Hi everyone, we have a link where you can play with what we’ve made so far here: http://itbmac.com/games/soulgame/soulgame_webplayer.php
In Respawn, the player explores what happens in the game after the main character is out of “lives,” basically starting at the point of Game Over. The main mechanic is that the player uses a single button to make the dead character’s soul move between living things on the map. Originally, this was going to be an alternative platformer puzzle, in which you try to shift between elements to get to the goal (a beam of light) that takes you to the next level.
After further consideration, the game is going to be an open-world exploration, in which there is a large map that the player can explore (as a soul), and progressively collect information about why the main character died. This story unravels based on the player’s decisions of where to explore, and into what “things” to move the soul–a short narrative is told by the object the soul is occupying. This does remove the notion of “losing and winning,” but some penalizing/awarding mechanics can be made (such as collecting artifacts, resolving a storyline, running into a “dead” end).
It would be really great if you have suggestions or feedback!