River of Souls by Jiyambi
River of Souls is my entry for the 48 hour Ludum Dare 29 Competition for the prompt "Beneath the Surface".
You play as the soul of a recently deceased person, dragged to the bottom of the River of Styx ("Beneath the Surface"). You must make your way back to the top (and to your eternal rest) by popping memory bubbles, releasing the memories which are weighing you down. The game is a window into the life of this lost soul, showing random vignette memories from their life.
Trigger warning: Abuse, alcoholism.
The lack of sound is totally an artistic choice and not at all because I ran out of time.
Tools used include:
- Unity 2D
- Inkscape
Like it? Follow me at @Jiyambi, and my indie team at @BounderGames.
You play as the soul of a recently deceased person, dragged to the bottom of the River of Styx ("Beneath the Surface"). You must make your way back to the top (and to your eternal rest) by popping memory bubbles, releasing the memories which are weighing you down. The game is a window into the life of this lost soul, showing random vignette memories from their life.
Trigger warning: Abuse, alcoholism.
The lack of sound is totally an artistic choice and not at all because I ran out of time.
Tools used include:
- Unity 2D
- Inkscape
Like it? Follow me at @Jiyambi, and my indie team at @BounderGames.
Ratings
| Coolness | 14% | 2090 |
| Overall | 3.78 | 107 |
| Fun | 2.44 | 1019 |
| Graphics | 4.28 | 53 |
| Innovation | 3.44 | 299 |
| Mood | 4.22 | 18 |
| Theme | 3.94 | 62 |
The art is the best of the 13 games I've looked at so far, and by such a huge margin that I doubt it'll get dislodged from that spot anytime soon. I just love the cohesion of the style. Pentagons! Hardly the most common of art styles either.
It's a right shame about the lack of sound, because if you did have some nice sound design in there, the game would feel like such a captivating experience. I can't help but feel bad for how this game was robbed of such potentially moving sound design, by the ever powerful Ludum Dare deadline.
The story is well written, you follow the "Show don't tell" rule very effectively, and can tell quite an extensive background in only the first few lines of the game.
Overall, a really stunning entry. If not for the absence of sound, I would have confused it for a higher level jam entry. Already with what you have, I had to double check.
Anyway, thanks so much for the kinda comment Crumpet, makes me feel much better about this work, which is quite different from anything I've done before!
It was an interesting way to tell a story although somehow I didn't realize that collecting the objects progressed the story - it was just constantly progressing until near the end. That's when I realized I was actually in control the whole time.
The mouse was a little laggy although the trails were beautiful.
Excellent graphics and detail (like the skulls on the sides).