All 4 One

Overview

There have been whispers about the mysterious temple that seemed to appear overnight along the shore: treasure's inside! However, death doesn't behave normally once you're inside - dying will bring you back, but with your soul split in half! Arrange the pieces of your soul into various formations to unleash awesome powers, solve puzzles and slay demons! Play as Ace Treasure Hunter, Mappa von Dandy, as you track down the biggest treasure of your life - and forever after!

Inspired by Ikaruga, The Wonderful 101, Baba is You, and those enemies in games that split into two smaller halves when you kill them.

🏆 1st Place, UDC Game Jam #24 (Theme: "Death is Good")

About the game

• Puzzle-action adventure: Get rewarded for clear thinking and clean execution
• Multiple solutions: Both meticulous and reckless playstyles are welcome
• Dynamic soundtrack: Multi-layered soundtrack by pope backed by Zenryoku for the ending song
• Story: Drama, twists and turns abound!
• Very short and berry sweet: Tightly paced and constantly introducing new ideas throughout its ~20 minute runtime

Controls and rules

• WASD: Move
• P: Pause/unpause (Read controls and rules in pause menu)
• R: Restart current level
• E: Interact (when prompt visible)
• J: Formation action (when available)

Splitting and Fusing

• Dying splits your ghost - this spawns 2 smaller ghosts on the left and right of the killed ghost. If those spaces are occupied, another adjacent space is chosen.
• The starting size ghost (I'll refer to it as a 4ghost since it contains 4 ghosts of the smallest unit, so an Nghost is made of N of the smallest units) can be split into two 2ghosts. Each 2ghost can be split into two 1ghosts. If a 1ghost is killed, the level restarts - you need all four 1ghosts to be fused back together to a 4ghost to unlock the "4" doors at the end of each level.
• Fuse smaller ghosts together by moving ghosts of the same size into each other. Fusing two Nghosts creates a 2Nghost where they meet. A 2ghost and 1ghost can't fuse.

Formations

When you unlock formations, you can arrange the ghosts into specific patterns to use each formation's abilities. Note that for Mirror and Unity formations, there needs to be exactly 2 ghosts onscreen. (If you have 4 ghosts, positioning 2 pairs into either Mirror or Unity formation won't work)

• Mirror formation: With exactly 2 ghosts, arrange ghosts diagonally to each other. Reflect purple projectiles on contact.
• Unity formation: With exactly 2 ghosts, arrange ghosts adjacent to each other (horizontal or vertical). Absorb green projectiles on contact. When you have energy stored, press J to release an attack in a 1x1 box around you (like the king in chess)
• Phalanx formation: Arrange 4 ghosts into the corners of a cross (North East West South, or like the buttons on your d-pad) to defend against all types of damage, including bombs.
• Blade formation: Arrange 4 ghosts in a horizontal or vertical line and press J to slash in the direction of your line. The attack is extremely far-reaching.

Good to know

• You can split into as many as 4 ghosts. If any of these smallest ghosts dies, the level will restart since you need all 4 of you to continue.
• To get to the next level, the door's lock needs to get unlocked and you need to fuse back to a single ghost.
• There isn't a special significance to a small ghost and a medium ghost sharing the same grid cell, but it can help speed up fusing.
• Brute force can often work, but I encourage you to try to find elegant solutions.
• An easy way to tell which level you're on is by looking at the red/blue banners next to the level entrance. Red banners represent 1 level cleared, and blue banners represent 3 levels cleared. For example: if you see 1 blue banner and 2 red banners, you've cleared 1*3 + 2*1 levels and you're on level 6.

Credits

(Soul Thief Games)

• Zenryoku: Game Director, Concept & Design, Programming, Writing, Music (ending song)
• Nelson MacPherson: Character Portrait Art, Character Sprite Art
• pope: Music (the entire game)

(Other wonderful people)

• Dungeon RPG Tileset by Rekkimaru
• Minifantasy - Dungeon Audio Pack by Leohpaz
• Universal UI/Menu Soundpack by Ellr
• 2d pixel art game spell/magic FX by ppeldo
• Key Items 16x16 by DantePixels
• Dungeon Tileset II by 0x72
• Cute Bomb Character Sprite by Caz Creates Games
• openmoji.org