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A jam submission

Ghost SoupView game page

A Puzzle Platformer where you're a baby necromancer making ghost soup.
Submitted by GoodSoop — 58 minutes, 20 seconds before the deadline
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Ghost Soup's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Playability#15.0005.000
Cleverness#15.0005.000
Theme#15.0005.000
Artistic Style#15.0005.000

Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

  • Great work! Worked flawlessly, took a few attempts to understand what your implementation was after reading it and I think that's the intent. Great play with the theme. Good job on art and clearly showing differences. I would suggest looking into colorblind planning in the future (more clearly showing different shapes/aspects of ghosts) but that's just a minor note on top of a well executed project.

Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
Yes

Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
Yes

Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes

Tell us about your game!
The lore :
On one of his trips through the catacombs, a necromancer got hit by bad luck. A cursed tomb turned him back into a baby. Curing the curse is easy, but the recipe is still in his tent at the surface.

Now he is stuck at the bottom of the catacombs, trying to climb his way out.
Using the essence of the ghosts that dwell down here you combine them to unearth new powers. That should be more than enough to compensate for your weak new form.

Experiment with the elements, discover the possibilities.

Controls:
WASD/Arrow keys: Move
Spacebar: Action (jump, dash, roll, transform etc...)
C: Cooking
R: Restart

Mechanics:
Explore our ghost cooking system and experiment with the different actions

Extra Notes
Thank you for playing our game! We hope you enjoy :)

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Comments

Viewing comments 28 to 9 of 28 · Next page · Last page
Submitted

This was a fun game! I really enjoyed that there are different solutions to levels--it made it very fun! It's also interesting to think and plan in advance with cooking all the ghosts (and it's fun to plan in advance while taking into account your own skill at platformers, sometimes I'd have some extra ghosts as 'backups' haha). I also really like the art for the ghosts :)

Some other feedback if you continue to work on this:

  • Sometimes collisions were a bit weird, like getting a bit stuck on walls, jumping next to a wall and not getting height, or even getting pushed out in crazy ways if you change back from a small rock in a small space.
  • Some animations seem to play multiple times? Like sometimes when I went back to cook it would play that animation twice, or the ghosts would sometimes float up repeatedly in the line teleporting back down a bit. 
  • The camera with WASD while cooking is very helpful--but sometimes it seemed to get stuck for some reason? You can get out of it which is good, but it was a little weird. 

Overall, great job! It's a fun and unique game!

Developer(+1)

Great feedback! We tried to get it out without any gamebreaking glitches, but now that we are going to a full game we can really use this. It's all stuff that's relatively easy to fix (collisions maybe not easily? p:), but I am really glad you liked the art and the gameplay! 

Thanks for playing :) 

Submitted

This is a very interesting concept, and seems to have quite a lot of potential to be made into a full puzzle platformer too! I really like the fact that you would pretty much need the ghosts to do almost everything, that really force you think in ghosts, and that's a good basis for a decent puzzle game. 

My slight complaint would be there is almost no tutorialisation that introduce you to each of the ghost, thus making the learning experience a little bit more harsh. Also some levels are quite glitchly (the ones where you shrink into a small rock and roll), and it feels like it's not satisfying solving that puzzle (But we all understand shrinking and enlarging is quite an annoying thing thing to do nicely in such games). It would also be nice to have the ghosts reordered, so as to waste less time brewing ghosts.

But overall I enjoyed the game very much and hope this gets to be developed more! Well done!

Developer

Yea our user experience could use a lot of work. From the lack of in game tutorials to the sometimes glitchy collisions and lack of animations for some things. We are recoding our base so we can get everything right in the future! 

The fact you see the potential besides this is so awesome, thank you so much for playing Ghost Soup!

Submitted

That was fun! Interesting mechanic that quickly became compelling to try and use the least amount of ghosts for each level. One can see how this could be readily iterated on and expanded. I could see myself replaying this multiple times as a full release. Great entry!

Developer

Thank you for playing Ghost Soup! It's awesome to see people enjoy this game, we are working on a full game right now (but it could take a whileee). Comments like these are very motivating <3

Submitted (1 edit)

Cute game. Enjoyed it.

