pigeonic 2024-04-16 16:33
Hey, just letting you know that the link to the game doesn't work 😅
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Soul Pact
By sesmire, Wookuzi, jqnox, Klemen, Codbaade, ganca, Simke and Maercel
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 911 | 3.27 | 65 | |
| Fun | 1131 | 2.72 | 64 | |
| Innovation | 879 | 3.04 | 64 | |
| Theme | 1065 | 2.92 | 63 | |
| Graphics | 382 | 3.99 | 66 | |
| Audio | 391 | 3.53 | 65 | |
| Humor | 944 | 2.38 | 58 | |
| Mood | 509 | 3.63 | 63 |
Hey, just letting you know that the link to the game doesn't work 😅
We are currently working on it, there has been some minor bugs, sorry!
Dev note: there are 3 levels in game overall, first level has 1 riddle, second level has 3 puzzles, third level has final animation (due to lack of time to create a puzzle).
2 known bugs: 1st: animations of the previously played character still play if C is pressed during movement. 2nd: you can jump off the bridge in 3rd level (somebody deleted collision walls), and are unable to return / restart level.
Very hard to figure out what to do. The maximum what I've achieved is to open a book. Other than that it is very intriguing game.
Clue: Only Soul can open up clues for the first riddle.
It's very interesting 🤔
looks fun!
I really like the artstyle and the atmopshere within the game. But unfortuneatly i didn't manage to find out any clues either. I opened a book and tried to solve the puzzle within, but didn't find any other objects in the room to interact with. And the blueish glow didn't lead to anyting aswell. It would be nice to atleast have a interact promt, when you look at an object that you can interact with. I see alot of potential and fun, if the gameplay would be improved on!
Hello @aracana , thanks for your review!
The main reason why there isn't any UI interact prompt is because then player could figure the puzzle out simply by running around looking for items.
I know it seems hard (especially the "spirits delight" could cause problems to a non-native English speaker, it means alchocol beverage, also there is a separate book that shows what to do with items) but that's really what we've been aiming for since the game itself is short (only 2 puzzle levels). I agree that the book clues need rework / retexture, maybe even include the picture of the item in question.
Also second level is much harder to solve(took about 1 hour and a half to our 3 testers)
Were the puzzles easy to solve the game would last around 10 minutes, that's the reason for the difficulty.
@jqnox Thank you for your explanation. I'm not a big puzzle game player, that i probably why i couldn't figure it out. But it was fun none the less!
@aracana, thank you! We really need as much feedback as possible as we plan to polish and upgrade the game and at some point even release it with CO-OP function (that's why switching between characters is as it is).
That being said, I encourage everyone who played / tested the game to rate it, so that we get the possibility of getting the final scores at the end of the jam.
I think the atmosphere and music were pretty good on this game. The movement felt a bit slippery (where you coast quite a ways after releasing the input), and I didn't know what to do, really. I found a bottle and couple books I could open, but that's it. The music had a pretty harsh stop/start when it would loop back and play again as well. I think you are on to something, though, and I like your plan to make it a co-op game. It sounds like it would be fun! Keep up the good work!
Cool atmosphere
The art is charming, and the puzzles are clever. Long live low poly!!!
Great game. I love it. 8 Bobers Kurwas out of 10
Hmm, I can't seem to get past the main menu - I can see it and hear the music, but there's no cursor.
I will need to keep trying but wanted to share one observation (maybe a bug?) for now: In level 1, I picked up a bottle and brought it to the gate. Switched to the soul. Tried to grab the bottle. Didn't work. Switched back to the body and dropped the bottle. Switched to soul. I look down at the bottle and it looks like the body is lying down on the floor on the same side as me (the soul) on the same side of the gate... like in putting the bottle down, the body somehow fell through the gate! Not sure if that was supposed to happen. So then I switched to the body and found myself in a grey nebula, unable to move... hmmm seems like a bug... but this is a puzzle game, so maybe it's part of the puzzle? Am I stuck in the threshold between two worlds? I switch back to the soul... AND THE BODY HAS DISAPPEARED. Truly creepy! Hahah, if this is a bug, it's the perfect kind -- the kind that adds value to the game's story :D
I'll definitely return to playing it after work :)
@pierogo press alt.
