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Soul collector!
Soul collector!
By noobman64
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 165 | 3.07 | 28 | |
| Fun | 102 | 3.36 | 27 | |
| Innovation | 179 | 2.72 | 27 | |
| Theme | 87 | 3.68 | 27 | |
| Graphics | 161 | 2.95 | 26 | |
| Audio | 141 | 2.78 | 27 | |
| Humor | 50 | 3.41 | 26 | |
| Mood | 122 | 3.18 | 27 | |
Comments
pres2300
2025-10-07 00:22
I am the soul collector! I really enjoyed running around and collecting souls of various creatures. I noticed health wasn't really a concern for me, but I was careful to dodge any arrows that came my way. I think you hit on all the notes for feedback I would give. It would be nice to have a bit more overall feedback when getting souls or getting hit yourself, but I understand the time crunch!
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!
@pres2300 Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for sharing your process! Regarding the arrows, yeah I ended up slowing them a bit and giving the player plenty of HP. I don't know if it's necessarily good advice, but I feel like it's better for short compo games like mine to be too easy rather than too hard. I don't have any real data to back that up though, so I'm open to change my stance. Thanks again for the feedback!
Fun 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!
@tardis2snej Thanks for playing my game! The narrator was a bit mean in that ending but you got the moral victory, so you are a winner in my book π
I finished the game in General Victory, Friend of the Animals and Humanist Ending, then found the Chicken Ending.
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. QQ20251007-143706.png 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. QQ20251007-143745.png When the arrow hits the lower right corner of the player, it will pull the player and drag the player away. QQ20251007-143604.png
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 :)
In general I enjoyed my time with your game. I did eventually manage a victory despite the apparent sometimes heat seeking nature of these arrows :)
All in all a great entry!
aright, i wanna give you some critique, though the fact that your game is playable and has a WEB version is a great plus.
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
@akuta-zehy Thanks so much for your feedback which helped me make a patch. It means a lot to me that you took the time to get multiple endings of the story, write about it, and post screenshots too. I hope you find a million dollars! Also, nice website. π
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 π«£.
@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! π. 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 π. 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 greatπ
. 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 π¬
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.
This is an effective compo game, little bit of writing, little bit of sound, basic concept. A greater than the sum of its parts game for me.
torte478
2025-10-08 17:05
I loved how behind the minimalist appearance lie little stories: a shepherd in the forest, a fortress with archers, or a whole secret flock of chickens. A bold concept and unusual execution. Excellent game!
@triggthediscovery Thanks for playing my game and for the kind words!
@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 π
eugenik
2025-10-09 07:55
Really well made game, great job! :smile:.
@eugenik Thanks for the kind words! It's not much but I'd like to think I become a little less bad with every game. The positive energy of the folks here helps :)
huihang
2025-10-10 12:20
Oh my god ,what a amzing game.Am I collecting other animals souls?I even felt guilty.What a amazing exprience.Quite horrified.
xlambein
2025-10-10 17:11
Kind-of love the derpy arrows, I don't even understand what they're doing :D I also like the graphics style, it's not very advanced but it does the job. Got three different endings :]
@huihang Thanks for the kind words! Your collecting souls for the gods, and they dont seem to care if it is animals or people. The ending depends and what kinds of souls you collected :)
@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.
xlambein
2025-10-10 20:28
I love that explanation. I think your strategy to move on when you can't get something to work is exactly right. No time to waste, got a game to ship :Dβ―And often these weird things add a sort of game jam charm to the project, like here with your arrows.
jimbly
2025-10-10 23:24
That was surprisingly fun! It was weirdly satisfying to "collect" people/chickens/etc. I tried a few runs, second run killing all of the archers and no civilians (though, quite a few chickens once I found them over there...), but didn't get a special ending :(. The arrows were a bit annoying when suddenly I was getting hit by one I dodged, coming from the side of the map I'd already cleared -_-. But, mostly they were amusing. The sound, though simple, really fit the game well.
ciphereo
2025-10-11 05:02
The gameplay of this game is very simple. The eerie atmosphere created by the music is quite strange. Collecting them makes me feel very interesting! I think this story has a lot of room for expansion. After hearing what you said about different endings, I'm thinking I'll try it a few more times!
@jimbly Thanks for the kind words! Since you didn't get to see them, I'll talk about the endings a bit just in case you are interested. If not, thanks for playing my silly game <3
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 π
) 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 :)
@ciphereo Thanks for playing my game! I usually don't get time to add music to my games so I'm really happy to hear you think it adds to the game! I did want things to be a bit eerie. For example what is your character? Is it a demon, an angel, an animal? I was going for something between all of these. Obviously my abilities are not great so it basically looks like a stick figure, but I think there is enough there to see it's supposed to be something weird
This was a really nice and fleshed out compo game. I enjoyed that you got the sound effects, music, and backstory added. The multiple endings was a really nice touch that had me playing multiple times (I only got three of the four). The arrows seemed to behave a little erratically and sometimes I couldn't tell if there was a soldier shooting at me that I missed or something, but otherwise things ran smoothly. Keep working on the art and music skills to get an even more polished game.
Haven't played one these styled games in a long time, nice little throwback. Gameplay was a bit simple but that is to be expected when you do everything solo. Didn't unfortunately get to see the end as I died and couldn't restart because the button for it didn't work (or return to menu, don't know which one). Overall a simple jam game, a few technical hiccups but it is what it is.
@bentglasstube Thanks for the kind words. It means a lot to me when I find out people play my game multiple times! Yes the arrows are ... not quite right π
. Originally they were supposed to face the player on spawn, which they did not (and still do not) do. My attempts at fixing the orientation made them curve in flight, and I could not spend any more time on it. I moved on hoping it would at least be funny to some players π«£. Thanks for the encouragements!
@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! Screenshot 2025-10-13 193152.png
petitlu
2025-10-15 21:48
I collected too much souls on my first game, it basically told me the consequences would be desastrous for the entire kingdom and that I didn't need to collect that many, I guess I'm too efficient at collecting souls somehow :smiling_imp:. I should try to go for other endings when I have some time!
Simple concept, well executed!
@petitlu Thanks for Playing my game and taking the time to write! You are a natural! If those mortals wanted to keep their souls they shouldn't have angered the gods. I doubt they really needed them anyway π
kiv
2025-10-17 12:42
I really like your style!
@kiv Thanks! I like your style too :D
Surprisingly, I didn't expect this simple game, drawn in Paint (???), to capture my attention. I liked the dialogue; it's really funny. 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 π₯΄
Today I learned I'm an efficient, man-hating monarchist.
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