Lucid Soul Works Up JRPG Nightmares On Kickstarter
Jon Bookout is a big fan of the classic JRPGs like Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, and the Lunar games. He’s now leading development of his own JRPG-type game, inspired by those influences, but with one difference: this is a horror game where you play as the villain.
Lucid Soul is the result, and its crowdfunding campaign has already reached its $50,000 goal. “What would playing as Kefka change for Final Fantasy 6? How would his madness translate into gameplay, allies, playable characters, etc. If you were Ghaleon in Lunar, would it feel different to experience the same story compared to Alex?” Bookout says.
In this game the threat to mankind are the Deathtouched, those who consumed blood of the Black Dragons to gain powers — the side effect being corruption of the soul. But since too much corruption is never enough, your party is after a prized Black Dragon Egg that will make them more powerful than ever.
Combat is turn-based, with your party using a limited number of moves until their Soul Points run dry and the opposition takes their turn. You can only use your Black Dragon powers against those who have already been corrupted, so in some cases you’ll need to do the corrupting first. Some fights will be multiple screens in length, with branching paths, and in some of the boss battles, you’ll have the option of controlling the bosses themselves.
Lucid Soul is now in development for PC and you can preorder a digital copy with a $20 pledge. Increasing it to $30 will make you a beta tester and grant you the soundtrack as well. A physical PC copy is possible at $40, complete with its own manual in a Sega CD-style jewel case. Other physical items like pins can be obtained at higher tiers.
There are only four days left on the Lucid Soul Kickstarter, so if you want a copy, make your pledge soon. The game itself is estimated for completion sometime in the fall of 2022.