First Dev Diary!

Greetings!

Some time after the release has passed, and I decided to make a Dev Diary, where i will talk about the game, its creation, and a bit about myself and what I do.

Let me introduce myself

My name is Anthony Sinatra, I am an Italian game developer known on the web mainly as Thund or ThundPlayer (also thanks to my YouTube channel). This hobby of mine was born about ten years ago and since then I’ve slowly improved my skills until it has become almost a second job to me.

I made several games before Soul's Spectrum, always with the desire to do something different: classic RPGs, visual novels, puzzles, platformers... in short, I like to experiment! Apart from Cactus Quest which was my first game created (RPG) but only known mainly by the Italian community, my last work before Soul's Spectrum was Quisk!. This short game was made for a jam on itch.io. It is a simple 2D puzzle-platformer game where you have to overcome various obstacles and puzzles… as a squirrel hungry for acorns.

What i usually play

My favorite genre is RPG, but I typically look for games that have an interesting story to tell or have a particular game mechanic that sets them apart from others. In fact, I love indie games because they can be daring in these aspects, sometimes achieving extraordinary results.

How did I end up being a gamedev

Initially, I think I was driven by the most common dream of every gamer: to create my own video game. I remember that, with my very first game, I struggled a lot as I tended to redo it all over again. This was because I was getting better and I was no longer satisfied with the work I had done before. Only by limiting the size of the project I managed to finish it. That was my first push, but now what drives me to create video games is that I want to entertain players with my ideas: for example, watching how a streamer gets excited about what I have created fills me with joy (and determination :D ).

Finally, revealing inspiration

I admit it’s difficult to find precise inspirations as it was more brainstorming on the theme of the jam. Definitely for the atmosphere I wanted to recall the typical setting of a souls-like, so something gothic and mysterious but without necessarily going into horror, I think the game that can go the closest as a reference is Castlevania.

For the gameplay mechanics on the other hand I think the concept of shape-shifting may have taken a cue from Shantae (only they did it through dances and not by dying), while the concept that each shape can do specific things I think is somewhat inspired by Wario Land saga. Finally, in terms of the graphics, there is definitely an inspiration from the old 2D Zelda but with darker tones. I have to say that this mix of ideas makes Soul's Spectrum quite unique, so it is hard to find something similar.

Start of the development

Soul's Spectrum has been in development since early July 2022. I created it for a jam on itch.io: I already had another ongoing project, but since this competition was interesting I decided to put it aside (ending up being almost abandoned). I only had a month for the jam so I did my best to make a prototype.

This one has a few differences from the beginning of the current game: sure, it was much rougher and it was also more difficult to complete. However, people who had played it enjoyed the experience. Thanks to the positive feedback I decided to make it my next project and expand it. From what were five maps now are more than fifty, and the world of Soul's Spectrum has definitely grown in size.

The prototype

It was not that much different from the actual game. One of the ideas was to make all the visuals in the game in pixel art, including the portraits of the characters, but I took the decision to use illustrations since, in my opinion, it gives more identity to the game. Below is an old screenshot where I was testing whether it might be a good idea to show the characters' portraits.

In conclusion

Creating Soul's Spectrum was really fun and it brought me a lot of experience. Though it wasn't my first game, it was my first commercial attempt to release a game on Steam. It feels incredibly good to see that players enjoyed Soul's Spectrum, and reading the reviews was quite heartwarming.

Thank you for reading! I hope we will see each other in the future, whether here, on Soul's Spectrum, or maybe in my next projects :)

About the game

You wake up in a strange prison with one only goal in mind: find an escape from there. There are other people besides you, all linked by an inauspicious common fate: having committed the sin of eternal life.

Here, death is not the end, but a key to progress. With each passing demise, your soul transforms, granting you new abilities to conquer the challenges ahead. Will you harness your abilities and fulfill your purpose?

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