@p-man it was a bug we already fixed and will be live in a few. A very interesting take on it though, truly made the team chuckle!
I really like the graphics and the music. The game's atmosphere is very well done. Kudos to you!
I haven't managed to get through the first room yet (I don't speak English well) but I will definitely try again!
Wow, I am impressed by your graphics and atmosphere of the game, but unfortunately i didn’t clearly understand what I should do in some cases(maybe adding some tutorial?). I hope, that you will continue working on that game and do something amazing!
It was a very pretty game with a good sound track, I felt like the game could have used an in game tutorial, because it took me a while even to realize that I could press c. Other than that I thought it was good :D
@anaastaska thank you! It really means a lot to us. We are aware that it's hard to figure it out and we're working on it. And we're looking for sponsors so that we could update / upgrade the game even further and at some point release it with both singleplayer and co-op version
@tritax711 thank you, it sure was quite the brainstorm when we were working on the atmosphere and the experience (and soon story) we wanted to show & tell!
@xeph-nebula thank you for your kind words & review. We're working the tutorial in this very moment!
I opened the game, heard the music in the menu, checked on the site if it was custom made, and already gave the 5 stars for the audio before even playing the game. :joy:
The visual were amazing, although as someone who's native language isn't English, I found the text based riddles very difficult. Still had fun nonetheless, and the atmosphere was amazing!
A small tip: I saw the camera clipping through the walls when I was in like a 45 degree angle into them. I also had that in my game, and it's a super easy fix. Just click on the camera(s) in the editor, and lower the "clipping plane: near" to as little as you can. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't take away anything from the game, but I thought I'd let you know about this very quick 5 second fix.
The game has very good graphics and audio, but unfortunately it's not clear at all what needs to be done. The text in the books is very difficult to read both due to visual contrast and the positioning of the books.
@sariiger haha thanks, and we're aware of the issue with riddles and are working on it. And thanks a lot for letting us in on the clipping plane camera option!
I couldn't click on anything in the main menu to start playing, if it gets updated I'll come back to rate/play! Playing on windows. Opening music sounds great!
@emty thank you for your 2 cents on the matter! We are working on the riddle difficulty as we speak, ti make it easier but just as enjoyable once you solve it!
Great Graphics and puzzle! The guidance can be more intuitive. It is a little confusing first. I love the sound design and the cartoonish art style! Great Vibes!
@deerofblue thank you!! We are working on guidance for each puzzle in the game, the thing is we made the puzzle so it was clear to us, but after getting so many feedbacks about clues we immedietly started working on it!
Its look pretty good the game, I really liked the graphics, fro the riddle, well, I am not good at them, I just found the spirit delight, but never realice on what to use it, and somehow I droped it and went through the floor xD but pretty nice game.
@slagos try dropping it into the blazier 🤫 A clue since it's very unclear in the game. Glad you enjoyed it though!
Not bad at all! Looks phenomenal for a jam game; I love the art style. I was a bit confused about the premise and where exactly to start with the riddle (they can be interpreted in many ways which throws a lot of people off) but it's very atmospheric and has some fun ideas!
@abynaut thx, yeah the riddle can be a bit difficult to get.
graphics is amazing, cool idea of swaping between body and soul
Really beautiful graphics for a jam game and nice atmosphere. Like others, I had some trouble figuring out what I should do, though.
Upon startup, having to enable the cursor to just click start kind of threw me off. In my opinion, the menu doesn't really serve a purpose other than to show the player a cool song, since the settings button was unresponsive (after enabling the cursor). Cryptic riddles and lack of UI are definitely not my type of game, so I had to look through comments to get beyond picking up a bottle of spirits.
Music looping and sound effect looping appear to be an issue, as I could hear an obvious stop and startup to the song and the fire crackling sound effect seemed to randomly stop for me.
