The Souls Express by antvelm

The Souls Express is a meditative game where player delivers souls to their most desirable final destinations.
Talk with souls you meet at different stations and take them to their preferred places to rest, play, think.. Anything they are still eager to get after having a lifetime. Some souls will give you special items which open new locations. And the most important questions is what happens when all the souls are delivered?
Where does the train go next? Play it to find out! Let us know if there is a station that resonates with your wishes too!
Music made by our composer during this jam: Antoine Aubert Soundtrack Link
CONTROLS:
WASD - Move
E - interact

Enjoy walking around during beautiful sunsets!



https://youtu.be/RL5RYR2vxlQ
Ratings
| Overall | 124th | 4.094⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 843th | 3.145⭐ | 64🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 356th | 3.617⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 412th | 4.087⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 42th | 4.608⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 33th | 4.373⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 738th | 2.833⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 11th | 4.516⭐ | 64🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 115🗳️ | 125🗨️ |
At first it was hard for me to understand what i had to do, but then i read the description here, maybe add an interaction with a soul that tells you what you have to do as an intro?
nice job so cute<3
It's incredibly poetic and the artwork is amazing...
Music fits perfectly with this chill traveling mood too.
Congrats, it's a game jam masterclass !
The movement felt a bit slow, such that there was an element of tedium in walking back to see who wants to be at the current station. Also, on that, it feels like there's something missing in my interactions with the passengers. Most of them either tell me exactly where they want to be, or not at all, which meant I either knew immediately or had to just randomly select stations, rather than conversation with them leading to me figuring it out.
I also would have liked to have some choice; e.g. assigning each of them a station based on what I think they like, rather than just taking them there. That would add an element of solving a problem, rather than just clicking on the thing the passenger tells you to click on.
Overall, incredible atmosphere, stunning graphics, and amazing music. Well done!
It's pure art how you managed to combine the themes of death and philosophy in such a great arrangement. Is this game inspired by the Spirited Away Train Scene? If so, I definitely felt remebered to it :) There are only few things that I could really critize because the game is allready in such a good state. Graphics are also pure eye candy, besides some minor graphical bugs ( smoke also in front of the train and rails switching colour when moving between stations). Also some minor spelling mistakes and some additional blanks in the texts. All in all nothing that breaks the immersion for myself.
Thank you for presenting us this emotional journey of a game. It was perfect to calm down after a demanding weekend of game making.
I really enjoyed playing :)
PS: I guess we will never find out what happened to mister Freeman. I feel you my fellow LOTR enjoyer(s)
The art style is amazing, and you know that, and everyone knows that, but the sound design was out of this world, too. It's something that often gets overlooked, but I honestly think it was the music and all those tiny ambient noises that made me really soak in the atmosphere of this game. A somber journey full of wonder still.
Btw, All I need is holding shift to move faster.
The smoke is weird when change station.
as for cluttered with stuff, it seems to me that there is some kind of bug or programmers after your comment deleted some objects. Anyway that was a good point!
@elisagonda yes, it is a good point. Guess we didn't really worry about it as thought description is enough, so we don't have to spend time for making a tutorial or an intro speech. It falls apart without this page a bit
@felin yes it's a bit slow, let's say we forced calmness with this one :D
@patrick-abernathy thank you!
@shess that's great you like this game so much! We were really lucky to quickly find an amazing musician when the jam had already started. he really did catch the mood :)
@arnenia thank you! We did get the greatest inspiration from Spirited Away, glad we managed to deliver a bit of that Ghibly feeling!
@vhalenn thanks for playing and the feedback!
@amunonra thank you! Yes, it is inspired by Spirited Away train scene! You're right about the bugs, actually I'm amazed there so few :D from what I know, sadly the smoke can't be fixed without remaking the core mechanics of the train
The atmosphere was incredible (graphics and music) and the general mood (Ghibli) was super relaxing. The arrival at a station was always magnificent and I felt a great relief when I arrived at the sanctuary <3
I was only a little sad not to understand the symbol of the apples above the heads of my little souls, I hope they didn't get too hungry during the trip!
Great work! :thumbsup:
P.S. Good luck with the main project as well, added it to steam wishlist and followed the studio in twitter :smirk:
This is really relaxing game. So unfortunately I managed to collect only 20 tickets and couldn't see what happens when you activate that thingy in restaurant carriage.
Overall the game stands out of most games presented on Jam
Anyway, it's a really good entry, you'll perform well in the graphics and mood categories imho !
Conceptually, it was exceptional and reminded me a lot of the train scene in Spirited Away movie.
I found the game to be a relaxing, peaceful, and interesting journey. The graphics were beautiful and the attention to detail really made the game stand out.
Overall, it was a great experience and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys these types of games and I am one of them.
Well done!
I hoped there would be some more interesting gameplay though, there didn't seem like there was much to do.
Good work, very relaxing indeed.
I wish the camera was placed a bit higher looking down for viewing my character's location relative to other models. Movement speed is a bit too slow to my liking, even though the music made this nitpick less irritating ♪♫♪♫. Indication of how to be able to get to another location would be appreciated within the UI via objectives or anything visual to represent any wall to progress.
This entry is a very impressive atmospheric experience that could be built into something more. :) 72 hours goes by too quickly! :) I imagine a fully developed version with voice acting for characters, more dialogue, creating even more immersion into the world you've created so far.