The Last Soul by Gaeel

[raw]
made by Gaeel for LD26 (COMPO)
The Last Soul is a short story about the last living being.

Find your way to the monolith and exit this world solemnly and gracefully.


Nota Bene:
Some people have issues running the game through the love executable. I'm afraid this is due to my using a custom version, and I don't remember where I got it.
It's technically 0.8 (people getting nil value errors are using an incorrect version number) but there is a crash on the official 0.8 version due to a glitch in the audio code which was never fixed. Your best option is running the game in Windows (wine runs this pretty well too if like me you're a 'nux enthusiast).

Also, I know there are two physics glitches:
The first causes the character to vibrate when you run into a wall. I recommend not running into walls because it breaks the illusion. This is due to the orientation of the character being bound to his movement rather than his intent.
The second causes jumping while running on a downwards slope to often fail. This is due to me not listening in math class and writing horrible geometry and physics code.

Ratings

Coolness 62% 3
Overall 3.73 124
Audio 3.98 26
Fun 3.27 300
Graphics 4.39 12
Humor 1.93 791
Innovation 2.63 912
Mood 4.27 9
Theme 3.45 646

Feedback

BigBlackBeard
29. Apr 2013 · 04:33 UTC
I love this game ! Thank you !
NiallM
29. Apr 2013 · 10:04 UTC
This is a lovely wee minimal platformer. The sound design is really impressive. Very nice.
Ysty
29. Apr 2013 · 15:56 UTC
Very moody. The sound design is impressive as well.
Jackamikaz
29. Apr 2013 · 16:49 UTC
This si exactly the kind of mood I'm looking for in games. I'm impressed how so little can make so much.
donan
29. Apr 2013 · 20:00 UTC
Awesome. The mood its fantastic :)
Meep
29. Apr 2013 · 20:01 UTC
I really love the art style. Like others've said, the mood was set really well. :) Great work!
SonnyBone
29. Apr 2013 · 20:06 UTC
HOLY CRAP this is good. The audio... oh man. I love how the visuals and audio change as your progress. Even the slightest touches, like the little sound when you're standing in the light... it just works. And that final image when it's all over and the music... just perfect. You nailed it. Totally nailed it. GREAT WORK!
Chman
29. Apr 2013 · 20:06 UTC
Lovely exploration game. Great mood and sound design. The character animation was also topnotch !
SonnyBone
29. Apr 2013 · 20:06 UTC
OH, and the controls are almost perfect. The only issue is the jerkiness when you run into a wall, but it's really smooth and looks great in motion!
graytest
29. Apr 2013 · 20:12 UTC
Cool little game with great graphics!
hgouveia
29. Apr 2013 · 22:02 UTC
Love the graphics! awesome!
folmerkelly
29. Apr 2013 · 22:20 UTC
Awesome. Most atmospheric entry I've stumbled across so far.
PiotGuy
30. Apr 2013 · 08:28 UTC
I really like this kind of platformer, good game with excellent graphics !
Pierrec
30. Apr 2013 · 11:59 UTC
My only critic on this one would be that it is easy to get lost, and it can get annoying, but, on the other hand, it contributes to the mood of the game (what am I doing here ? Where am I supposed to go ? Why ?). A lot of questions, not many answer, a great game overall.
AlanZucconi
30. Apr 2013 · 12:19 UTC
The design is really good!
It remembers me of "Nina Have Faith"! :-)
free_napalm
30. Apr 2013 · 12:39 UTC
Excellent mood, the audio reminded me of the soundtrack of "The Man from Earth".
wonderwhy-er
30. Apr 2013 · 20:03 UTC
Really nice sounds, and style. Somehow reminded me of old Another World game.
🎤 Gaeel
30. Apr 2013 · 20:27 UTC
Hey thanks for all the compliments guys! I had a lot of fun making this one, hanging out with 30 odd other devs in Montpellier, France! And I'm glad how this all came together, I'll be posting a Post-Mortem soon, both about the development of the game and the organisation of the real-world gathering.

wonderwhy-er: The creator of "Another World", Eric Chahi hangs out at our media lab for our bi-weekly game dev conference, maybe I should show him this XD

free_napalm: I don't remember the soundtrack from that movie, but I remember it being very strange, maybe I'll watch it again sometime.

