Death Reapers Contract (WIP)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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Title: Death Reapers Contract
Genre is horror, psychological, slice of life and humor.

Basically you just graduated from high school and entering college but got into an accident which ultimately kills you.

You are then visited by a ferryman because apparently you don’t have a soul, the ferryman tells you that you’re a “soulless” thus cannot be reborn.

The ferryman then proposes a contract with you, the contract will allow you to be a reaper so you can collect soul essence as an exchange you’ll be given a chance to be reborn again and not vanish.

Short demo:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/235658770/Death%20Reapers%20Contract%20Game/web/mygame/index.html

Point out errors you find or any wrong grammar, spelling, blah, blah, but do have fun finding the errors :smiley:

8 Likes
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I noticed that out of all your characters, there seem to be no physical descriptions of Jordan Hughes and Riley Achava. Maybe expand on their appearances a little?

Your story is wonderful! I’m very addicted already!

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Question: Why don’t we have souls?

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It was fun, but I set the ferryman to Female and he still turned out male.

@trollhunterthethird Because we’re the replacement members of Organization XIII!

(Sorry a friend made me watch Kingdom Hearts and due to the themes of this game I HAD to make that reference)

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The notion of a sentient creature being soulless doesn’t make sense to me. Madness of the highest order.

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I can’t play it here, my network is paranoid at work. :slight_smile:

Sounds interesting, just make something up. Perhaps the MC’s soul was stolen by someone. Gives an instant villain too. Or, a pact made by a parent gave it away. Or anything.

What’s the concept of soul? If it’s the “body” you get to ride into the afterlife, it works just fine. You can be sentient and ride around in your physical meat-machine. When you die, you better have an soul-speeder to get around in, or you won’t exist any more.

1 Like
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@Lucid The idea of a soul simply pertains to a mind, i.e. a conscious subject. But the author doesn’t seem to be using it in that way, hence my confusion.

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I love little emilio

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“The notion of a sentient creature being soulless doesn’t make sense to me. Madness of the highest order”,

@Drazen then what about an artificial intelligence? As far as we know creating an A.I. does not bestow upon the A.I. a soul. Granted, today’s A.I. are limited but it is an intelligence nonetheless. Therefore, following that (for lack of a better word) “Interesting” idea, could not an artificial intelligence be what the PC has (not robotic A.I. but perhaps some supernatural form of it).

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  1. There are so many grammar/spelling mistakes there is no point in pointing them out.
  2. What ever you do, keep the resonance skill. It sounds very interesting.
  3. In the part when we are looking for the application form, mom appears at the door, holding a paper and says “Looking for this?”. We know the paper in her hand is the application form. Makes sense. No need to write a whole paragraph about it being the application form.
  4. Still on the point of the app. form: why give us a choice where to look for it if it was never hinted where we left it? If it was hinted, I missed the hint and I apologise for pointing this out.
  5. No point in pointing out that a 4-year-old speaks like a 4-year-old. I already got the point he is a kid from his first sentence.
  6. Family/Reaper files: A nice way to keep track of the characters we have met so far. Bonus points if the characters mentioned in the files are important for the story and there are hints in there for a future puzzle or something like that. Otherwise, they are useless. Still a nice idea, though, and you should keep them anyway. Definitely add reaper/ferryman files.
  7. About the car accident: If someone killed us on purpose, I am okay with it. Because I got a feeling who ever is driving the SUV is smashing into us on purpose. If it is a true accident, it is just confusing.
  8. “You look at this strange person; he doesn’t appear to be a grim reaper as they should look like a tall pale skeletal figure shrouded in a long, dark, black hooded cloak wielding a scythe that collects souls.” Too much exposition in one sentence. Either chop the sentence in multiple smaller sentences or cut this out completely. I am sure many people have an idea what a grim reaper looks like.
  9. The snickers thing. I didn’t like it.
  10. “Narrowing his gaze at you, “I won’t repeat it again so make do to what i said, so next question.” It looks like he is bored so you ask another question.” and the only choice I have is “No More Questions.” A *temp that counts how many questions we asked should fix this.
  11. "he happily explain this but analysing his explanation, that means if your family accepts that you are dead you’ll just vanish. " He just told us this. In the same paragraph.
  12. You told us that a soul can’t be collected from a soulless person for about third or fourth time.

All in all a good game with a lot of good ideas. Get rid of the redundant text and fix the grammar.

I apologize to everyone about the long post. :smiley:

@Headhunter180 A.I. is not a sentient creature, but a simulation of one. That is why it does not need a soul.

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@Headhunter180 Artificial Intellience, as it stands, is simply well-made computer coding; It is in no way intelligent, i.e. rational, conscious, etc., and hence has no soul. It is theoretically possible, - I say with great hesitation and uncertainty, - for one to bring about proper intelligence through artificial means, but we have not yet done so, although were we to, then it would analytically have a soul.

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@Lucid LOL. I just played the demo and it never occured to me to ask myself “How come I can exist in the afterlife without having a soul?”

Edit: The ferryman did mention we exist because of our family’s souls and unacceptance of our death. That explains it in some way. Still doesn’t explain why we exist in regular life.

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@Aquos_Boost XD That reference made my day!

