Soul collector! by Noobman64
Soul collector is an arcadey game you can beat in 2 minutes. Come give it a go!
patch notes:
In addition to my original entry, there is a patched version of the game available below as well. The game would get stuck on the final screen when the player won or lost. The game still ends and restarts abruptly, but I felt like adding a new end screen would be against the spirit of the competition. Special thanks to users @akuta-zehy and @artillepsy for bringing the issue to my attention!
Technical notes:
The HTML version does not work here but the itch.io link works (tested on chrome and Firefox).
The victory and defeat screens have a "end the game" kind of button which will not work on browsers. On the standalone, it closes the game so you can move on to the next game quickly. If you'd like to play again, it's quicker to click on the circular restart button on the top
Windows file available for download and tested to launch.
Linux file available for download but not tested to launch.
source file is the Godot project file and "art" assets.
Game Tips:
WASD or arrow keys to move. Run into people and animals. You will collect their soul on collision... most of the time. it is buggy when you try to do it from the top or bottom sometimes 😅
Getting Hit with an arrow takes away HP. You start with 50. Yes the Arrows are very Derpy and can't point at the right direction, but I'm just leaving it in at this point.
There are 4 endings. The "secrete" endings will depend on what kind of souls you collect
tools
Godot V4.1.1.stable
Piskel
Paint
Bosca Ceoil
A lot of Youtube tutorials!
Me yapping about my game:
As soon as I saw the theme I knew I wanted the "collecting" to be debt collecting and for something weird. Initially I was thinking organs but I quickly realized I don't have the artistic or technical talent to make what I had in mind. I settled for making a very basic top-down game about collecting souls. It's amazing, no matter how much I settle and cut down on my ideas it's always down to the wire with the timing.
Even though it is basic, I think the concept has potential. For example in a proper game, different deities can give you special missions to collect or not collect certain souls. Maybe you have to make all the deaths happen by accident, or maybe the NPCs can have dialog as you skulk about invisibly, Overhearing can let you kill specific people who you don't initially know about. It's basic but it could work.
I think my time management is getting a little better but I still had to leave out a lot. If I had more time, I would have liked to experiment with having each corps summon a ghost which would follow you for the rest of the run. I usually don't have time to add any sound to my LD Compo games, but I was able to do a short little music loop with some sound effects this time. I think I also successfully implemented an adjustable volume bar which was a first for me. If you read all the way down to here, tell me how you manage your time in these projects because I always end up missing something major and decide to let sound/music go so I can get the game "out the door" in time for the time limit. Thanks for reading, cant wait to play your games!
| Source (Original) | https://meidaniaryayahoocom.itch.io/soul-collector-source |
| HTML5 (Original) | https://meidaniaryayahoocom.itch.io/soul-collector |
| HTML5 (Patched) | https://meidaniaryayahoocom.itch.io/soul-collector-patched |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/soul-collector |
Ratings
| Overall | 165th | 3.077⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 102th | 3.36⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 179th | 2.72⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 87th | 3.68⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 161th | 2.958⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 141th | 2.78⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 50th | 3.417⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 122th | 3.18⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 43🗳️ | 26🗨️ |
On that, I'm not an expert at it myself but I always try to scope out a game idea that has a simple enough concept that the basic game loop should be "easy" to implement. Once that's done, I'll spend time on adding music, animation, sound effects, more items or levels, etc. It doesn't always work well, but I set my one goal as just having something playable and any extra time after that is spent on "sugar". Music is definitely one of the last things that gets added that I skip out on. It's all part of the fun of doing a game jam to me! Again, nice work on your game!
got the "softhearted" ending because I collected only the ones that were shooting at me and it wasn't enough to pay the debt hahaha Anyways, not killing the animals, they're cute!
Instead of a soul collector, I AM a bug collector, I found more bugs than I expected in the game.
1. When the player dies, the logic in game stuck so that it won't respond to anything.
2. The arrow and player obviously have much larger collision boxes than they appear, but the physics collision boxes appear much more correct, which allows the arrow to graz the player and lose HP.
When the arrow hits the lower right corner of the player, it will pull the player and drag the player away.
I guess that's the bugs above are the engine's problem, not yours.
However:
3. You forgot to reset the HP in `ready_()`, instead they are just defined on the top, which made the HP unrecoverable after pressing reset.
4. I noticed that you have swapped chicken ending and humanist ending in file, and swapped them again in function to make everything correct.