There are some things that I would like to share:

  1.  If you move camera around when you cook ghosts you can see edges of the map (on some levels more on some less):
  2. Camera movement is clunky sometimes. From time to time it doesn't allow certain movement but easily fixed with some wiggle or reentering cooking mode.
  3. Would be nice to click on ghosts to add them.
  4. Removing one ghost when combining them is not really an option. You need to cook them in order to remove. (This is not a big deal but a bit frustrating that you need to recook ghosts)
  5. Would be nice to move cooked ghosts around. I came up with solution but had to remove some ghosts. It took some time to get what I was going for as I placed new ghost in a wrong spot and had to redo some  of them a few times.
  6. It is possible to see less ghosts than you have (in this scenario you can only see up to five ghosts (I removed some in this case), starting from 6th they touch the torch:
  7.  You can remove 2 ghosts at the same time if you cook second and catch it above first one.

Overall game is great fun. Ghosts are delicious. Best dish ever.

Developer

I love this! Thank you for playing and breaking our game and the great feedback:) We agree with every point you have made and they are all on the fix list :) 

Submitted

Puzzle your way out of catacombs as a haunted baby!

  • Love the cute sprites for the baby and ghosts, environments are nice and catacomby
  • The UI for combining the ghosts looks great
  • Music is a good simple track that matches the tone of the game
  • It took me a little bit to understand how to play the game but once I got it found it to be a very unique and interesting system!
  • Collisions could be a little funny sometimes which would kill my jumps but I'm sure you'll be able to fix that later
  • Figuring out the different combos was fun and watching a baby fly across the room for a hole-in-one (or two) felt great
  • I like that there are multiple ways to approach each room

Overall, really solid puzzle platformer with unique mechanics :D

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing, enjoying and the review!
The wall collisions are an issue, we know, but we are starting from scratch remaking it to have everything right (we cut some shortcuts to get the game finished :p) Glad you liked flying at hyperspeed as much as we did, we will try not to remove that in the final version.

Submitted

Great game, could really see this one as a full release game somewhere down the line!

The only thing that grinded my gear was getting stuck on a jump/doublejump if the player is to close to a wall. Especially if it was the last action before the finish line :D 

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! The jump eating feels bad yea, especially when you calculated your ghosts perfectly and it eats up your action. It's a high priority fix! Glad you enjoyed the game :) 

After playing Ghost Soup, I was impressed. The art style was wat caught my eye! I really think the gameplay is something I have never seen before. It needs some polish, like most gamejam games, but I could see myself buying this if it has a polished full release. This game is a must-play if you want to try out something refreshing! I truly hope the team expands it into a full-fledged indie game.

Developer

Thank you for playing! We will keep working on this, don't worry :)

Submitted (1 edit)

Wow, what an interesting game! I like pretty much everything about it! The mechanic of playing around with different combinations and finding out that some things are way better for certain situations than others was like I was discovering fire! 

The levels you guys built over only three ghosts already shows the huge potential this mechanic has. The few things I'd like to point out is that it could be interesting to put order switching for the ghosts so we don't have to redo the line in the case of a change, and staying too close to the walls seems to make the collision get a bit freaky for jumps. Other than that, this is a really promising game and I can easily see a more expanded version of this existing.

The artstyle is really endearing and funny, the tiny details like the mix of the ghosts expressions when they're fused are a very nice touch, and the music fits really well with the vibe you guys were going for regarding the catacombs. 

Awesome work!

Developer(+1)

Such a lovely review from an artist I love! I am so glad you liked it, comments like yours make us so excited to keep working on Ghost Soup! You rock!

Submitted

Good creative puzzle. I like how the game allow many solutions to solve a puzzle.

But the player character physics is a little rough and not sliding on the wall or the ceiling. It would be more better for the character to have a proper control despite the whole level doesn't have a single slope.

The game may not look very polished but I can see some effort put into making this game. Well done.

Developer

Thank you for playing! The collision when being close to a wall can be annoying yea! We are fixing that, don't worry :) 
What do you mean about not having slopes affecting control?

Submitted

Awesome game!! It took me a while to figure out the crafting/cooking mechanic, (ig i should have paid more attention to the tutorial xd).

Developer

Woohoo! Thanks for playing! Don't blame yourself, if you didn't get it, it's bad UX from our part! A forced tutorial is probably needed for a game like this, you're definitely not the only one that struggled ;) 

Submitted

Fun game mechanic. There's a bit of trial and error in the approach which is nice to see.
The jump sound was a bit agressive, at least for me.
I'm pretty sure speedrunners would love to optimizing this.
Good job!

