Design Club: So you want to make a Metroidvania, eh?

[Blind]

Not here to tell you how to do your job - ultimately all choices have to come down to what you want, or what you want your fans to want.

Anyways:

This is about the design aspects of Metroidvanias, anyone can participate and add their own opinions.

But the topic of the day is: Backtracking.

Backtracking is inherently NOT fun, but Metroidvanias by design are required to make use of it as their appeal is in the tools needed to reach new paths. So, how is this problem solved?

There's a few options. I won't number them since their ordering is arbitrary.

Portrait of Ruin: Most, if not all, zones have a warp at the end - removing the need to backtrack. If you ever want to revisit an area to search for treasure you can do it as a straight-through.

Super Metroid: The map was carefully designed so that you can use your new tools as part of the backtracking experience. For example, after getting the Speedbooster when you must backtrack to Brinstar there are corridors you can now dashthrough. Likewise, when backtracking with the Ice Beam you'll likely be tempted to explore upwards... discovering the Power Bombs.

This is a methodology referred to on TVTropes as "Door to Before" and is generally a good idea to shorten the time backtracking. It's used in a number of other games, such as Resident Evil and Dark Souls to allow easy access to a more central hub area instead of walking the whole distance every time.

Castle in the Darkness: While it can count as a Metroidvania, you can almost do the entire game in a straight shot without ever looking back. There are lots of side powerups and secrets, but you only have to do them if you want to.

The Power: An example of what not to do... The world map is virtually a straight path, left or right, with each powerup requiring you to ping-pong back to the other side... every time.



There is a subset of backtracking which is typically fair if not taken overboard, and that's the trek through a low tier zone which higher tier items as "proof" that you have gotten stronger.

[sitebender]

I just spent 20 hours in a mapless Finding Teddy 2 that is a lot of backtracking. Find something new, scour the entire world for something mandatory. I think Metroid Fusion did it best by locking you in an area and even mutating an area so it looks different when you're forced to back track.

[Thew]

Interesting read!

I'm currently working on a "metroidvania"-style game. But the world is designed more like the original Legend of Zelda, with a somewhat non-linear structure (the first 3 "dungeons" can be tackled in any order).

I've eased the backtracking problem a bit by making multiple paths to just about any part of the overworld, and by having the overworld itself not be overwhelmingly large.

So far it "feels" good to explore, but this is definitely a more challenging problem than it seems from the outset.

[Blind]

I did a full write up on the world map of Zelda 1 before. There's a lot of subtle hints that the average player won't notice.

For example:

http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/snaps/zelda-snap-0002.gif

It's subtly an arrow pointing right

[Sera]

I've generally never minded backtracking, provided there's enough new to see and do in the process. Walking through the same empty hallway for the tenth time is never fun, but if you can make proper use of your new tools I find the tedium is pretty much neutralized; have enemies with new uses or weaknesses exposed by what you've found, hide powerups in places only the powered-up player can get at (or make it possible to access what was once visible but out of reach), and of course the previously mentioned shortcut / alternate route approach to keep things interesting.

In some cases, scaling up your adversaries could also provide some level of new interest (and also reenforce that the player is where they're meant to be), but you lose that sense of gained power somewhat in the process, so that one's really situational.

[Chase of Bass]

One of my favorite game designers, Konjak, made a really good video where he analyzed some of metroids strong points -a very fun and interesting video that I highly recommend for anyone interested in making a metroidvania style game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGIWGjyfXF4

[Blind]

It's difficult to come up with powerups sometimes, as there's virtually no limits. There seem to be a lot of archetypes though

Jump Extenders: Bonus height, double jump, floaty jumps, spring pads, grapple hooks

Speed/Mobility Extenders: Bonus distance, breakable terrains, speed gates, intentional wall clipping, attack/laser dodging

Combat Extenders: Ammunition and weapons, hitter of weakpoints, explosives for terrain

There's a lot of niche options though... such as wall climbing/grappling, anti-gravity, the ability to create blocks, ability to freeze enemies to stand, esoteric terrain modifiers like rafts/ladders/lava suits, (anti)gravity wells, and maybe even xray vision

However, having meaningful design when using any combination of abilities is the hardest part of making a Metroidvania