Hollow Soul Studios

Coming later. Considerably darker.

SoulCatcher

In development Release date to be announced

A turn-based RPG about collecting monsters. Except the monsters are griefs with teeth, and you do not catch them. You bargain.

What gives you the right to control them, and what are you becoming by doing so? The game would like a word.

The premise

Nothing left to lose, which is a kind of leverage

You play an orphan who buried her mother three days ago and inherited exactly one thing: debt. No soulstone, no aura, no prospects, in a world where the only trade left is binding things more powerful than yourself.

An old soulcatcher at the edge of the woods gives her a worn bit of bone-stone. It will not catch anything. It only listens, when something out there decides to speak.

"A Soul isn't a beast you beat into a cage. It's a grief, given shape and teeth. You don't conquer a grief. You bargain with it."

An old soulcatcher, who would know

The world

Nine circles down, no gym badges

The world is laid out after Dante's nine circles. Each one is built around its own vice, and every choice it offers is a lesser evil. You do not clear a circle so much as fall into the next one.

  • Circle I

    Limbo

    Souls who did nothing wrong, and a judge stitched from unnamed graves who would like to know why you get to decide.

  • Circle II

    Lust, the Storm

    A gale that shoves you around if you stand still in the open, sirens with excellent pitch and a lady whose charm is a weapon. Bring a coat.

  • Circle III

    Gluttony, the Mire

    Slow mud, endless rain, a table that is never cleared, and a three-headed guard dog. Fight it, or feed it. Both are valid life choices.

  • Circle IV

    Greed, the Weight

    Push weights, crack vaults and face the god of wealth himself. Or simply tell him the sum the vaults taught you, and enjoy the silence.

Four circles are playable in the current prototype. Five more are waiting further down, and they are not getting any cheerier.

How it plays

Monster collecting, minus the innocence

  • Souls, not petsEvery Soul is a grief with a shape. Grief, Wrath and Oath each beat one affinity and fall to another, so pick your company with care.
  • Battles you can readTurn-based, with the enemy's next move shown a turn ahead. Time your strikes and braces, interrupt a heavy wind-up, riposte after a perfect guard.
  • BecomingAt level 5, or by listening, a Soul becomes something new: a new name, new strength and a new move. Named after an old line about becoming who you are.
  • No permadeathLose your whole party and you rise again at the bonfire. The world is cruel enough without deleting your save.

Everything on this page describes the prototype as it stands today. Details will change, most likely in the direction of "darker".

Trailer

No trailer yet.

We are still bargaining with it.

Want to know when the descent opens?

News lands on the news page and in the RSS feed first. Press and the morbidly curious can write to .

Meanwhile, something cheerier