It happened! You can play it!
and only one day late (a wild critical bug appeared!)...
Hi, I'm Zein and I'm the solo developer who is making the game! Nice to meet'cha! Look, I pressed the button:
While a lot of parts are still subject to change, incomplete, or even buggy (please report them! Thanks <3), it is playable and has a good amount of content already. This version contains three playable regions with their own set of Animons and each a boss to defeat. The meta progression system is also available, letting you collect Marbles to get permanent upgrades, as well as Animon affection levels that unlock perks, badges you can earn which unlock features, and more!
It is a strange feeling being part of a release again. I've been making games for 15 years now but the last game release I've experienced was 2019 (that's almost 7 years!). I've worked on at least 6 games since then that never saw the light of day. So with Soulblaze, I wanted to work on something that actually came out at some point, so I started my solo adventure after THE BIG LAYOFFS™ in October 2024 where I built a first prototype in Godot and kept expanding on it.
It was available as a public alpha build for quite some time where I had a few players already that game me feedback and I iterated the game design until it became what it is today. Dice were always part of it but there were different approaches I tried until I was happy. I wanted it to not be a creature-collector roguelite with classic turn-based combat, I wanted something fun. Rolling dice is fun! I used to play Dungeons & Dragons and Savage Worlds so I love dice, they're the best. Initially, they were only part of the combat system but I expanded it to be an overall carrying mechanic. I reworked the map which originally worked pretty much like Slay the Spire into something more akin to Mario Party and I think it fits way better and without friends who constantly steal that Star away from you, the single-player experience is less stressful.
(speaking of single-player: I have a 2 player co-op mode planned!)
After an unsuccessful Kickstarter last year, it was unclear if and how I could continue but somehow I managed to keep going and here we are now! There is still a lot to do and you will definitely find bugs and some ugly screens that I desperately need to IMPROVE, ugh, but I am at a point where I'm confident with the overall game and want to continue working on it with the community. There are so many combinations to be done with the Animons, their Tricks, and the Trick tinkering where you can upgrade them and transfer flavors (specific tags for abilities that have a special effect) from one to the other, that I can't find and test them all, let alone figure out all the fun ways to break a build (or maybe the fact that you can't break a build and I need to change that).
Down the road, I want to add two more regions and the final boss, as well as plenty of new critters to catch. There's also plenty of art missing for Soulblaze forms (sorta like Mega Evolutions from Pokemon) that need to be created but we'll get there one step at a time.
If you like getting involved in Early Access games, you can send feedback from in-game but the best way is to join the Discord server and discuss there. Thanks for being part of the journey and happy catching!