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While I have no problem with the idea of someone being soulless, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSoulless for example has dozens of examples from all sorts of media, one would normally take someone becoming a ghost as proof of a soul.

Although I see that in the game it’s really more short hand for soul stunted, so it’s probably not so much binary but a sliding scale. I mean logically a hollow soul ought to still qualify as a soul, just not a very substantial one, using the ferryman’s analogy about candy bars.

And also perhaps a nod to that psychic echo theory of ghosts here, perhaps?

Of course perhaps the ferryman is  just flat out lying.

One idea that came to mind is a tomato in the mirror kind of situation, where in fact you don't have a soul because you're actually some spirit thing that just assumed the identity complete with memories of a dead human.
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Hi guys thanks for trying out the game.

This was for fun only, at work our crazy boss made us watch a movie “Death to Smoochy”

@trollhunterthethird because i reverse the concept of supernatural into preternatural and for plot purposes of the story. :smiley:

@Aquos_Boost ferryman is male to begin with, I based his character to my boss and my boss is a drag queen so… i could change him to her or vice versa. :-/

@Drazen hahaha really? Madness? :)) And @Headhunter180
I view “Soul” as an essence of life, part of a human being or animal. For the story i reverse the concept of supernatural into preternatural in accommodating the concept of “souls” and “soulless”

Supernatural pertains to an order of existence beyond the scientifically visible universe. Example miracles, spells and curses, divination, gods, sometimes heroes, demons, angels, ghoulies, ghosties, long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night.

Preternatural is presumed to have a scientific explanation that just hasn’t been discovered yet. Preternatural appears outside or beyond the natural but was once of this world. Example werewolf, because it isn’t scientifically proven to exist but was once human (of this world).

The concept of souls is that it is a “Preternatural” we have different view of souls but as presumed it cannot have any scientific explanation, so we view it as a natural thing.

Hence my theory of a “soulless” is also a “Preternatural” exceeding what is natural or regular.

However for the story i’m doing a “soulless” does not necessarily mean no “soul” they just lack the required life essence so they cannot be reborn and because of this they can take souls of other humans or animals and make it their life essence to change them from a “soulless” to a “soul”.

@Lucid soul-speeder? I like the sound of that.

@JLBH his cute right? But he will die later on…

@DSeg
I learn my lesson now that trying to type a game using a HTC phone will make many grammar/spelling mistakes. Lols.

In looking for the app. form the MC panics when dad inquires it and so he/she assumes that it is in his/her room but has no clue where it is located.

Some assumed Emilio’s way of speaking is a case of “Lisp” but if it makes sense that his 4 years old then i’ll remove the reference.

Family, Reaper, Ferryman files purpose was to contain certain information and hints for the MC.

The car accident was on purpose… I killed your MC bwahahaha >:)

My boyfriend doesn’t know what a grim reaper looks like so i describe it, but if majority of people are familiar with it then i shall remove it.

I was hungry so i made reference to food “snickers” I will change it then….

Will review the whole thing and fix the grammar and redundant text, I was not aware i did it, curse small screen phones….

Also It will be explained why your MC exist in regular life.

Thanks all for the comments.

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@stsword
what is psychic echo theory?

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The game feels a lot like a more realistic modern-day version of the Nobodies (Namely Organization XIII) from KH right now. Is there a chance this is somewhat based on it? Simply curious.

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Nope i based it on the concept of killing the purple dinosaur smoochy via grim reaper style since i didn’t get the movie and was bored i made the game… eerrr now that i think about it my reasoning in creating the game is weird? :-/

I know the KH but don’t worry you will not turn into a nameless character like the game :smiley:

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@Aera Yes, absolute madness. The terms you have used of a soulless person violate the Law of Identity.

However, what you mean by ‘Soul’ is more akin to a form of life-giving energy. Therefore, since you have already brought some Greek mythology into this, I would advocate bastardising the mythology further, by introducing Ambrosia/Nectar and Ichor, as the deficient qualities in the PC which inhibit them. That way, you don’t create confusion through changing the meaning of the word ‘Soul.’

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@Drazen

Hmm I violate the Law of Identity? But the principle of logic has three rules.

  1. The principle of identity. Equation P > P.
  2. Principle of non-contradiction. Equation T or F and nothing else.
  3. Principle of excluded middle. Equation Two truth values T or F.

I used the truth table and was able to come up with possible true answers so i didn’t violate the law, I think my interpretation of what a soul is, is what caused the confusion. As everyone has different understanding of what exactly is a soul.

I have used the theory of knowledge which is the realms of The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable.

  1. Known consists of all of the things we have already learned and know to be True and factual.
  2. Unknown consists of all the experiences, knowledge and skills that are available to us in this physical realm which we have not yet come to learn, understand and utilize.
  3. Unknowable consists of all of the cosmic concepts and divine truths which can never be understood and explained by the rational and logical mind.

Hence I used the theory of knowledge of unknowable in part of creating the preternatural status, as a preternatural it is unnatural and cannot be explain in a logical sense. No definite description of what a soul should be like as different religion, culture and upbringing will vary from person to person. We can claim a soul exist but nobody can actual prove its existence therefore it is unknowable and does not violate the law of identity.

I am happy that you pointed the law of identity as it also bugged me but then using the truth table analysis it didn’t bother me and i do not believe that i am “bastardising the mythology”