Soul Brother

By: ithamore

On: April 23rd, 2011

For those of us who have been waiting to play the Flash version of Soul Brother, the age of its online existence is finally here: go and play. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, please continue reading.

Jasper Byrne has been putting a lot of time and love into this platformer about a spirit who is transported into the nearest animal after the body he was in dies, which grants the player with different abilities to play with in order to proceed through the game. This alternate reality method of reincarnation is a central mechanic of the gameplay, and a tally is kept of the times you die without having an animal into which to reincarnate. There are also wisdom gems to collect, speed runs to attempt, and combinations of variables to explore for the more challenging achievements while playing and replaying Soul Brother. Then there is the extra difficult Rainbow Star Challenge, … Edit: the challenge has been bested.

The pixel art and animations are adorable. Then there is the catchy, melodious soundtrack, which Jasper will be releasing as an OST later this year. And, if you aren’t already playing the game by now, maybe you’re reading too much.

Posted in Browser Games, Highly Recommended, Platformers | Tags: JasperByrne

http://about.me/ortoslon ortoslon

for the competitive and the lazy:
0-death run in 3:49 by me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
all-gem run with 7 deaths by Terry Cavanagh http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

ithamore, i won't reach for the rainbow star. screw collectibles, screw achievements, screw memorization, i'm not a completionist
anthonyflack

Reminds me a lot of the ol' Cactus game Psychosomnium, both in theme and presentation.

Although this one seems a good deal more unpleasant somehow. Being that you are a ghost possessing all these animals and forcing them to commit suicide one after the other. Pretty cold, man. That is some horror movie shit right there.
ithamore

Thanks for the informative comment and the video links. I wish Terry luck if he's going for the Rainbow Star.
http://twitter.com/JasperByrne Jasper Byrne

I thought I'd wait to have a go at it until it was confirmed. Which it was on day 2 by one Brian Keong. I'll be making a SB-style sprite for this gentleman. I'd love to see a recording of it though – although I admit I really need to put in a quit button for when you lose your first life.

Anyway, now several people have got there as I've been watching the highscore tables, now it's just a case of getting there quicker to reach the top spot.

Thanks for covering it ithamore!
Gnome

Lovely stuff!
jay

nice. sometimes a bit frustrating. but still nice.
Tiganon

I found this game next to unplayable because of horrid controls. I imagine it's something with my computer, but at times key presses didn't register, or they stuck.. I had a lot more deaths because my character continued to run left or right for 3 minutes after I had taken my finger off the keys. One time I died 6 times in a row because it wouldn't stop running to the right, into some spikes. The only AS game this has ever happened to me, too…

I love the art style though, except I get really tired of the fake scanlines after awhile
Jasperbyrne

Are you playing in Firefox? I've seen this issue in that browser under certain conditions.
Tiganon

I am, actually. Thanks for the suggestion; when I get in the mood to play again I'll try a different browser.
Guest

I don't think it has anything to do with firefox… it's frequent in IE8 too, especially on certain sites (kongregate for example) http://www.kongregate.com/foru…
ithamore

I've been using Firefox to play Soul Brother and had similar problems. Then I finally tried the game in Chrome, and everything worked more smoothly and more quickly.