LudumData

Soul Garden by Gossian

[raw]
made by Gossian for Ludum Dare 52 (JAM)

You're a little Grim trying to create a beautiful balanced garden by harvesting souls.

Tap WASD or arrow keys to move and harvest souls.

The souls age over time and have different energy requirements to harvest (e.g infants need less energy to harvest than adults) so keep an eye on your stats and pick up green glowing orbs to replenish energy supplies. If you run out of energy, it's game over for Grim.

If you last one minute you'll be taken to your garden to see your newly planted souls. (I did have a whole plan for different ends depending on ratio of souls harvested etc but yknow, jam-time... so for now it's just a breakdown of harvested stats).

UPDATE! For the first time in a jam I've actually gone back and modified a few things to fix bugs and take on board feedback, including: - Bug fix where it was glitching loading the garden scene - Energy and time now appear as visual scales rather than numbers - Increased starting energy - Added a couple more spawn points - Added option to go to your garden and see all the harvested souls before the timer runs out

The game embedded on this LD page is the original LD jam version so to play the updated version, play it on the itch link below!

The embedded format is a little off so try the itch link to play a fully embedded version without scroll bars or cut-offs.

Link https://gossianblurs.itch.io/soul-garden
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/soul-garden

Ratings

Overall 728th 2.9⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 728th 2.643⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 636th 2.875⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 478th 3.595⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 505th 3.4⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 452th 2.725⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 402th 2.9⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 593th 3.1⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 6🗨️

Feedback

robobarbie
10. Jan 2023 · 02:00 UTC
the art was very cute -- very unique style!!
Accatosh
11. Jan 2023 · 16:44 UTC
I really like the art. Controls could feel better by allowing the player to hold WASD to move. Well done.
p0l4r
12. Jan 2023 · 11:42 UTC
Great art, good concept, just needs some more design work and a bit of polish (like all our games :D). It would be nice to be able to hold WASD to move. I enjoyed that people come out of the hospital and slowly grow and go old over time, but as far as i could tell this wasn't used in any gameplay systems, and i would have liked to see what interesting things you could have done with that. Lastly i think the music loop was a bit too short, and really only served to be a bit grating. I think the game would have been better with no music and some sound effects instead.

Well done! :)
terylangosh
12. Jan 2023 · 11:43 UTC
It's a pity you don't show our score at the end of the game, because I never notice I'm going to die so I have no idea how well I played. The art and music are well fitting with the premise and I think you made a good take on the theme.
Kuboxxxxx
12. Jan 2023 · 11:44 UTC
I really like the art styles. It was a bit hard for me to understand that concept clearly, cause I was just running out of energy, but nice idea. Could use a continues movement instead of a grid based one. Well done!
osh.studio
12. Jan 2023 · 11:51 UTC
I was an absolute menace at the very start, snapping up every soul. Then I realized I only had a certain amount of energy and lost instantly. Good vibe and good submission :)
Better Half
20. Jan 2023 · 14:00 UTC
Really liked the visual style, felt sketchy and well... grim. I also liked that you would reap whenever you moved, which made the game feel pretty snappy.

The biggest gripe I have with it is that different kind of souls would come out at random *and* really fast, making it a bit unclear as to exactly how much each would cost to harvest which would result in extremely sudden game-overs as you would accidentally reap 3-4 adults in one move and instantly lose your points with no real way to predict it. Energy gains were also really slow and small, which meant that you had to be extremely careful the whole time.

Increasing energy gains would go a long way to make the game more challenging/satisfying I think, as it would increase the risk-reward aspect of it. Likewise with having souls spawn from 2 or 3 different places along the edges of the screen instead of having them all gathered in one central place.

All in all, pretty cool entry!
LDJam user 297532
20. Jan 2023 · 14:33 UTC
This was a pretty neat idea! I like that you are tasked to harvest souls that decay over time. The visuals were pretty nice, and the music still fits for a jam game.

However, a few things I would like to suggest are:
1. Make the energy meter a bar like a health bar so that it could be read easier.
2. Make the enemies' movement more predictable, maybe by making them slower and more consistent.

Overall tho, for a game made in only a short period of time... Great job!
PROJECTaroid
20. Jan 2023 · 16:14 UTC
Cool game and nice approach to the theme. The game looks cool and plays well. Nice work.
francoisvn
23. Jan 2023 · 21:37 UTC
The idea is pretty cool. Clearly an indictment of the US medical wasteland ;) It felt a bit weird for the movement to be on a grid (I think). I ended up camping outside the hospital door, just ducking away quickly to get energy, so something to change that up would be good
kikiriki367
26. Jan 2023 · 11:42 UTC
Ahhh the good old days of spawn camping kids on call of duty! I think you cant get more harvests than this, so where is my trophy?!? And oh i just realized it shows you where they died, thats so interesting actually!

![bab.png](///raw/a01/9/z/56cd1.png)

PS the garden screen breaks the game for some reason. :3
HayriCakir
26. Jan 2023 · 20:29 UTC
A different take on the theme, I liked the visuals and music. Gameplay is also fun but I would like to see some more gameplay elements. It is a solid entry tho. I liked it. Good job! If you would like to shred some zombies in slowmo with your tractor, be sure to check out my entry, I would love to hear your feedbacks :)
Schmalex
26. Jan 2023 · 20:33 UTC
Well done with your submission! I do agree with some of teh other people that this is a really nice new take on the theme and i did enjoy playing it quite a bit. There are a few things that would benefit from revision but for a jam game i think it's a good entry. Congrats!
shiny Elster
26. Jan 2023 · 20:44 UTC
Nice lil game! Seems easy on the first glance but you need to time it right or the energy will be gone sooner than you think! The movement could be a bit more fluid but other than that it's a fun and quick game^^
digivorix
27. Jan 2023 · 07:15 UTC
The gameplay is a little basic, but I did the like the very unique visual style. I also found the choice of movement very interesting. It looks like your are jumping to tiles on a grid instead of smoothly gliding across the world. If I had to make a few suggestions I would say an upgrade system or at least a few different levels would do this game some good. Other than that, it's not bad.