Just Some Thoughts From Someone After 100% Finishing the Game

[kochukm]

Just felt like posting my scattered thoughts as someone who just finished 100%ing the game (in terms of in-game completion, I have little interest in achievements or anything like that). As slight background I'm coming from that perspective of someone who is perfectly comfortable with 2d platforming (e.g, I have beaten Celeste and done the true ending of Hollow Knight etc.).

Overall, I would just start with saying I loved this game. It's definitely up there as one of my favorite metroidvanias. A lot of it felt like it was tailor-made to my sensibilities in what I want out of a metroidvania. It is always a good sign when after beating a game I have an urge to simply just play through it again on a harder difficulty (I played on normal). In the end I just usually don't do that but I might in the future (I don't know if there is any plan to add in the two areas originally planned as DLC or anything like that but I would certainly be thrilled to play more of this game in general).

- With the relics, I often felt like I could have used more brain nodes. I understand how easy it is to have things unbalanced if too many of them can get stacked together and it's certainly possible doing so would purely be a mistake, but I kept running into the issue of feeling like I'd get a new relic and it would seem interesting to use but between it's cost and the cost of other relics I'd always just be like “welp, guess I just can't afford to ever use this really”. I felt like having a brain node give, idk, two more juice per pick-up would've freed up a lot of freedom to explore certain builds or moreover to just use things that seemed interesting but as is I never got the feeling I could actually afford to explore some relics. And this was with every brain node upgrade. I admit that the balancing could end up being completely thrown-off by even a small change within the economy but that was just the feeling I'd get while playing and finding them.

- There is a lot of movement tech with the spells that are never taught. I actually generally like games having hidden complex tech underlying everything that can only be discovered. The thing is some of this tech is ultimately needed to get 100% and it's not just for speedrunners or anything like that. A lot of the game I marked things assuming I'd get an ability later to help do the room but then learned it was only a matter of using tech with spells (like chain jumping with the spores). My personal idea would be once you get all 10 spells, a training room at the save points unlocks that demonstrates some of these interactions. The idea being just to point out that it exists. I don't think they should be pointed out when the spells are gotten or anything like that because it would likely end up overwhelming and lead to too much sequence breaking on first playthroughs, but somewhere toward the end of the game it would've been nice to know instead of wondering if I'd missed a hidden wall that contained a needed item or something.

- Within the astral gate and ladybug rooms, I found ones that involved pogo jumping off the moving spikes much harder than most of the other types of rooms. The issue for me wasn't the actual execution difficulty but trying to learn the intended pacing and rhythm of them. I ultimately did figure them out and got through all of them but a part of me wonders if there isn't some way to demonstrate the intended bounce path that would make them feel less like trial and error of deducing and locking down the timing as opposed to actual execution of the platforming.

- When you get the ability to do down + LT to bounce up walls, I wish there was a way to temporarily bind this to Y to replace the pogo (or something like that). When I was climbing the shaft for the alternative surface exit for example, I found doing the wall bonce input in combination with stuff like spin dashes and spore jumping to be a lot to handle, mostly because of the need to be holding down for one specific input while also then moving the character in the air.

- Level design wise I really enjoyed that this game didn't fall into my pet peeve metroidvania design where you walk right, get an ability and now you backtrack left to use it and then repeat. Actually the very beginning of the game does fall into this trap of doing that, but after that beginning it feels much better. I would say a decent amount of the rooms don't really have a sense of place or location to them beyond being tilesets chaining everything together. This is pretty much how it always is for solo-developed stuff but just thought I'd mention it. It's possible things like having the big lore statute for the region being hand-drawn on and/or marked on the map could maybe help. One thing this game I think avoids that is common for solo-devleoped metroidvanias is the rooms don't seem as overly box-y and rectangular as they often are in metroidvanias. I mean, they are, but it manages to successfully hide that feeling I think which is always appreciated.

- A very random thing, but in the ladybug room that is above the savepoint in the lava temple, I kept having difficulty using the dash+spin+slash ceiling spikes thing with enough momentum and couldn't figure out why it seemed inconsistent. I eventually figured out that spamming the slash button while spinning would actually cause me to lose momentum(?) but if I was precise in only hitting the slash once when near the spikes then I would get the required distance. Just something I thought that was unintuitive, the idea that slashing while spinning was slowing me down (if that is even what was happening?).

- When I eventually climbed the shaft for the alternative surface exist, I expected to fight the same final boss but was confused when the ending was the same. I guess I'm not sure I understand what the point of the alternative exit was in hindsight, especially given the other one that exists in the underground that is a different ending. I can only assume it is for speedrunning or something so you can still do the surface ending without getting all 10 spells(?).

- I liked the puzzle to get the gold key, but I think the ability to freely teleport should probably just be given to you (or very easily findable) sometime around getting 10 spells instead of being hidden in a secret. I guess the item you get from the gold key would just be a health up or relic or something instead. On a related note, when I got the eye powerup I was stunned just how many hidden ceilings there were. I guess that's not a problem really but I would've probably preferred to find some organically, as matter of pacing (I feel like I did 15 astral gates during the game and then like 30 in a row during clean up...). Maybe I just missed tells for these idk.

- On parry timing, it took a bit to get used to how early it needs to be. Compared to most other games with similar mechanics, the parry in this one is just simply earlier than one would think. Basically, you do it before it is hitting you, instead of mostly right as it is hitting you. Just something that took adjustment.

Again, just want to emphasize I thought this game was fantastic. A great job, especially by a solo-dev.

[BASTI]

Thanks so much for writing this feedback, I agree with a lot of what you are saying here and there will likely be some improvements coming to a lot of parts of the game!

Some of these are small relic re-balances

That 10 spell tutorial room explaining advanced spell tech is something I was thinking about too and will be adding in!

I defintively wanna improve the fast travel issues and the game doing a better job of hinting towards those upgrades. My idea right now is perhaps add minor statues who mark positions of the hidden keys, maybe. I have not decided yet. More gold shrines will be coming likely too.

That parry feedback made me think of an idea which I'll try implementing tomorrow maybe, a feature allows players to parry when hit. (Or atleast a small window in the beginning of getting hit).

Overall I'm very much dedicated towards improving this game further.

I am also very likely doing a free DLC sized update at some point featuring a boss rush mode :).

Thanks so much for playing my game!!

[darkly77]

Originally posted by kochukm:

With the relics, I often felt like I could have used more brain nodes.

I agree with this, there's a couple of relics that are mandatory for me (quick slash, faster movement) and they've pretty much priced me out of anything else for most of the game. Which is a shame cause there's so many cool relics I'd love to try!

Originally posted by kochukm:

There is a lot of movement tech with the spells that are never taught.

I'd also love to have a tutorial for some of the extra uses for spells. I think I've pulled some stuff off accidentally, but having a tutorial to show how it's done correctly and practice with would be really helpful. There's a lot of cool tech I've seen mention in passing and it feels like I'm just scratching the surface of what the game offers in terms of movement options

Originally posted by kochukm:

Within the astral gate and ladybug rooms, I found ones that involved pogo jumping off the moving spikes much harder than most of the other types of rooms. The issue for me wasn't the actual execution difficulty but trying to learn the intended pacing and rhythm of them.

Same. It feels like trial and error where you make a little progress, learn the timing of the next jump, make a little more progress and keep repeating that.