The cast of Soul Void. Top - The Grim. Middle row from left - The Leech, The Greeter, and The Waiting. Bottom row from left - The Mayor, The Player, The Seeker, and The Husk.
Soul Void is a 2019 Indie pixel RPG created by Kadabura. The unnamed player character wakes up in a black void land filled with deceased souls. These souls have fallen through the cracks on their way to the afterlife and ended up in the soul void, a sort of purgatory that they can't escape. Some live mostly fine, but others go insane. The land grows more twisted and dangerous the further in the player travels, but the only way home is to confront what's waiting deep in the void and the secrets it holds.The game is free to play on itch.io here
.This game provides examples of:
- Adventurer Outfit: The Seeker's outfit resembles the Adventure Archaeologist version of this, with his Badass Longcoat and Fedora of Asskicking.
- Apocalyptic Log: The player can find pieces of The Seeker's research scattered around the soul void, documenting his quest to find out why everyone is trapped.
- As Long as There Is Evil: In their face-to-face meeting, The Grim is incredulous that the player character was able to persevere and defeat him by restoring hope to the Soul Void, but claims that he'll be back as soon as the player character feels those dark thoughts that let him pull them into the Soul Void.
- Badass Longcoat: The Seeker wears something resembling this.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: The player character was far stronger than The Grim expected.
- The Blank: The Mayor's face is empty except for a deep, black scar running down it.
- Body Horror: The NPC designs and environments thrive on body parts where they don't belong, such as the women with arms growing out of their faces.
- Breather Episode: The Respite is this, coming in between the player character having horror hallucinations and The Emptiness, a place where the flowers no longer grow and the mutations have only grown worse.
- Clothing Appendage: The residents of the soul void have semi-organic, nonremovable clothing that is a part of their bodies.
- Creepy Cave: The Blood Cave is one of the more unsettling areas of the map.
- Dark and Troubled Past: The majority of the beings in the soul void have one of these. Actually invoked by The Grim. They intentionally pulled those with weak or troubled minds into the soul void because they have more misery to feed on.
- The Darkness Gazes Back: This is usually how The Grim appears.
- Deal with the Devil: The Mayor makes one with The Grim. If she forbids souls that traveled deep into the soul void from reentering town, then The Grim will leave the town alone. It doesn't stick.
- Determinator: The main character's sheer refusal to give in and accept defeat ends up completely derailing The Grim's plans.
- Draw Aggro: The Seeker acts as a diversion to get the player off The Grim's radar.
- Empathic Environment: Taken literally. The soul void reads the memories and feelings of the lost souls and adapts to them, but negative feelings stick more and cause the landscape to warp into the inhabitants' personal nightmares.
- Forced Transformation: This is what happens to souls that lose hope, turning them into mutated monsters. Some are more lucid than others.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: The Grim, in the final confrontation, reveals that he was the very first soul that got stuck in the Soul Void, having hesitated when passing on because he felt wronged in life and didn't want to accept that was it. He then amassed enough power to kidnap other souls and make them suffer too, becoming a monster that feeds on their misery.
- Gentleman and a Scholar: The Seeker is well-mannered and polite to all he meets, and is dedicating his research to helping the other citizens of the soul void.
- Ghostly Gape: The Husk's eyes are black sockets.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: The Grim was responsible for dragging the main character into the Soul Void, sensing their suicidal misery and believing that he'd gain untold power if he fed on the misery of both the dead and the living. Instead, the main character not only refuses to give in, but also restores hope to those they pass along their way to confront The Grim, causing him to break down and revert from a dreaded being to just another soul.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: How The Husk feels.
- Meaningful Appearance: The souls' corrupted appearances often reflect something about them, such as The Leech, who felt guilty after feeding on the suffering of others alongside The Grim and became corrupted when she stopped.
- Nightmare Face: The Grim has one of these due to his Cheshire Cat Grin and Glowing Eyes of Doom.
- Ontological Mystery: The player character has no idea where she is or what's going on when she wakes up in the soul void.
- Or Was It a Dream?: When the player character returns to the world of the living, she still has the locket that The Leech and The Waiting gave to her.
- Shout-Out: The Museum, located after the Factory, has a set of pictures in the back that all reference other notable indie games, including a baseball player with rings hovering around them, a pair of skeletons (one sleepy, one eating pasta), a braided girl with a knife, and a priest holding a cross.
- Signature Headgear: The Seeker has his hat, which he's quite attached to.
- Silence Is Golden: The original release had no music or sound effects.
- Spell My Name with a "The": Pretty much all the named characters follow this format. The Seeker, The Grim, The Waiting, etc. It's faster to list the characters with no "the" in their names.
- Villains Love Entertainment: One of The Grim's main motivations is to enjoy the suffering of everyone else in the void.
- The Voiceless: The player character is this until the confrontation with The Grim.
- Womb Level: The Blood Caves are made entire of organic matter and require the player to wade through blood.
