​The demon world is a rough place, given that it's the same world as ours. A certain demon (won't spoil who) has only a small, humble desire- eat as many of those yummy human souls as demonly possible. But human soul collectors - people who only collect human souls for their retail values and don't even really appreciate them - make it harder and harder for a humble hard-hunting demon to get his hands on some good human souls. Or evil human souls. Let's go with evil or we'll run into morality issues here, I always said evil. Will the demon overcome the collectors and their shallow representation of retro collection turning into a grift? Why is it so fun when stuff explodes into giblets? And is adding a bit of gray with the spray can tool in Aseprite enough to call something a new stage? All these and other important questions about life will be answered in- Demon Scalper Blues!

There seems to be a bit of drama about collecting in the retro gaming community recently, so that was the second thing that came to mind when I heard the theme "Collectors" (personally I only know I will never own a copy of Segagaga, but I think that wasn't in the cards even before grading sites existed). The first thing was demons collecting souls, so I thought I'd mash the two together with all the subtleness of a plane crash on a boat. And here we are, Demon Scalper Blues! Was a little worried that killing people would be too violent, so I added that you only force unhealthy lifestyle choices on them, which is of course legal and economically desirable, so it turned into biting social commentary. You can say that if someone walks into your room while you're playing it. I have a couple of grievances with how it turned out, but in the end I had fun making it, that can be my little victory, isn't that the true Ludum Dare goal, alas. Hope you can also still get a little something out of this game, thanks a lot if you give it a try!