Souls Rescue

[oldteen]

First of all, sorry for my poor english. We come from Switzerland and we speak french...
My wife and I are doing game prototypes since long time. But this time we decide to move our "ass" and to make a project A to Z. We start the BlackBones Family. This name will regroup our finished projects.


Souls Rescue is a roguelike. We don't try to make something original, we just want to have pleasure to do it.
Some features:

• random dungeon
• turn based game
• 8 environments (crypt, tropical, "void", ice, ...)
• no direct spells, but a craft system to write your scrolls and make your potions.
• our recipes for scrolls and potions use reagents from a big game (Ultima 7)
• need to an ingredient to make a potion? you have a seed? plant it, wait some turns and harvest.
• get a pet and develop its skills
• die often

The game in 4 words :

• turn based
• pet
• craft 
• exploration (traps, hidden rooms, key puzzle, ...)

The background ?
... We have to find one background to justify these ideas :

• 8 members of your families are death. You are one of them.. 
• the player choose one of these 8 members to rescue the soul of the others. 
• when you die, the hero and his inventory are deleted.
• you can put items in a magical chest to keep them for another try.

A vidéo of the alpha version
Trailer alpha version

Operating system

• win/linux/osx
• why not xbox one or ps4

Development
Souls Rescue is written in c# and monogame/fna. Sprites are drawed with Photoshop with love and with a mouse

commercial aspect
I work and we don't need more money to live. But if a day we can sell one or two copies to buy a pizza

Pictures

[Lord_Mork]

Well it certainly looks very nice

When you say

I work and we don't need more money to live. But if a day we can sell one or two copies to buy a pizza

,
does this mean that the final version will cost money, or that it won't?

[oldteen]

I like what Pixel Dungeon does.

• alpha, beta and final version available on itch.io with "Name your own price" on itch.io (could be 0)
• 5$ on other markets (steam, gog, ...)

[oldteen]

first alpha version available on our itch.io page.

The main goal of this release is to test if the game run on your computer.
- actually, only windows
- instruction to install and to play on itch.io page
- 3/8 characters
- 4/7 environments
- craft basic item (heal potion, ...)
- you will find what is in the video

[Legend]

looks and sounds cool. Any chance of getting a winxp version though? I downloaded the alpha, but it wouldn't run because it was "not a win32 executable". Would be cool if it ran on winxp. For me at least. 

[oldteen]

Hi, thanks to have tested!

Ok, Tomorrow I will try to force the exe to be 32 bits. We don't need 64 bits.
The problem is monogame (the library that manage "pixels", input, audio, ...). Monogame remove 32 bits support since 2014. I have to investigate.

I write you back when I've got news.

[oldteen]

We release a new alpha (0.0.2) this week-end here :

This is still a release to test if it run on you computer or not.

• we switch Monogame to FNA and Framework.net 4.5 to Framework.net 4. I hope a better WinXP support with these modifications.
• we release a linux and osx package.
• add a minimap
• add monsters and two heroes.

In our tasklist for this week:

• add a true damage calculation
• thinking about heroes particularity
• finish ranged attack
• start to create better UI Window for craft and inventory. Goal: full gamepad support
• finish sprites of monsters and boss. +- 49 enemies in Souls Rescue.
• collect more information about our "run or not" release

[oldteen]

A new version of Souls Rescue is released (alpha 0.0.4) on itch.io.

"en vrac":

• first spells and buff system(and damage over time)
• first weapons and armors. Randomly generated with a level and a quality.
• more sounds
• level system
• classic attributes (str, dex, int, def, will, cons). Get one point per level
• each hero has different attribute points
• rules for close combat
• refactoring of the inventory / craft windows
• add hero window
• better support for the 100% keyboard experience
• better support for the 100% gamepad experience
• traps on floor and wall
• add a minimap
• add help and credit
• ... correct tons of bugs

Thanks to all people who have downloaded the previous version and who will download this one.
For you


We still have much work.
Monsters are all close fighters. We have to change that. Give them spells and arrows . We need to add bow and crossbow for the player too. We have to implement the pet system and give a real utility to the plant parts of the game.
Actually Souls Rescue has two categories of recipes, Witchery and Alchemy. We want to add Machinery.
For late August, we will release the first beta version. So we need to play again and again to ameliorate the difficulty management. We certainly need to add more items sprites to remove redundancy.
We have to think about a savegame system. Souls Rescue is a perma-death game but until you die you can save. If you die your savegame die too.

Voilà,
-oldteen

[oldteen]

Add a key to switch to a classic view. Any interest ?

[Zireael]

I like it, even though I don't prefer ASCII over tiles anyway. I just like the ability to choose

[oldteen]

Thank you for your opinion . Other people say me the same thing and I agree.
Show the map, monsters, hero, chest, stairs, etc in ascii is not a hard task but I have to reflect about the user interface.

[oldteen]

Between next sunday and monday we will release the Souls Rescue Alpha 5

What’s new:
Redesign the structure of the dungeon
Before the alpha 5, our dungeon was a stack of 1 map for the entrance, 3 maps of Crypt, 2 big maps of Tropic, 2 big maps of Ice and 3 maps of Void environment. When we tried the game I fell asleep. The game was too boring. We decide to redesign the dungeon : 1 map for entrance + 1 map per environment. The game is smaller, but more interesting.
Each map contains monsters of 3 different levels. Always check your life

New features

• new dungeon design
• add bow and crossbow (use DEX for damage calculation). Select an enemy with TAB and press F to shoot
• add enemy who cast fireball (more spells in future)
• add plate that reveals a chest or summons 1, 2 or 3 monsters or shoot an arrow from left or right wall.
• deadly hole of lava or acid. Walk on lava or acid, you directly die! Tell us if it’s a good idea.
• add an xp line. At top of your screen in green
• items with green background in your inventory are better than the equipped one
• press F5 to enter in the Classic Mode (ascii). This feature is clearly not finished.

We look forward to delivering this new version.

-Thierry

[Zireael]

Are the maps static or randomized?

[oldteen]

The first map (The Entrance) is static, others are randomly generated.

[Untrustedlife]

Are the maps static or randomized?

The description of the game in the OP says "random dungeons" so I would think so.

Also, those tiles look Beautiful.
Nice job.

edit:
I actually do in fact prefer ascii in roguelikes for the most part though.