Soulcraft by sawtan

The soulreavers are out to rend your soul and chew and gnaw at your existence, but as you traverse the void you find an empty craft, you feel brave enough to take on the soulreavers hive-mind in an epic battle for salvation and absolution.






@sawtan - Keg Slut :beers: (Graphics and Music)
@emil-sunesson - Beer Lord :beer: (Code and Sound)
@khorm - Master of the Tap :beers: (Code)

Unity - Game Engine
Visual Studio - Coding
Ableton Live 9 - Music
Audicity - Soundhacking
Photoshop - Graphics

| Youtube | https://github.com/ldosd/ld45 |
| Youtube | https://ldosd.github.io/ld45 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/soulcraft |
Ratings
| Overall | 505th | 3.5⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 540th | 3.292⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1108th | 2.065⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 882th | 2.826⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 209th | 4.104⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 147th | 3.813⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 862th | 1.853⭐ | 19🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 373th | 3.563⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 24🗨️ |
@le-dav Thank you! That makes us happy to hear! Cheerz!
This had a surprising amount of depth to it, I thought I would be just endlessly collecting upgrades. My expectations were blown by a boss battle which I feel like I never see in these games!
Nice way to innovate I loved your doom style galaga! Really felt like I went from zero to hero.
Anyway it's a nice game, say hello to your artist!
@sbtn Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it! And I agree, the weapon upgrades has a nice feeling to them! Cheerz!
Boss had nice feedback on hit with flashing sprite. Other enemies could have used the same effect for player feedback.
Weapon variety was nice. I found my favorite "branch" to be the orange one. At the start I used to avoid the orange power-ups as bombs. The orange color they use gave the feeling that they were part of the enemies or their projectiles. I had no such problem with the blue ones as their color was vastly different from the enemy palette.
I think this game is a solid foundation. It could use more enemy variety and indicator for player where the ship is currently with the weapon branches.
Hope this feedback helps you. :pray:
Good feedback on the weapons, I like the orange more as well, might have been better to have them in a green hue, but the orange looks a bit bad-ass as well! :smile:
We wanted more enemy types as well, but the boss fight was our biggest priority on this round, next time we might give the grunts some more love and care for sure!
Thanks for the great feedback! Cheers!
Maybe we can make a 1+ post-ld version where the game speeds up for a second run if you complete it!
Thanks and cheerz!
I wish the game had auto-fire, though. There doesn't seem any reason to let go of the fire button.
@recursor Thanks, and yeah, we love them old shmups (though my favorites must be R-Type and Raptor, a bit later editions to the genre). Glad to hear that you enjoyed it!
@thepiratenun Ohh thanks! I'm super happy that you enjoyed our little game! The upgrades and boss was our main focus on this LD, so it's great to hear that it's appreciated. I do agree with you about the extra life thing, I have a confession to make as well, I haven't finished the boss fight either (I'm but a lowly gfx and music artist of the group), so it's a hard fight for sure!
@0x01f0 Yay! Thanx, we do get along quite nicely after a couple of game jams together! We all are looking forward to the next one where we'll put more focus on doing a game around the theme! Cheerz!
@phoenix-fireflower Thanx, as the projectiles are I do agree that it doesn't make much sense not to fire all the time, but I don't think I would enjoy auto-fire in my regular shmups to much, it's a bit more immersive to actually press a button to activate the shooting, but I do see your point! :) Cheerz!
@dob Ahh grand feedback sir, I wish we had time to make more enemies and power-ups as well, but alas, a jam is to short! Maybe we'll make a more fully fledged shmup in the future! Glad to have been able to move you back in time and cheerz!
After getting 5 blue shots and 4 yellow shots I couldnt tell if additional upgrades had any effect. I lost to the boss because I didnt realize for a while that I was supposed to shoot the eyes and had been shooting the middle of the head.
It was pretty hard to hit enemies until later on when you were lucky enough to receive powerups that weren't bombarded with enemy bullets. And the hitbox was too big.
The game does remind me of chicken invaders and Touhou. I wish at the end there was some way to heal though. Its really hard! :confounded: I would say though, it doesn't do the description justice; as in I go in to find salvation yes. But in game its just a shooter and move around. There isn't really a score to keep track of how many I was able to destroy, or an in-game reward aside from a scroller shooter.
All in all, really good game for a jam! :slight_smile: (a bit frustrated because of how seemingly unfair I died, but I did enjoy the game)