Developer

Sound mixing could have been better, I agree (or adding more sound effects for different movements to get some variety). I've speedran it myself so I hope speedrunners would love this! 

Thanks for playing and for the feedback! 

I really love the idea of exploring the level and then trying to find the ring combinaison for every upcoming challenge.  I didnt know you could check the level at first, so maybe a slow autoscroll to check the level out could be nice. 
I can already see where this could lead, many other type of ghosts and more challenges.  

The baby is a fun idea. A bigger game could really encourage finding the right hero to bring players into the story.

Good job, I liked it :)

Developer

Thanks for the good feedback! Everyone struggles with the scrolling, I think we will start by making it visually clear you can scroll through the level. Glad you also see the potential, this is only the first chapter of Ghost Soup! 

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Neat concept!

I like the idea of combining ghosts. Although as with any combination mechanic I would like to know what the particular combination does without needing to craft and use it.

Ghost abilities control smoothly, but I think the little guy’s movement is too sluggish and becomes a little annoying.

Controls themselves could use a little work:

  • There is only one line of text in a tutorial (that you can miss) saying you need to press Space to cook ghosts. I would like to see it somewhere on the screen when cooking, and also it your descriptions. It isn’t even listed under your “Spacebar: Action(…)”.
  • The ability to just click on the ghosts to add them to pot would also be good. And since you use mouse for anything but cooking with Space, why not also add a UI button for cooking. This way the player doesn’t need to go back and forth between mouth and keyboard.
  • I’m not sure why you need both [R] and [C]. [C] already returns you to the start of the level and is more functional.

Also, it’s not immediately obvious that the grave sprite is your objective. It doesn’t help that the very first level has some sort of alternative path, which is just nothing.

Nevertheless, great job!

Developer

Thx for the great feedback. We are planning adding more dimensions so you don't always have to combine the smaller ones to get the lvl2 ghost. So when you unlock them you can click them in dimension 2 and also combine into deeper lvls. Thx for playing!

(+1)

Game isn't correctly cantered and feels a bit too zoomed in.

Developer

Sorry To hear you didn't like the camera zoom. Maybe we will make the camera scalable with the scroll wheel, could also help with the planning phase. Thanks for playing and the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

Love the cute designs for the ghosts, very interesting concept and good execution. My wish is that the gameplay would be a little more intuitive, it never occurred to me to mix ghosts, and dragging them into the pot felt a little clunky, but cool stuff overall!

Developer

Thank you for the feedback. We are thinking about just clicking the ghost making it float to the cooking pot.

Submitted(+1)

Good game !

Read in case you are a necromancer stuck in a catacomb in baby form is halla specific LUL

I like the interaction you can create mixing different ghosts power, and how the work even mixing the same one.

I feel like you could have been more hard on player and put a limit on possible "mixable" ghosts for each lvl even at the start.

That said, the game is fun, art is nice, and music really fits ! GG

Developer

Thanks for playing!

We are planning to make it more limited and to give the full game more progression, but since it's our first game ever and we had no idea how to do anything, we tried to focus on making a proof of concept first. Thanks for the feedback :) 

Submitted(+1)

Brilliant game! Very creative mechanics and really fun trying to puzzle the levels out in as few moves as possible. Great job!

Developer

Thxxx, glad you liked the concept!

Submitted(+1)

This is a complex and very cute little puzzle game. I could see it being a legit full release game. Very polished, and a fun take on the theme as well.

Developer

We will definitely try to expand it with more ghost and a world  for a full release. Thanks for the nice comment!

Submitted(+1)

Like the ghost cooking part, and the puzzle elements.

Developer

Thank you for playing!!

Submitted(+1)

This game was super unique! babysoup..mmm.

I liked all of the different combinations! very creative and I can see how it would allow for tons of variation in level design, but superjump may be OP. 

I did have some weirdness with crashing into ceilings as the small ball, not sure if that was intentional or not. 

Developer

Thank you very much, yeah normally dash double should only go horizontal but we forgot to change the vertical axis. So now its the most OP ghost overall haha.

Viewing comments 28 to 9 of 28 · Next page · Last page