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Souls Beacon's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #8 | 3.402 | 4.500 |
| Visuals | #10 | 3.024 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #12 | 2.570 | 3.400 |
| Implementation of adaptive music | #13 | 2.457 | 3.250 |
| Audio | #14 | 2.268 | 3.000 |
| Gameplay | #16 | 1.701 | 2.250 |
Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Does this submission follow the optional theme?
Yes
This submission follows the optional theme "At the edge".
Description of the game
At the edge of life and death (purgatory)
Original Audio
Yes
This submission created the vast majority of the audio during the jam.
Original Art
Yes
This submission created the vast majority of the art during the jam.
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Comments
The visual direction you're going for is very interesting, I like it! It definitely works with the story and atmosphere. As for the music, the transition is flawless! However, at times it gets a bit too repetitive and loopy.
For the gameplay, I think it's a clever idea, but as some people said below, the souls would sometimes randomly collide with the red blocks without the player ever interacting with it, which is a bit of a frustration. I rescued around 6-7 souls already which then suddenly reduced to 4 because the souls spawned so near/right on top of the red block which is very frustrating.
Overall, good job! I think it's an interesting concept! Also may I ask, what engine are you using? It almost looks as if you programmed your own engine 😅.
Thanks for your comment ^_^
I know it's a repetitive task : who has told that saving souls would be easy ? ^^" I've explained how this game works in an another anwser to a comment : it's why souls behaviours are sometimes impredictable. Well done for reaching the 6-7 saved souls ! So close to 10 becomes a challenge against Purgatory (and its aim of equilibrium).
My game engine is "Clickteam Fusion". It helps me to create anything from scratch. So with this tool (that avoid me to write in a specific language) I can program my own game engine to be sure it fits to my own project. So everytime I start with an empty page and begin with absolutly nothing (no sky, no gravity, no pre-made concept or gameplay, ...) and create everything "by hand". Perhaps harder, but freedom of creativity has no price.
Take time to try this game another day, it's very grateful to reach the end, specially when it's not an easy task.
The visuals do the climate, it feels so well! I loved it. Only the button sound effect (so harsh) in the menu ruins this a little. Also, I must be terrible at this game but I couldn't rescue any soul, I really tried ;) Current speed makes it way out of control for me to enjoy gameplay or feel fair ;) Besides its a nice idea, congrats
Great visuals, I love the background, looks really impressive :)
You had some good gameplay ideas!
Small nitpicks: pushing the souls was a bit too unpredictable for me, and switching layers was quite slow for the game's pace.
Thanks to both of you for your comment about my game ^ _ ^
A few things must be explained if you want to better appreciate and understand this "game": it is clearly impossible to be able to correctly juggle between the 3 views to succeed in anticipating the movement of each soul and each cube. So, the game is not only to save souls, but also to study your choices ...
... The game studies what you do, and adapts accordingly. Balance between worlds is a priority? Preference to display the word of "cube to avoid", or "cube to catch"? Willingness to push souls or to let them do "live their life" without intervening? Willingness to damn souls, or to save them by pushing them towards the good cubes?
Depending on the progress, there will be one, two or three cube of damnation and / or salvation. The souls themselves will react with a more or less important degree of chance by fleeing the player according to his way of playing (the directions are caculated with a random number increasing if the player makes too much mistakes).
Reading your feelings towards the behavior of the souls, it is very likely that you have looked for the balance the worlds by juggling too quickly between them, and ended up letting the souls fend for themselves: they leave more easily in any direction as you approach, even if it means ricocheting very fast on the edges of the world and the various obstacles, becoming difficult to help.
Only two endings remains accessible, and depend only on the greatest number of souls saved or damned. It is therefore perfectly possible, without having all the previous technical details (I've coded to propose a specific experience for each party), to focus as asked only on the desire to save or damn souls, and adapt your game as you go ( knowing that it is always more difficult for the player to tip the scales to one side or the other, the goal of purgatory being naturally to achieve equilibrium).
Again, thank you for playing my little game ^_^
(I've reach 15 on 12 crystals on yours. I still wonder if I've not missed hidden thing as it seems you've added some optional funny aims)
I really enjoyed the over look and feel of this word, surreal and different, just how I like it.
The gameplay idea is creative, however I found it more challenging than I like. It felt like the souls were getting eaten almost at random because it was just too hard for me to keep track of all three things. By the time I figured out where one type of cube was, the soul had fluttered off somewhere or the other type of cube had eaten it. Additionally I think I might have been experiencing a bug, all the positional audio seemed only to be coming out of the right side channel, making locating the soul by sound not possible.
The music tracks are interesting by themselves, however I didn't really get the sense that there was an adaptive element to it based on the game state or player action other than the crossfade between each dimensions bgm loop.
Other than that I think this is an interesting game that tries somethings I haven't seen before. nice work!
Hello and thank you for trying out my game, and for leaving such a detailed review.
I'm sorry if the soul location sound didn't work for you, and was only coming out on the right channel. I'll take a closer look on my program to fix that, even if it works for me. As for the music, on the other hand, it is not simple loops, but of different orchestrations where 25 different tracks which play simultaneously, changing their volume more or less quickly and intensely, in order to offer an immersion without no cuts. We are very far from the basic superposition of loops, or even effects and sound effects added depending on the event as we have too often under FMOD or Wwize: here, it is a composition based on harmonies and melodies which allow three states / atmospheres with subtle harmonic and melodic variations, via an audio engine that I created myself, and not a simple change of pre-made orchestrations.
For the game, it is true that it is not easy to juggle the 3 perceptions, but with insistence, we can discover the two ends (winning or losing), since I have succeeded several times then that I'm particularly bad at this type of game. I am delighted to see that you liked the aesthetics of this game: initially made in 3D, I took all my 3D renderings by hand to redraw them, scan them and reinject them into the game, in order to offer a graphic universe dreamlike original. That's what probably took me the longest.
Thanks again.
Ah ok, it's cool to hear that you also created a custom audio system. I'm going to check out the game again knowing what to listen for.