Planet Xbox 360 ranks Soulcaster #1!
Gerry Holt writes in Top 10 Xbox LIVE Indie Games You Have to Play:
“This has to be my favorite indie game. It is an old school styled RPG where you play as a wizard who has stumbled onto a land of monsters. It reminds me a lot of NES style graphics with the innovation in a lot of RPGs seen in the SNES era. The wizard happens upon a statue of an archer that speaks to him and offers him a soul orb. This soul orb allows him to summon the archer to fight for the defenseless wizard. Enemies spawn from random orbs on the map. Once the last enemy from that orb is killed, the orb explodes and allows passage to the next section of the dungeon. Along the way, you meet more warrior statues that join you through soul orbs; a knight with melee attacks and a thief who throw Molotov cocktails over walls. Using the extra soul orbs, you are able to summon one of each warrior or multiple images of the same one. You can recall warriors one at a time to replace them using the Y button. This system gives it a tower defense meets dungeon crawler feel. The game features a password saving system similar to Metroid. While you are at that screen just try inputting Justin Bailey, you know you want to. According to the creator this is one of 6 hidden passwords that will activate special things within the game. Soulcaster is an excellent RPG hybrid that only 240 MS points.”
Behind-the-scenes: Soulcaster 2 Level Editor
This is what I’ve been working on in the last few weeks. There are a few new features, including:
- Multiple background layers (sky layer which is drawn above characters, for high walls or canopy)
- Animated decorations (e.g. torches, waterfalls)
- Base layer tile with optional locked scrolling and autoscroll (quick and dirty parallax or simulated palette animation)
- Scripting engine allows floor and trench type gates, so there can be one-way doors, collapsing bridges, cage traps
See the video here and bear with my first attempt at a narrated video:
And part 2:
This may not be too exciting for the average Soulcaster player, but maybe other developers will be interested to see how I made an editor using Windows Forms and XNA.
Post your best completion times
It only took a couple weeks before someone decided to try JUSTIN BAILEY and discovered a hidden tribute password. But I’ll reveal a secret: there are actually 6 hidden passwords.
You can get hints for some of them by beating the game within a slightly inhuman time limit. And one is another tribute password.
To all six dedicated fans who read this site, how quickly can you make it through the game? I’d like to know how close you guys are getting.
The new version of Soulcaster has just passed peer review, so anyone who has bought the game can download the new version for free. Changes:
- Password quick save and quick load. You can save one password per profile and avoid the hunt for a scrap of paper if you have less than 75 minutes to play at once. This was by far the biggest request from everyone who played the game.
- The “screen size” option now shows a boundary area when selecting so you can see the real area of the screen. Thanks to Randy of Neuron (XNA Creators Club member) for this suggestion.
- Exploit fix: The “free upgrades” you could get by restarting a level after buying upgrades (keeping your upgrades but getting your checkpoint cash back) has been fixed.
- Exploit fix: It was possible to summon infinite souls through button mashing through a “single frame” error. Thanks to Alex Shoup for finding this, keeping it secret from the interwebs, and sending me detailed info on how to reproduce it.
Please post thoughts and questions about the new save system, since I am looking for an elegant save system for Soulcaster II.
Week 3 Press
Soulcaster has really exceeded my expectations in critical reception.
“This is an absolutely amazing little action / strategy game that isn’t easy to categorize. It combines the best elements of Shining Force / Final Fantasy Tactics with dungeon crawling and tower defense games, and it all comes together with great results.”
- Curious Soft/XBLARatings.com
“Soulcaster was a pleasant surprise: a mash up of an 8-bit RPG and Tower Defence, thereby ticking virtually all of the right boxes for anyone who’s ever ordered pizza for a night in with their Nintendo controller…”
“… excellent …”
“Everything from the level design, item names, graphics, sound, gameplay, and little in-jokes, Soulcaster harkens back to the day of retro-RPGS and is a great buy for anyone with the points.” (8.5/10)
“Another one I checked out was Soulcaster, which I loved. … The music’s really great.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this … definitely, definitely worth your time. Very different.”
Huge thanks to all the critics who took the time to play through and review the game.
Found this gameplay video of the demo experience by famicomonster on YouTube:
Week 1 Press
OK so this game has gotten much more attention than I ever imagined. There’s not much more I can say right now so I’ll just put up some pull quotes.
“I got to say I really enjoyed this one and if you are looking for a top-down action adventure role playing game with a retro look and feel it would be difficult for me to not recommend Soulcaster.”
“I highly recommend action and strategy fans alike to check out Soulcaster, there’s good a reason why it has already shot up into the top 20 rated Xbox indie games.”
“The soundtrack for the game is as amazing as it is fitting and makes me hope this guy is successful just so I can hear more songs by him in his games. The shopkeeper’s song is the most epic 8-bit metal song EVER and yes, I’m kinda serious about that.”
“Soulcaster is completely playable, incredibly polished, nostalgically retro, and insidiously addictive.”
“Well worth the money.”
- Zeboyd
“With a shop to upgrade, multiple paths through each stage, and a ‘hardcore’ mode, this is pretty much the best Tower Defense game on XBLIG OR on XBLA, rivaling even Defense Grid for sheer amazingness.”
- WDesm on xblaratings.comm
And for the ultimate press any developer could ever hope for, still leaving me in a state of shock:
“I caught a trailer for an Xblig called “Soulcaster” that took me a while to parse, but it’s out already, so discerning the truth of it is a straightforward matter. It’s lovely. It plays for all the world like a combination of Bomberman and Tower Defense, and I hadn’t considered it previously, but them’s two things what might benefit from juxtoposin’.”
- Tycho on Penny Arcade
About Soulcaster
Soulcaster is an action/adventure game for XBOX Live Indie Games featuring Gauntlet-style dungeon crawling and tower-defense mechanics.
It's available as of March 3, 2010 on XBOX Live Marketplace for 240 Microsoft Points.