Thanks again for the praise, it means a lot!
Puzzlem00n
30. Apr 2013 · 22:15 UTC
A very nice little game. I enjoy the simplicity. And the graphics are nice, too, cool way to use particles.
jolle
01. May 2013 · 12:12 UTC
Beautiful and great atmosphere.
SaintHeiser
01. May 2013 · 13:59 UTC
Very atmospheric =)
When player fall down in "unreachable area", game teleports player back. This looking as glitch.
Winterblood
01. May 2013 · 20:24 UTC
Wonderful look and feel - love the gently changing palette and the dynamic music. Excellent.
CNIAngel
02. May 2013 · 05:18 UTC
Well executed platformer. Audio design is good and fits the mood. The graphics are excellent. Overall, great work.
GranaDa
04. May 2013 · 23:28 UTC
Loved the mood and graphics. Very well done!
KEFIR
06. May 2013 · 15:26 UTC
Audio and graphics makes incredible mood! Really good fun minimalistic platformer. Thank you for making that! :)
TijmenTio
06. May 2013 · 15:39 UTC
Wow, the visuals are amazing and so is the audio! They create a really stunning mood, which is hard to do ;)

However the mechanics were a bit sloppy! For example, you can't jump while running down a slope...

But don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this game a lot :) Well done
rubna
06. May 2013 · 16:26 UTC
This is amazing! There's just one little bug that breaks the mood for me: if you run up against a wall the playre sprite keeps flipping. But other than that, this is really fantastic!
Dining Philosopher
06. May 2013 · 16:43 UTC
Getting an error on Ubuntu: attempt to call field 'setDefaultImageFilter' (a nil value). I have no experience with Lua, so this may just be a stupid mistake by me (and I see noone else with this problem).

Pity, the graphics look nice and people are very positive about it!
cacciatc
06. May 2013 · 19:36 UTC
Nice entry. I like the effect of the clinging foliage.
Tifu
06. May 2013 · 22:49 UTC
Nice mood. Love the way the colours gradually change.
Jellycakes
06. May 2013 · 23:26 UTC
Was pretty cool, For an atmospheric platformer I was expecting a little more atmosphere.. But it was still fun to play anyway. Good job.
someone
07. May 2013 · 00:08 UTC
Very nice. Great pixel art and great audio.
Kept crashing on me but updating Love seemed to fix that.
[-BipolarDesign+]
07. May 2013 · 02:16 UTC
I love exploration games, and this one does not disappoint! Nice job making each section just unique enough to be able to tell your way around, and easily see where you have been :) I liked that it changes colors as you progress.
ethankennerly
08. May 2013 · 04:26 UTC
The cool palette, silhouettes and ambient music and sounds felt eerie and enticing. The final soul surprised me. If you continue to develop this, introducing a second mechanism (besides the wait for a door to open) after that final soul might continue to entertain me, if it synergizes with the vibe you've evoked.
kill0u
10. May 2013 · 23:29 UTC
Nice :)
Ishisoft
11. May 2013 · 07:23 UTC
Fantastic mood in this! Shame about the couple of collision issues you mentioned but very enjoyable anyway. The audio especially is lovely.
Jeremias
12. May 2013 · 11:25 UTC
I like the play with the colors. Together with the background music, it creates a moody experience.
mildmojo
13. May 2013 · 00:37 UTC
Seemed like a charming platformer with nice music, but it locked up on me twice, each within about a minute of the start of the game. Had to kill -9 the love process.
🎤 Gaeel
13. May 2013 · 01:21 UTC
mildmojo: that's unfortunately a bug in the official 0.8 release of Löve that has never been fixed for some reason, I'm using a custom version that fixes this, I can't remember where I got it though.
wallmasterr
13. May 2013 · 22:35 UTC
Realy nice minimal pixel style, reminds me of flashback. Music and audio fitted nice too
Sylvain.p
15. May 2013 · 14:22 UTC
Great mood and great graphics design. The jump is a bit strange, but I like the style. It's like an out of this world neo retro.
captainkraft
16. May 2013 · 22:37 UTC
Your talent with art is outstanding. I'm a bit biased because this style is one of my favorites, but the game looks amazing. You've already pointed out the bugs in the game, so I won't tell you about those, but aside from the few minor bugs, it played really well. I like this game a lot.
Oleg Zhurko
18. May 2013 · 13:33 UTC
Nice visuals! Very moody. :)