The visual models, map design, sound effects, and controls are very impressive. I think one thing that could increase the immersion for the controls would be to give the non-soul player movement feel less "glidey", if that makes sense.
Cheers. :)
the visuals were very pretty, and i got to the second level after a while. quite a few times i thought i had the right answer but nothing happened. you almost have to be right on top of these things to pick them up. but i couldn't for the life of me figure out the second level. i couldn't figure out the combination for the buttons nor what i was supposed to do with the objects that made the sounds when i clicked them. i noticed it needed to be box, well, then spear, but i couldn't figure out a 4th item to click on. maybe it makes more sense if i get the button combination figured out first? i tried brute forcing it but i didn't know how many times each button might need to be clicked. I tried for probably an hour and a half.
i did find a couple of bugs. well, a bug and a way to exploit it. the body doesn't seem to have a looking down animation, so his whole body rotates. i figured out if you switch to him while he's looking too far down he'll clip through the floor. i also realized that if you look almost that far down, he'll clip through any walls he happens to be in front of when switching back to him. i was able to clip through the door in the second level to get to the lab before figuring anything else out. but that didn't really help much either.
I was a bit confused by the main menu at first, then I was able to launch the game. Really enjoy the art and the music! It is well done!
The missing mouse cursor in the menu was not a great start, that should be automatic rather than requiring a key. Very nice chill atmosphere, a bit jarring when the music loops though. I ended up glitching through the gate somehow when carrying the first item and switching between characters, not sure how I was supposed to get out of there. Also there are four verses but the puzzle was completed with three items so I am even more confused. Nice riddles though. I gave up on the second level.
Looks Great! I like the amount and style of the assets. Runescape vibes
Game looks great!! The beginning is a bit weird with how you need to press a button to bring up the cursor. But not much of a problem. Love the escape room concept and out of body idea with the soul.
Menu song is stunning! Controls felt quite unresponsive but I kinda like it actually. Game in a way punishes chaotically running/jumping around and puts you in a correct state of mind. I can see that you put a lot of soul into it! Pun intended. (I was convinced that the game froze on launch but apparently it is just a missing mouse cursor.)
My adventure ended in a room with a bunch of jugs. I really have no idea what I was supposed to do with it. I found 3 books, read them, but to be honest, it’s not even clear which book should be read first in order to understand the procedure. One of the books has duplicate pages. The hints in the book are written very vaguely to understand what is required of you, so I tried to find something that I could interact with, but I couldn’t find it. This frustrates me, perhaps this was done with the purpose of making me think about how to correctly understand the text in the book or so that I opened ChatGPT and apparently rewrote the text from the book manually there so that he would explain to me what I need to do, but this is not the same gameplay which would be interesting to me. The graphics look good and remind me of FOR THE KING.
I'm loving the mood and vibe of the setting the game have! Unfortunately I'm not smart enough to figure out what to do or interact with so I didn't get further than opening up a book x'D Other than that it was really interesting how the character and his soul was different to one another. It shows there being a depth to a story which I really appreciated!
The idea is interesting and chosen artstyle works well! I think the game could win from having an outline around items you can interact with. Also the movement is too floaty.
Anyway, jam is jam, you just can't polish to a perfection such complex game in mere 72 hours. Nice entry!
It seems to be a very bearutifull game, but unfortunatly I can't run it :/ I'm on macOS
I'm going to be a bit critical, so please bear with me. I can appreciate the technical difficulty that went in the making of this game but here are my qualms with it in terms of puzzle design and artistic content.
- The player movement feels sluggish and floaty, and I sometimes got stuck between objects. - I can't even call the first level a puzzle. It's just try to grab every item and if it picks up throw it into the fire. I gave up on the second level because I couldn't find any object that I could interact with. - The graphics may be good in technique but look too plain. Nothing makes them distinct from a typical Unity low poly style, which makes them look boring. - So is the music. Except for the vocal song that plays in the intro, for the rest of the game, all I can hear are two lines of piano. It sounds half relaxing and half like avant-garde serial music lobotomy. I'm not even sure the melodies were written in any specific scale or if it's atonal. Following the notes of a scale, adding some chords and more instrument lines would definitely help. The music can still be relaxing but more pleasing to the ear. It also cuts off abruptly before restarting the loop.
