itch.io

Thanks so much for playing and for your comment!

This reminds me that I have a fairly substantially updated version I need to get onto Itch. A lot of the UI is revamped, so perhaps that would fix the control issue you were encountering. I’ve been busy with work and haven’t had a chance to work on this for some time, but I have some time off soon and was going to spend some time on it.

As for spell targeting, it’s intentional that by default you can only target the nearest enemy. (I have an esoteric in-game explanation for this, which I should probably add to the Help screens I have in the new release.) The intention is for alternate targeting schemes to be a soul effect. To make this really work, though, I need to make some adjustments to dungeon generation to allow for more variety in tactical movement.

This particular version is pretty easy, after a few releases that were unfairly hard (or at least had unexpected difficulty spikes). The current development version is harder but I think fairer than earlier versions.

Thanks for the kind words about the writing! I had a lot of fun with it.

Thanks for playing! Forgetting arrow keys was a total oversight on my part. I have them in my dev branch but I’ve also made a lot of balance changes and need to do playtesting before cutting another release for Itch.

I enjoy the concept and the atmosphere. The performance feels pretty laggy, but I’m using a not-very-capable laptop. I think I might have fooled myself with the level generation algorithm – how are the stairwells supposed to work? Are they connected? At one point I was convinced I was stuck, backtracked all the way to the beginning of the second level, and then when entering the stairs I ended up on a new level. I’m wondering if I had just happened to luck into having the stairs to the next level generate in my beginning room and confused it with stairs going back.

With the run option, movement felt like it would have been fine if I wasn’t having performance issues, but the main thing that would have improved my experience was a little more indication of whether I was making progress.

I had fun, thanks!

I’m a big fan of “pick a trajectory and force” as a mechanic in games, going back to GORILLA.BAS on DOS, the Worms games, etc. And I love roguelikes as well. So this is right up my alley. I also experienced the shot changing directions when interacting with the UI, but that was the only major issue I encountered. The tracer powerup would be more useful if it gave a slight hint of deflection angle.

Really impressive work for 7 days. Obviously there could be more Content, but it feels very complete and self-contained in its current state. I’m definitely planning to come back to this one.

Just to clarify, was it unclear which enemies could hit you at any given time, or unclear which enemies were hitting you? Right now, the logic for ranged attacks is very basic: if you can see a monster, they can see you, and ranged attacks have infinite range. (This makes +sight soul effects a double-edged sword.)

I definitely need a “look” command to supplement the targeting view, so it’s easier to distinguish different enemy types. One thing I’m trying to balance, and which is only partially implemented right now, is the idea that the player character’s perception is unusual: they are a nearly-disembodied entity that doesn’t have eyes, etc. and is navigating the mortal world by something like active sonar, except with spiritual essence rather than sound. That’s why you can only target the nearest creature, but in later iterations I expect to add different targeting options as soul effects.

Thanks for playing and for the feedback!

Thanks! I honestly just kind of forgot arrow keys existed, but now that you’ve reminded me I’m going to add them.

Thanks for playing, and I appreciate the feedback! I’m not sure if you played the archived 7DRL submission or the current version, but I made a few changes recently to balance out that particular issue. You can (r)elease souls to gain essence, which is a better deal than having them knocked off you by attacks at 0 essence. You can also now pass through all monsters’ squares, although of course you’re leaving yourself open for attacks.

The flip side is what you mention about being able to overrun enemies at full essence. There’s a few mechanics that are meant to balance this, but they need tweaking. The essence cost to go through passages is meant to force a risk/reward tradeoff (entering a more dangerous area with less essence, but also progressing faster). The auto-targeting mechanic sometimes forces you to destroy dying monsters that are in a place that’s too dangerous to hit.

My next round of updates will include adding more monsters and tweaking level generation. Right now there’s a bit of a “feast or famine” situation with vermin. There’s also some more soul effects I have planned that will increase tactical options. The Slow effect needs a substantial nerf, as well. And there’s one mechanic that was always intended but I never got around to implementing – dying monsters should actually, y’know, die eventually, so you can’t just leave them around as essence caches.

My first completed roguelike. I ended up doing almost all of the work in the first and last 12 hours of the jam, due to the week being busier than I expected. I went in with the goal of focusing on the primary game mechanic -- devouring and claiming souls to gain power -- and leaning as much as possible on off-the-shelf options for level generation, ASCII graphics, paring down non-essential mechanics, etc. Even attack targeting is automatic, which actually ended up creating some tactical considerations.

The game is playable and winnable, but I'll freely admit the balance is wonky and it can be unfair. It could use a lot more content and a lot more tuning. On the other hand, it's short enough that if you get into a bad situation it won't take that long to recover.

This is a browser-based game using rot.js and TypeScript. The game UI is rendered in HTML in the most primitive possible style. I write software professionally so I took the opportunity to write fast and sloppy code.

I think I have the bones of something interesting here, and after a break am planning to refactor and clean up the code for further development. There were tons of things that hit the cutting room floor (stealth mechanics, ESP, a more interesting win condition, expandable soul slots, a lot more spell options...) that I'd like to try out. I'll probably leave this one as is and create a new version called Soul Brunch or the like.

Based on previous years and this year's devlogs, I'm not expecting it to stack up against the competition, but I'm proud of getting it done, and hopefully someone out there finds it interesting or diverting.

This is really lovely! My submission is more conventional in presentation but I also was focusing on strategic movement and resource conservation with simplified mechanics. Your idea is better realized, though, and much prettier :)