The Tithe of Souls by massivejack
The Tithe Of Souls
O Grand Priest, our hero and saviour—darkness descends. The blessed Holy Machine is our last hope, a relic of impossible grace. Yet it lies unfinished, its sanctified heart silent. Take up the crusade, scour the lands, and raise this divine engine piece by sacred piece.
Check it on the itch page: https://sergs.itch.io/the-tithe-of-souls
Build
Craft your Holy Machine from Altars, soul Cages and other holy parts. Link its inner systems into a living labyrinth that drinks the souls you reap. Shape conduits, transform the energy and awaken chambers until the whole contraption thrums with holy purpose.
Fight
Weave modifiers to conjure unique projectiles that break the wicked. Cast down foes, cage their Souls, and harvest their power. Channel that current through hallowed Altars to empower Priests whose hymns thunder across the battlefield.
Decree
Forge an intricate mechanism fueled by harvested souls
Combine modifiers to sculpt devastating, stacked attacks.
Consecrate Altars to amplify your Priests and their sacred songs.
Slay the Darkness and spare the world from calamity.
How to Play
Connect Cages to other elements to power them. Connect by clicking on an output and then on an input in another object. The flow will be automatic and won't stop! Each output can connect to one input.
Click on the Tank to pick up a Soul and put it in a Cage to fill it up. Pack in more to sustain it for longer.
Connect Cages with Priests so they can shoot. Pipe the Souls through Altars beforehand to create powered up projectiles. You can chain altars!
Manage your connections, save up Souls for the shop to get new elements. Use the Restorator to heal and keep your Engine tanked.
tl;dr
It's a weird mix of Oxygen not Included piping mechanics, with Kingdom movement and enemies, with a small roguelike autobattler element to it. Pretty short!
The ambition was great, but so was the challenge. It works, is playable but requires tuning and more levels to reach full potential. It was a tough one!
Lots and lots of free assets were used to create the world and enemies. Castle was made by us though!
Changelogs v1.02 * Tutorial UI improved * HUD UI improved * Balancing Fix: Updated prices and item names in store. * Balancing Fix: Updated altar damage values (major buff to all)
v1.01 * Pause fixed
| Link | https://sergs.itch.io/the-tithe-of-souls |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/the-tithe-of-souls |
Ratings
| Overall | 209th | 3.75⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 216th | 3.639⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 63th | 3.95⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 273th | 3.861⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 300th | 3.237⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 124th | 4.017⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 81🗳️ | 113🗨️ |
My favorite game right now! Great idea!
Well done!
They do make the projectiles behave differently, aside from buffing damage. Homing, splitting, passthrough, ricochet, etc. It's all there and works, but I get it can be hard to grasp :D.
Engine has 3 inputs to make it fill up faster, yes. We had ideas for some extra features that didn't make it and the inputs are left as legacy.
Thank you for the good words guys!
Well done, It was hella fun.
Thanks for the gaming experience! Good job!
Really solid entry, great work!
I'd love to see a full game with more Holy Machines, components, your own enemy designs, etc.
I can imagine some breathtaking rolling cathedrals - though I must say, the 'baroque gothic perfect square' actually has an artistic quality all it's own. Something about the juxtaposition of filigree, industrial riveting, and the imposing cube silhouette is surprisingly impactful. Somehow reminds me of the monty-python foot? Not sure if that makes sense.
Would be great to explore allowing multi-inputs on most/all components. The engines had them - but it's the altars / priests / health that would really blossom with multi-input. Would really love to get more into the mechanism-management, find different altars to provide different effects to the souls. E.g.:
* A 'candle laiden' altar makes 'slow-burn' souls: burn-over-time when used as projectile, heal-over-time when used in restorator, fuel-over-time when put in engine
* A 'radiance' altar makes 'accelerant' souls: faster moving projectile, higher speed when put in engine, more burst-like healing when put in restorator
Then you could chain together altars to put several effects on souls - that kind of thing. Yeah, I really love the mechanics you have here, I'd love to see them taken further.
One of my absolute favorites so far. Incredible work, you should all be very proud.
We definitely would like to continue the development and have a huge list of features that would like to design. This jam really showed us how resource‑intensive the idea is and how much time and effort it will take...
...and how many souls we need to burn for the Glory of the Omnissiah
(idk if ldjam will let me post links, but if you like, checkout my personal altar to the Omnissiah:
https://www.tiktok.com/@ugly_robot/video/7494317383616711982)
I did indeed make sure to do my daily benediction during the jam, to keep my dev machine pure and bug-free.
On a side note, I think the UI could be a bit bigger. The text was quite small even if half the screen was available.
Nice game!
Also the first Altar seems to make no sense? It consumes souls worth of 20 and output a 15?
Throwing soul not into cage will remove it, so it can cause failure if it is your last soul and you miss clicked cage
I love that the text is skippable but on first press it should finish typing its current line, and on second press should it go to the next line.
The aesthetic and mood was pretty good, though
I can definitely see the potential of this game with more fleshed out mechanics and content.
I also love that you list your inspirations. I'm familiar with *Kingdom* but I've only heard (good things) about *Oxygen not Included*. Now I'll be sure to check it out as well.
Awesome entry, congrats!
Good concept! I think I'm done, there is nothing but darkness, haha ^_^
Art and music are also good