Otherwise, I think the map design and models look good. Good job and congratulations for making it in time for the Jam!
@jean-francois oh that's unfortunate! I hope we'll end up making a MacOS port sometime in the future so you'll get the chance to play it!
First of all I want to say, great job! I loved the whole game but in particular I feel like the music was amazing. I really appreciate the amount of detail and the well-crafted puzzles. However I do believe that some puzzles weren't very clear and required a bit too much guessing, like at the start of level 2. Also I noticed a bug while playing which is that if you switch characters while performing an action (e.g., walking, jumping, interacting) the character gets frozen mid animation which is kind of weird to look at.
Overall I think that, while it's not very on theme, it is quite promising and I feel like with a bit of polish and some rebalancing, it could be great in a final project.
This is a cool game, and WOW is it gorgeous! The atmosphere set by by the visuals, lighting, and audio is really top-notch. I had some trouble figuring out what to do though. I read about a bottle that I would need to find but I swear I couldn't find it anywhere! maybe some tutorial or a guide for those who get stuck would be helpful! Still though, nice work.
@thomas-gelman Thank you, we've put a lot of hours into making the game itself look beautiful :)
Also I am sorry to hear that, try checking in the first room at one of the tables, if you decide to play again! Also I hope that the bottle didn't cause us to lose some points in the ratings :)
If you do decide to play again and get to the second level, I am sorry if you get stuck, I didn't design the riddle there and people say it's much harder. (I only made the whole lvl 1)
Loved the art style and feel. Worked my way through the first room after a few tries, but couldnt progress anywhere on the second level. Intro music was great. Loved the escape room flashbacks it gave me :D
Notes for polish: - control scheme switches between room 1 and 2, 1 being E and 2 being left mouse which confused me at first - get too close to things and the camera sort of clips through them - jumping as one character makes the other character flinch - audio glitch as music loops - i love puzzles, but i dont like having to resort to spamming, which i had to do in this game because i wasnt sure if i was solving the right way or not.
Seriously loved the visuals tho, that style would look good even in 20 years time.
Thank you for your feedback @dregs . Can I ask when did you download the game? Because a little less than a day before you commented we pushed out the newest patch which fixed almost everything that you commented about. If you don't mind please consider rating us again. And if the download link doesn't work correctly please let us know.
Interesting mechanics here with the body-swapping! The spirit's role was a little unclear at times, but I think this is a great foundation for a fun puzzle game. Loved the mood and the character designs. Good job, team! Thank you for sharing this onstream <3
You saw me playing it live :)
I liked the graphics. Also the intro music was just delightful!
I wasn't really able to figure out what the game was about. Even if you were nudging me in the twitch chat.
Some veeeery trivial puzzle for the first contact would be great - just to give me a feeling that I know what the game wants me to do.
Thank you for stopping by!
Wonderful art style and audio. a ton of heart has gone into making this and it shows. I was so stuck though... I didn't get anywhere aside from lifting the bottle but had no idea where to take it. Only when I watched the playthrough video above did I see that you could open the gate!
@designernap Thank you! I know I just had to make that playthrough. We wanted to keep it a puzzle, so we added those blue lights that are visible only to the soul to indicate which buttons soul has to/can press, but they seem to fit too well with the environment. We weren't really sure what to do about them without making it too obvious, maybe we should have put more hints or just straight up write it in the tutorial that soul can interact as much with the environment as the ghosts can in movies
The graphics, the audio, the gameplay, the puzzles, the overall presentation was very well done. I think the craziest thing about this is how you managed to coordinate 8 people to put together something so polished in only 72 hours! I can't imagine how hectic discussions were or how difficult it was to make decisions.
This is basically a complete game. Some more content, polish, and maybe reworking the graphics a bit to get a more unique style/direction and you are very close to a shippable product. Great work guys!