As a compo, I would rate this game as *amusing*, and giving it extra points for its humor. It also fits the theme quite well and is suitable for playing during leisure time :)
All in all a great entry!
1. After completing the first level (if there are more) i couldn't go further
2. The graphics - overall, i guess the authors know what i mean
3. Gameplay - it's simple
People above my comment have given you enough to process, but i wanted to say that you did a great job. Your game works, for a few minutes of gameplay it's alright and fun enough =]
Hope to see your improvement the next time
You got it exactly right with the bugs. I didn't fill the HP up again so the game would always think the player is dead after the first time X__X. The collision boxes were a mess from the start. My issue was that when they looked right, they would not register hits reliably. I knew I wouldn't have time to figure it out properly so I just increased the size so the game would be in a "playable" state by the deadline. You are right with the chicken script too. I'm sorry you had to see that. As a software engineer it probably gave you a heart attack, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I was running out of time 🫣.
@balimaarthebassfish
Thanks for the kind words! Those archers have watched the 2008 classic "Wanted" with Angelina Jolie. They have mastered the art of curving bullets. I wouldn't expect any less from the king's elite archer squad! 😜. Jokes aside, yeah it's very derpy looking, and I didn't have enough time to do anything about it. Hope it made you smile :)
@artillepsy Hi! There is just one level so you beat the game 🎉. Thanks to feedback from you and another user I was able to patch the game so it doesn't freeze at the end. It will still abruptly start a new run, but It should be a bit less jarring than how it used to be, with everything just crashing.
I agree that the visuals were ... not great😅. Unfortunately this is one of the aspects of the game that I probably could not improve even if I had time. Apart from not being able to draw well, I also have little artistic taste (For example, I'm one of those people that unironically likes comic sans). If I worked in a team with others they could probably cover for this weakness but Compo is a solo task, so I have to get better at this 😬
I agree with your feedback about the gameplay too. I wish I had more time to make the game more engaging but I think there is another element at play here as well (no pun intended). The game has a few different endings and gives you a report card with some comments on who you chose to kill. I think If I cut all of that out I would have time for a an additional enemy type or at least enough time to give the player a better attack. Doing that doesn't feel right to me though. I like it when games feel like they are responding to my decisions and I want to include that feeling in my games when I can. Of course this is not a good excuse and I agree the game play ended up very simplistic in the end.
@torte478 Thanks, You're the first person to comment on this! I know my game is very basic but I tried to do a little bit of "environmental story telling". Not very obvious when the art assets are so basic 😅
@xlambein I appreciate you playing multiple times to see different endings! Also thanks for your nice comment. Here is my attempt at explaining the arrows:
Originally I wanted the arrows to face the player on instantiation, but had trouble with making it work. (The arrows always appeared to spawn facing ~20-40 degrees off). I tried a couple of quick things to fix it which did not work. I'm an inexperienced solo contestant so when things don't work, my strategy is to just move on so I can do other things before the deadline. I think what is happening is that the arrows attempt to face the player, and even though they can't, they still get some rotation force applied to them that makes them arc or move in a curve. Ill have to experiment with it to be sure.
### spoilers
There are 4 "victory screens". After the scoresheet page, the game looks at which soul types you collected at least two of (except for the rulers). I didn't want to penalize the player too much for accidents so having a margin of error of 1 "free" kill seemed like a good Idea. The conditions for specific endings are somewhat arbitrary. For example if you play a run killing only chickens, you get one of the "secret" endings, or if you get at least 2 of every human type but no animals you get another one because you were kind to the animals. I wanted to have a lot more endings but Even with 4 I ran out of time. As it is, the end screen has the whisp-like entity from the start making a joke or pun about your choices. If I had better time management (or any artistic talent 😅) I would have liked to have a unique art piece for each ending. Unfortunately as always I ran out of time so here we are :)
@6knowledge Thanks for playing my game and thanks for leaving a comment! Unfortunately the game over issue is a bug. I have fixed it in the patched version. There are two HTML5 links on this page. "HTML5 (Original) and "HTML5 (Patched)", screenshot available below. The 2nd one will no longer have this bug, allowing you to restart after your character dies. Thank you!
Simple concept, well executed!
Although the locations are drawn very simply, they're very neat, which is also a plus; I liked it.
Overall, good luck with your future development!
By the way, if you like slightly weird games, you might want to check out our game too, haha 🥴
The multiple endings add a lot to the simple mechanics. Nice job!
I love that chicken souls are just as vaulable as human souls. Wholesome <3