Echoes of South America: Ferryman of Souls

Echoes of South America: Ferryman of Souls

Inspiration

Echoes of South America: Ferryman of Souls was inspired by the mythologies and cultural memory of ancient South American civilizations, especially the idea of souls being trapped in fragmented time. I wanted to create a game that not only provides combat and exploration but also acts as a digital ritual of remembrance.

My academic background influenced this project deeply. I studied International Relations and Spanish during my undergraduate years, which gave me a strong interest in Latin American history and indigenous culture. Now, as a Computer Science graduate student, I’m exploring ways to merge that cultural passion with interactive technology.

What it does

In this game, you are the Ferryman—a soul guide traveling through lost South American worlds. Players:

Purify corrupted skeletons and uncover fragments of their past lives

Defeat ancient Tree Spirits that symbolize decaying ancestral power

Collect Civilization Shards and use them in a shop to unlock cultural memories and hidden powers

Explore three realms: broken temples, sacred lands, and stormy valleys

Choose melee weapons and engage in ritualistic battles that restore the world’s balance

How we built it

The experience was built using Meta Horizon World Builder. We used:

A custom gameplay loop combining NPC interaction, shard collection, and melee combat

A shard-based resource system for unlocking cultural knowledge in the shop

UI Gizmos to simulate story pop-ups after battles

Scripts like NPCMonster, NPCAgent, and custom triggers for story delivery and level progression

Redesigned scenes with improved flow, floating landmarks, and symbolic architecture to represent broken memory timelines

Challenges we ran into

Script structure issues: Initially, NPCs did not respond because they lacked the proper NPCAgent components, breaking progression after the first enemy wave.

Unclear scene logic: The original scene was cluttered and lacked visual hierarchy. Players easily got lost, so we redesigned paths and added spatial guidance elements.

No onboarding or guidance: Without voice instructions or cues, first-time players were often confused. We're planning to address this in the next update.