazard of the level and surpassing them is a matter of anticipation and pattern recognition. We added an animation to them to help the player know when it will shoot.

2. Shooting screen shake
These effects may not help the player, but adding it raises the sensation of the explosions caused by the cannons: they are dangerous, be careful.

3. Background elements animations
We need to tell players they are immerse in a life environment. Adding animations to some background elements like the cage enhances that feel.

4. Background elements particles
The same that the previous one, adding some particles will help the scenario feel more “real”.

5. Fog overlay
Lastly we added an overlay simulating fog, it moves and changes how the level is perceived, adding some sensation of movement and also a sense of humidity.

PS: The music of the video is a sneak peak of the game's OST

[Little Miracles Games]

Hi TIG!

August was an "slow paced" month, but we worked on new features, but we also started to polish some parts of the game.

For example, it was a matter of time to add more animations for especial moments and we started with the drowning animation that will be used when the player fells onto the water (we are sorry to tell you that Jack can't swim).

Once you let other people play the game you realise that some elements are not as clear as you think to understand. One example were the doors on the tutorial part. Some players had problems to identify them as doors or even simpler, "moving objects". We tried to create a new asset that looks more different from the rest of the scenario:

Well, it's September, we have tons of work to do, the planning is starting to go crazy as hell :S

[Little Miracles Games]

We condensed what we posted here during August and published on Gamasutra, ideal if you have not followed the development until now

[Little Miracles Games]

We are working hard on world 3. By the start of the month we added a new mechanic, a rotatory platform that you can see in the image below.



If you look at the platform you will see two important elements. In the center the buttons on and below the platform that will trigger when the player touches. On the right side you will see a little gear, that's the rotation point. Every time the player touches it the platform will turn 90º (if possible).

In parallel we've worked on the design stage for this world's levels for single player and race modes and the art team is working on the art style, topic I will write about another day because 3rd's world environment is becoming a thorn >_<

[Little Miracles Games]

The levels of Rest in Jelly are drawn first on Photoshop, and then they are adjusted to generate the assets the game needs. In the following video you will be able to see a timelapse of this process. Ah, and it’s a world no one has seen before.







Before we start splitting the level in parts we need to adjust some elements like lighting or color grading. Sometimes we need to modify some elements for gameplay needs, for example to reduce the contrast of a decorative element. In the video we add a new layer with very little opacity that we will paint with black to “cast” a shadow on Jack when he runs these zones, like a fake shadowing effect. This little effect helps to integrate the environment and the player’s character.


Once the corrections are made, the next step is to split the map into different images depending on its role and z-position:

• Background
• Torches: Separated to reuse the sprites
• Background shading: The light/shadow the torches cast is custom made for every level
• The player: Jack, obviously
• Liquids: Water and lava, the places where Jack will die drowned
• Decorative elements: Lots of little elements like beams, columns or smoke
• Terrain
• More decorative elements: Some elements like columns that are shown over the terrain
• Blood stains: Every time Jack dies will leave blood stains
• Atmospheric effects: Fog, blizzard and other climatic elements
• Lightning: Torches and other light sources are in the foreground to maximize their effect
• Color filters

This list is a generic one. In reality we have a lot more layers because some levels have special elements. A good example in this case are lamp chains. The player can jump on a lamp and it will fall in the lava. This forces us to have two versions of the sprite, lighted and not lighted. In the case of lamps it’s worse, since they have shading effects that need to be hidden when they fall. That’s why we need yet another layer with these shadows in it.


Now it’s time to open Unity3D and start placing all the items. First step, configure the sprites correctly to assure the final game will not weigh too much by setting the max size and generate mipmaps in the import settings.


To go faster we start by copying the level art folder from another scene and then replace the sprites. At the moment we have 64 sorting layers to be able to set accordingly the depth and lighting that we are looking for.


For the lava we use prefabs with different lava sizes and we adjust the width and height. We do the same with the lava smoke. Once all items are in position we have to tediously place aaaaaall the lamps. To place the lamp shading layer, we adjust its position using the chains as a reference. We add a pivot point of a gameobject to be able to reproduce the falling animation to the lava.


Finally, we have to add the gameplay elements and other little details and it’s done!


Many thanks for reading!

[Little Miracles Games]

Many, many time since the last update. We are sorry, we’ve been working so hard that it was impossible to find time to write down what was happening, but we are very excited to tell you how the Rest in Jelly development advances and what’s going on.



The main campaign is nearly done: we are now working in the final bosses to tune their behaviour, which may lead to some design changes on the levels. However, we have all the other pieces there: for example, all the mob types are done and working ingame. The Twins are done except for adjustments from the QA sessions to come. The Chieftain is nearly finished, we just need to add one element and test it. The Big Jelly is in the design and development phase, it will need more work.

We are also working in the Deathmatch Mode. The levels are designed and the weapons have been reconceptualized to be more “jellied”, to feel more integrated with the mood and theme of the game.



The main efforts these months have been focused in polishing and refining all those parts of the game that are not the game. We are talking about interface, tutorials, analytics and other stuff.

The UI has been totally reworked, from the placement of the elements to how you will navigate through the menus. Not only it has changed visually, but also internally: for example, we are using the Rewired plugin that allows us to give support to a huge range of controllers. In addition, we can now detect in real time if you are using the keyboard, a Xbox One controller or another controller and display icons accordingly.

The last part of the UI update is related to language support. We finished the system that will allow us to translate the game to various languages. It will be in Spanish, English and Catalan from day one, but the system will allow us to add more languages without touching the game’s code and we hope we will be able to afford more translations when the game launches.



Another part that can be considered part of the UI that we are finishing is the Comic. This feature will guide the player through the single-player story. We’ve also given a boost to the game tutorials, a series of pop-ups that will aid you to understand the basics of a one button game.

The audio system is another victim of refactoring. We waited too long to implement this and we encountered some problems with our initial implementation, but it’s now fixed. We are adding some early versions of the game sounds Matt sent us to try them out and iterate from there.

One of the problems we encountered is related to sound volumes, priorities and exceptions. Perhaps the most curious one was stopping the button selection sound effect to play if the player tried to move beyond the limits of a menu, as if trying to select options that were before the first one or after the last one.

Talking about sound, the main OST is finished and it’s amazing, we don’t deserve Matt’s talent and we are specially proud of the boss fights. All the songs capture the game’s mood, this mix of gore and humor that a game about being killed thousands of times by jellies emit.



We can go deeper and talk about analytics. We implemented an internal analytics system that allows us to define custom gameplay metrics, which we are using to adjust the difficulty curve. The more obvious example is trophy times. We need to adjust times for bronze, silver and gold and it forced us to play the whole campaign over and over to find what’s the minimum time required to complete a level and do some calculation to know what is a good time for the other two trophies. A collateral benefit from these sessions was to find some not “legal” ways to beat some levels. We decided to keep some of them for you speedrunners, will you be able to find them ?

Related to analytics there’s another system that we finished at last. Persistence is ready to roll and we can save your progress, including times, medals, keys and unlocked characters. It may be considered simple, but we had to think about game updates and how Steam works to be sure no data will be overwritten resulting in a data loss.