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You are lost. Alone. Searching for yourself. You don't see far. In fact, you see nothing at all. But you hear things... drops; water flowing; rocks falling, rolling... and a bell. Souvenirs is a 2D platformer where you don't see the environment directly. You have to use sounds to get a glimpse of your surroundings.

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In the last news I talked about the difficulty of getting feedback and gave you alpha build of the game hoping that I would get more feedback. And It worked. Not as well as I hoped but still there was an improvement. About 200 persons downloaded the game (most of them from my web site which I didn't expected) and about 15 gave some feedback. I also had other people testing in front of me and got the feedback from the IndieCade jury.

Common things that came out are :
- it's not interesting to throw rocks all the time to see the environment. It's really hard to make a "mental map";
- there is not a lot of things making the game interesting, you get bored pretty quickly. The "story" isn't clear;
- the sound design needs a lot of work;
- the game doesn't give enough feedback to the player on what's happening;

Most peoples like the concept of the game but feel that the execution could be improved a lot. Well I'll try to do that.

The first step I did was to make the player clock "tics" bigger, letting him see a little further around him. Then I had the idea to have an outline on the ground, revealing the environment layout without showing it directly. That's the small white line on the ground or walls in the video (you'll see better if you download and test by yourself). While making that effect a bug made the "sound wave" visible under certain conditions. It turned out that it gives additional informations to the player and make sounds more visible. I tweaked it a little and it gives you the final effect you see in the video. If you try the new build, in the options there are 2 settings to tweak those effects : lineEffectForce and waveEffectForce; you can disable or tweak each effect. Let me know what you think of those effects.

You can also now manage the throw force when you play with a pad if you turn the option on, and there are two slider to tweak that too : Stick sensitivity to throw a rock (how fast you move the stick controls the force) and Stick threshold to throw a rock (at which inclination the stick must be to throw a rock). Once again feedback is welcome.

On another note I'm looking for a sound designer for the game (not paid). If you are interested contact me.

Windows build :
Windows Alpha build 14th September 2014

Linux build :
Linux Alpha build 14th September 2014

Mac build :
Mac Alpha build 14th September 2014

If anybody tests the Mac version I would appreciate if you could just tell me if it works at all (as I have no way to test it my self).

Public build available

Public build available

News

How did the alpha go ? Nobody reported any bug. Nobody told me it was broken. Nobody... yeah that's it.

Do you want to play test ?

Do you want to play test ?

News

In a few weeks I'll start a play test on an alpha build of the game. If you are willing to test and give feedback you can register to participate.

Everybody loves disappearing blocks

Everybody loves disappearing blocks

News 4 comments

There are important things that can't be avoided in platformers.

Meet the crystal cube

Meet the crystal cube

News

This cube can be your friend. It depends, it seems to change its mind quite often.

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Linux Alpha build 14th September 2014

Linux Alpha build 14th September 2014

Demo

This is a alpha build containing the whole game in its current state. If you try it, please send me some feedback so I can improve it. Extract the content...

Mac Alpha build 14th September 2014

Mac Alpha build 14th September 2014

Demo

THIS HAS NOT BEEN TESTED, it might not work at all. Read the README.txt file for more infos. This is a alpha build containing the whole game in its current...

Windows Alpha build 14th September 2014

Windows Alpha build 14th September 2014

Demo

This is a alpha build containing the whole game in its current state. If you try it, please send me some feedback so I can improve it. There is no installation...

Mac alpha build 9th August 2014

Mac alpha build 9th August 2014

Demo

THIS HAS NOT BEEN TESTED, it might not work at all. Read the README.txt file for more infos. This is a alpha build containing the whole game in its current...

Linux alpha build 9th August 2014

Linux alpha build 9th August 2014

Demo 1 comment

This is a alpha build containing the whole game in its current state. If you try it, please send me some feedback so I can improve it. Extract the content...

Windows Alpha build 9th August 2014

Windows Alpha build 9th August 2014

Demo

This is a alpha build containing the whole game in its current state. If you try it, please send me some feedback so I can improve it. There is no installation...

Post comment Comments
TheSniperFan
TheSniperFan

Unity? Any chance of a Linux build? :3
I like the concept behind this game.

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thebmxeur Creator
thebmxeur

I'll make Linux and Mac OS builds this week. But they won't be tested (I don't have a Linux distribution installed at the moment, and I don't own a Mac). They may run fine or not run at all. We'll see.

Reply Good karma+2 votes
Guest
Guest

It's a really good game :)
The game makes fun
I don't know what to write about it
but i haven't found any bugs and that's good! :)
And the game looks good too!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
TheMormonatorChannel
TheMormonatorChannel

Honestly, just from the gameplay alone, I love it. The idea of the game is new and fresh and the sounds in the game are very realistic (which is good considering that sound is the focus of the game). So keep up the good work and I look forward to an official release.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
thebmxeur Creator
thebmxeur

The sound design needs a lot of work. It's the thing that I have the least experience with, so it takes a lot of time.

Reply Good karma+2 votes
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Latest posts from @souvenirsgame

New visual effect and new builds Indiedb.com Steamcommunity.com

Sep 22 2014

T.co

Sep 7 2014

New effect ingame ! Still WIP and needs testing, but start to look nice. Sisyphe.be T.co

Sep 2 2014

Testing new effect Sisyphe.be Sisyphe.be feedback is welcome

Aug 27 2014

IndieDB news recap Youtube.com

Jul 31 2014

RT @gameralphabeta: SOUVENIRS Bit.ly Wonderful Pixel Art Platformer Where You See With Sound by #gamedev @SouvenirsGame T.co

Jul 21 2014

New build available (mostly bug fixes) Sisyphe.be

Jul 19 2014

RT @smokefumus: @SouvenirsGame Very nice atmospheric feel to it, mechanics(sound vision i.e. sonar and story telling through reconstructable shots are nice)

Jul 12 2014