Play game
Soul Survivor: Trials of the Goddess's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Sound/Music | #4 | 4.571 | 4.571 |
| Overall Fun | #11 | 4.429 | 4.429 |
| Controls / UI | #12 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
| Art / Graphics | #17 | 4.429 | 4.429 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
I played this game on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1834468660?t=00h46m00s
Overall, fun game! I really loved the option to choose female characters, too many games don't offer that option, so great job there! I also really liked that the intro story said "humankind" instead of "mankind"
As mentioned in the stream, I think the starting was a bit long with too many options. I spent quite a while choosing the character, without really knowing how they would affect the game, since they talked about stats that I didn't really know yet. I could make guesses based on previous experience with other RPGs, but... it may be better to have a quick start mode for the first playthrough at least, maybe just choose gender, name and that's it!
I liked that each island had 3 fights and 3 items, it made progression clearer, and the player has to choose which items and monsters they want to get/fight. The fights were ok overall, although my fight with 3x apparitions (level 0) was harder than I'd expected, and I felt that the exp I got didn't quite reflect the difficulty. Maybe it would be an easier fight for other characters with AOE?
I liked the story that I read so far, and the bits of lore that I found. I was intrigued about the overall lore and story of the game, what happened with the goddess, etc. Great job!
Thank you so much for the stream!
Your feedback on the character creation process is much appreciated; agreed, would love to see more games with female protagonists or the option to select or customize based on the player's preference. (the skin tone option was also added with inclusivity in mind)
I also think having some kind of "quick start" option during character creation is a great suggestion and should be relatively easy to implement.
The multi-enemy fights can be tricky! Part of the fun (I hope) of the game is trying to optimize encounters with less than perfect information. I will mention, you can generally one-shot each of the Level 0 enemies with a Spell or Tech skill, or you can try to prioritize defense. But yes, in general, some fights require a "game plan" and even then not all of them are worth taking, depending on your loadout.
Thanks again for featuring my game and glad you had a fun experience!
I am going through all submissions to make all developers aware of an important Google form I've made.
I'm joining the IQ folks to help organize smaller events in between the main FQ event in order to help prevent us from getting too many games in main events. Right now, I have a planned structure for these events but I would like to hear from everyone who was in this event in order to tune things better. The survey is a bit long, but it covers as much as I could think of. If you can take the time to do the survey by June 1st, I would immensely appreciate it!
You can find the form here: https://forms.gle/P9LPYwERhJtpZzteA
Hello from tonight's stream!
This game was so fantastic to play! It became so agonizing to choose what to take and what to fight and what order to do it in order to min-max every element of it.
With that said, there were three things that stood out to me as things should be adjusted.
The first was the use of a single ring slot. Technically speaking, humans can have MANY rings on their fingers. As such, it doesn't make sense to me to only have one ring slot instead of at least two.
The second was how the skills didn't really seem to do much more damage. By the time I was level 4, the skill was doing only 5 damage more than the base attack. However, by this point 5 damage was so unlikely to be the difference in health between taking an additional turn or not.
Third and most important: you didn't let me pet the dog. I don't care that it's a wolf. LET ME PET THE DOG.
I GOT IT. MAKE IT THAT YOU PET THE WOLF IN A FIGHT AND YOU CAN START A PROCESS TO TAME IT AS AN EXTRA SOURCE OF DAMAGE DURING THAT RUN
Hi, thanks so much for streaming the game and for your great feedback. Glad you had fun with it, and I will definitely catch the VOD since I had to step away partway through the stream. The way you took extra time to really analyze the choices was awesome to watch!
So, uh... I guess I only have a single ring slot for game balance at this point. Like, there's a "feasible" lore explanation that magic rings have to be attuned to a person and only one can be attuned at a time, or something. (I think D&D does something similar?) To be honest, re-balancing everything around a second Ring slot would be a considerable undertaking which I'd need to really think about. But I can definitely see your point there!
I get what you mean about the Tech skills as well, though that one is a bit more nuanced. Some of the basic Techs granted by weapons are only slightly more powerful than a regular attack, but that's enough to (for example) drop a low level foe in a single shot. So they're more useful in some contexts than others. Whereas Tech skills attached to stronger weapons, or granted via scrolls, are a bit more impressive at least in terms of single-target damage. That all said, if it feels too weak, it's 100% worth it on my end to review the numbers one more time.
And YES, most importantly: the dog! Gosh I wish I had thought of this, haha... OK so while I can't promise making the "animal companion" suggestion into an actual feature quite this late into development, I can assure you that I am working on other projects where you can, indeed, pet the dog.
I will outright say right now. If you plan to sell this game and put in the tame the wolf feature, I will be doing everything I can to get it going viral.
(PART 1) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1822735753
(PART 2) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1822735754
Great idea to mix roguelite elements into an RPG by allowing players to keep 3 items from their previous run after death. This ultimately progresses the game forward over time and opens up a lot of replayability. You have a great game on your hands. It just needs a little polish! The first 30 minutes were tough to get through but the game definitely opens up to be SUPER fun once I learned how everything worked. A lot of people may not play through the first 30 minutes to give it that chance.
The only problem with giving players too many choices at the very start is that it can be very overwhelming, especially for players not familiar with RPGs. I would slowly streamline new players by having a tutorial island that has them fight one specific enemy as they learn the core game mechanics. Then introduce a second enemy and a third, both times revealing more features about your game. After that, you can throw them to the wolves because you have now equipped them with the knowledge they needed. Now the extra options won't feel so overwhelming in Area 1. This is just a suggestion though! Thank you.
Thank you so much for the great stream, it was a ton of fun!
There are definitely some opportunities to streamline the initial choices and remove some of that overwhelming feeling from the early game. Along with fixing the display issues with treasure chests and bombable walls you had pointed out, it should help smooth out the player experience quite a bit.
Much appreciated!
This game is amazing. Great style, great ui, it's all the good parts of retro gaming with a lot of modernization that makes it a breeze to play. I will say when I beat a cultist I was underleveled against I was very happy. The game really feels polished. I did have a bit of choice anxiety at the beginning with so many options for hero generation.
Thanks so much for the feedback!
Removing some of the clunki-ness and poor UX of retro games while keeping the fun / nostalgic parts was a big goal with this project.
I'm also glad to hear that the rather steep challenge has been rewarding to solve. (I love those "YES" moments when you take out an over-leveled monster, too!)
I'd be interested to know if you think the choices are too much, or if once you get a feel for the game (and/or on subsequent playthroughs) it alleviates the stress a bit.
Thank you again for playing. Much appreciated!
I'm big on simplicity, but your game is inspired by final fantasy so the job system makes sense.