Collecting souls is an impressively interesting idea. I have to admit that it really catch my eye. The instruction works well and I really appreciate it! Hope your next project reaches even greater heights!

The stealth and soul-collecting idea sounds fun! From the instructions, a small countdown showing when you can absorb a soul could help newcomers. Congrats on your first jam! It’s ours too, and we’d love your honest thoughts on A Borrowed Shadow if you get a chance.

First off, congrats on finishing and submitting your first game jam! Especially with only about 22 hours available to work on it. There is a real game concept here, and I eventually figured out that I was using stealth to avoid the guards and trying to collect the souls from the children.

I had a very difficult time actually playing it consistently, though, and I think the biggest thing to focus on for a future project is making the game’s internal state clearer to the player.

The control layout was particularly difficult for me. Movement is A/D, stealth is X, and collecting a soul uses R. Since those actions often need to happen close together, my hand was constantly moving between keys that aren’t very comfortable to combine. R also competes with the finger I naturally use for D, which made moving right while preparing to interact especially awkward.

Something like A/D for movement with Space/E for your primary actions might be worth experimenting with.

Stealth was also hard to understand while playing. It seemed to have both a duration and some kind of cooldown, but I couldn’t find an indicator showing whether I was currently hidden, how much time I had left, or when the ability was ready again.

I ended up repeatedly pressing X just to determine what state the game was in. A simple meter, icon, character effect, or cooldown display would make that mechanic much easier to learn and use intentionally.

I ran into a similar readability problem when collecting souls. The R prompt can remain behind after a character moves away, so I wasn’t always sure whether I was supposed to interact with the character, the prompt, or the location where they had previously been. Keeping the prompt physically attached to the actual interaction target would make the mechanic much clearer.

I did manage to collect souls a couple of times, so I could see what the intended loop was, but it took me quite a while, and a couple readings of the instructions on the game page, to understand how everything fit together.

Ideally, the game itself should communicate enough that the page instructions are reinforcement rather than required reading.

I also encountered what seems like an audio bug. The music and sound effects fit the game pretty well when they were playing, but in multiple attempts the audio eventually stopped completely.

Conceptually, I like the idea of playing a supernatural character sneaking around at night collecting souls while avoiding guards. That gives the game a clear Halloween identity.

For a first jam, getting something submitted with movement, enemies, stealth, interactions, art, audio, a tutorial, and an objective is already a meaningful milestone. I think another pass focused specifically on player feedback and usability would make the underlying idea come through much more clearly.