Bay 12 Games Forum

Hmmm?

My soul is feeling a little bit sickly (no it's not, that's just word) so I decided to make a new "big" project ...



SOUL PRISON!!!
Based on a (bullet hell) game jam version I did. What I liked
about making that version was I got to do anything I wanted
when it came to enemy design. You see, in a bullet hell the
enemies can do whatever the cheese they want. Tengai and
Undertale are 2 good examples of this type of design.
Tengai where a giant samurai fish explodes into a death turtle.



Didn't believe me?

The jam version was kind of inspired by Undertale's style (then
again the theme was constricted I think).




But this time I decided I liked the simple asthetic and made it
a roguelike dungeon similar to nethack and The Binding of
Isaac (which I've actually never really played XD ). Feel free to share any opinions or thoughts (including you future self, I know you'll see this :wizard: )

The main inspiration of Soul Prison was taken from a bunch of
things I liked from particular games. Namely: The Binding of
Isaac, Nuclear Throne and Brogue.

THE BINDING OF ISAAC



The good
• Lots of items and powerups that don't cancel each other out
• Powerups have visual effects on the character so at the end
you'll look really different from the start
• Player characters that change play style
• Cool enemy design
• Quite a lot of enemies

The bad
• Kind of heavy on luck and what you find
• Boring enemies in gameplay (in a sense)
• Slowish
• Player characters kinda look like Isaac with hair XD (...or
similar)


NUCLEAR THRONE


weapons

The good
• Fast paced (yes, I'm impatient)
• Weapons that are really different from one another
• Largely skilled based
• Lots of player characters that look and play drastically different
• Really cool enemy design
• Good enemy design (gameplay wise)
• Simple streamlined design
• Lore fit in with barely any text

The bad
• Limited "game"
• Too...simple for what I want


BROGUE

The good
• Weapons that are really different from one another
• Simple streamlined design
• Failure always happens in a fun way ...ALWAYS



• Lots of enemies that are drastically different from on another
• *Rare variation of enemies and items
• Lots of items that are different from one another
• Really nice effects with the ASCII art and lighting
• Quick to get into thoughtful action
• Makes you think and use tactics
• Staff of Discord
• Enemies interact with the environment (limited though)
• Enemies interact with each other (whether to help or hinder)
• Good balance of skill and luck
• Nice map design

The bad
• One character (though that's not too bad and easy mode's
player is a "&" instead of "@")
• Luck be a lemming though ( I don't know what that phrase
means but I'm saying that RNG can skrew you up)

* Yes, other roguelikes and games have "rare" harder variants of normal
enemies, but the modular way Brogue does it is so simple and
it works. They may apply a buff to an enemy. That's all.
Explosive buffs (enemy will explode on death), Brutal/Berserker
buff (enemy is stronger than normal), Toxic (Enemy emits gas
when hit), and a bunch more. It's still limited but I'll like to
expand on this in mine.
And when it comes to items such as weapons and armour, the
bethey could cursed or enchanted. Enchanted weapons work
better and cursed ones do less damage...but SOMETIMES it
may be more than just that. Some cursed equipment may have
bad effects (mercy, duplication of enemies, explosive) and
some enchanted may have goo effects (protection,
regeneration, speed). It really makes some weapons feel
special when you find out that all along that you had a Mace of
Jelly Slaying.

Theres a lot of good there for Brogue, huh? Heheh, Brogue is
deep. Go play it.

Now with all of this I want to make something that takes the
good of the games and avoids the bads.
So, finally, I present the core philosophy of "SOUL PRISON":



The Good Soul
• Lots of items and powerups that don't cancel each other out
• Powerups have visual effects on the character so at the end
you'll look really different from the start
• Fast paced (yes, yes, I'm impatient)
• Weapons that are really different from one another
• Largely skilled based
• Lots of player characters that look and play drastically
different (>5)
• Really cool enemy design
• Lore fit in with barely any text
• Weapons that are really different from one another
• Simple streamlined design
• Failure always happens in a fun way ...ALWAYS
• Lots of enemies that are drastically different from on another
• Rare variation of enemies and items
• Lots of items that are different from one another
• Quick to get into thoughtful action
• Makes you think and use tactics
• Staff of Discord (yes)
• Enemies interact with the environment
• Enemies interact with each other (whether to help or hinder)
• LOTS of enemies

The Bad Soul
• It's made by me!!! (Jk, future self, jk)

The Ugly Soul
• me?
• <??>

And along with a special rule I to help me with "LOTS of
enemies". I'll try and make at least one enemy a day!! (When
things like battery life and electricity don't fail me.) Obviously if
it's more than one that's fine too, but even if I have to make
another blob thingy enemy I'll do it!
Here are some gifs of enemies I made:





See ya, keep your soul from the eternal depths of all that is
exc- I mean from prison, keep your soul from prison :3

I tried making a game Dust: Battle Beneath.

It can be gotten here (+ some art) if you want to support me


Logo I scraped together XD

...or if not, you can check it out (for some feedback...?) and get it directly here

Development logarithm if you're interested.


Gameplay in earlier stages of Dust