What would you want to see in another SMB-like game?

[Volnaiskra]

I'll be upfront: This post is part shameless plug, part request for help.

After getting frustrated not being able to find more games like Super Meat Boy, I decided to make my own. It's my first game, but I'm treating it as a serious commercial project (I actually quit my job to make it - yikes!). It's called Spryke (google it if you like). Visually, it's not at all like SMB: it has modern production values, high-res graphics, and more of a sci-fi vibe.

But gameplay-wise, I'm taking many leaves out of SMB's book: very fast and very agile protagonist; small devious bite-size levels that require skill and cunning to complete; instant respawns; high base level of difficulty with even more difficulty layered over that via optional collectibles and unlockables, and so on.

So, my question is: What would you most want to see in a game that was similar to Super Meat Boy? What did you love so much about SMB that you'd love to see again? Were there things that you thought SMB didn't do so well that you'd like to see improved?

[glass]

Take a look at fenix rage, its the most similar game to smb i can think of, perhaps learn something from it.

Though comepletely different, dustforce is a precision platformer you could draw inspiration from too.

[Starlit]

From a speedrun point of view here are the things i reccomend:

Low RNG: Meat boy has LArry and Glitch girls which make it annoying to run in spite of the relatively small amount:

Skippable cutscenes, (This is a BIG deal)

Level design is a massive factor I feel as an ILer, a level with one route is a boring level most times :D and i would love to see another game with multiple characters though that would be a bit unusual to be fair.

Some of the big downfalls of meat boy was the leaderboards and editor setups so I recommend looking at dustforce for a good leaderboard example.

Good luck with it

[Spike]

The most important thing to me, in SMB, were the slick mechanics. I seem to remember team meat spent a lot of time just getting the feel of SMB's movement right. If he moved completely analog, or any different, I would never have played it to 100%. I never, ever, in all those 1000s of deaths felt it was the mechanics fault - and a lot of SMBish games get that part completely wrong.

Gameplay wise, the only thing I rather disliked, where those black random enemies (sorry forgot the name), because they were random. The gravity ball thingies I could work, but those damn black ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ were a pain in my fragile little ass.

I don't know anything about creating games, so I can't help you there, but I rather dislike games that feel disjointed. In SMB everything (the mechanics, the art style, the music, the humor, ...) was one big thing. That's why I mostly dislike SMB clones - they feel like someone tried to make an even-harder-game for the sake of it. While SMB is clearly team meat's love baby, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, all the best of luck with it!

[Vaagur]

Originally posted by Volnaiskra:

I'll be upfront: This post is part shameless plug, part request for help.

After getting frustrated not being able to find more games like Super Meat Boy, I decided to make my own. It's my first game, but I'm treating it as a serious commercial project (I actually quit my job to make it - yikes!). It's called Spryke (google it if you like). Visually, it's not at all like SMB: it has modern production values, high-res graphics, and more of a sci-fi vibe.

But gameplay-wise, I'm taking many leaves out of SMB's book: very fast and very agile protagonist; small devious bite-size levels that require skill and cunning to complete; instant respawns; high base level of difficulty with even more difficulty layered over that via optional collectibles and unlockables, and so on.

So, my question is: What would you most want to see in a game that was similar to Super Meat Boy? What did you love so much about SMB that you'd love to see again? Were there things that you thought SMB didn't do so well that you'd like to see improved?

Hard difficulty
Achievements
Wall jumps
Needs an amazing soundtrack
Working "Super Meat World" with an easier to understand level editor.
Grapplings?
Funny story.
Endless mode?
Randomly generated levels?
No limited lives challenges.
New traps: Falling stalagtites, Needle throwing trap, proximity mines...

That's what I can think about right now.

[Virtuous Rogue]

Something Meat Boy does great that a lot of other platformers don't do is it gives you a lot of direct horizontal control in your jumps. You can slow down mid-air to decrease jump distance or even change direction, make tiny adjustments in speed, etc. I've gotten to the point where if a platformer claims it is "tough as nails" and direct horizontal jump control isn't a part of it, I just put the game down.

I was replaying Super Mario Bros and the thing I disliked about it most post-Meat Boy was the lack of direct horizontal jump control. Another issue Mario had was a slow acceleration for running resulting in many deaths, and finally, it didn't have wall jumps. Wall jumps are one of the best parts about Meat Boy. If you include wall jumps, make sure it has a wall stick mechanic like Meat boy has for aiming your jumps.

A complaint I have about Electronic Super Joy is that you aren't given all of your jump potential at the beginning of the game. Apparently there's a double jump you can get later, but the base mechanics were frustrating enough I put it down after an hour, before I was given the double jump.

Random enemies are a bit annoying. That said, if you implement them so that the player can sort of play against them (see level 5-20), they can work.

Something Meat Boy does that bugs me is the replays (something awesome you should have btw) don't display correct times. My replay tends to run .1 s longer than my finish time. I expect it's a loading problem of some sort but I have a very limited understanding of how that works. Also depending on how nice the computer I'm playing on (desktop vs craptop) levels with moving parts load slightly differently. I can't speedrun on my craptop because all the moving parts in levels are slightly behind what they are on my desktop.

Last note: To a certain degree, platformers are about careful timing, but if the game is ALL about perfect timing it isn't any fun. Like Census said above, just one way to beat a level isn't fun.

I had a look at your website and the game sounds pretty cool. The font discussion was pretty interesting. Good luck!

[Starlit]

There's one other piece of advice which is a bit unusual but some of the things that make meat boy great are actually accidentally in there. Character mechanics such as slide and superdash and superjump are the main examples for me where you can do awesome things and even though team meat were made aware of this after release they never patched it out because it added so much.

Also for IL players interests, optimal time levels are usually considered bad. A small amount of them is fine but waiting in general is bad. By optimal time level I mean a level where no matter what you do you cant beat a certain time due to an object like a lift or a moving wall.

Levels like 3-12x, 3-13, 3-13x, 5-8, 5-8x.

Ironically 3-13 and 3-13x arent optimised by anyone in this game but thats due to it being at best a boring 1 in a couple of hundred tries route for a player with top execution

Something like 7-18x works better as its at least interesting and random

[Headtourist]

How about multiplayer ?

I've wondered many times what multiplayer could be in super meat boy, could be versus or coop modes like :
- VS : Players starting at the same time, the other player(s) being a kind of "ghost" on your screen (hi @Brownie) so you can enjoy races through different levels with friends, maybe make your own cups with maps you choose).
- Coop : Players need to activate buttons or other things so they can finish the levels, very Portal2 like. These would be special maps, a functionnal editor seems nice too (never could get anything from smb one xD)

Don't know how all this would deal with latency though...

Could be interesting for speedrunners too, i guess, at least I know i like both these modes when I am looking for speedruns to watch, generally speaking.

[Volnaiskra]

Thanks for your thoughts, guys - keep them coming!

I've put a lot of effort into the feel of Spryke's movement. Before I even started making any graphics, I used just square blocks, and honed the movement until it felt fun and exciting even when playing with nothing but square blocks. I'm very happy with the movement, though I'll continue to iterate, especially once I'm in the playtesting stage.

Spryke runs fast, and sprints even faster (sprinting is always an option, as in SMB), and jumps high. All in all, the movement is comparable to SMB, though I always felt that SMB was a bit 'floaty', with just a tad too much inertia (ie. character keeps moving for too long, after you've let go of the controls). I'm a big believer in a game being difficult because the levels are deviously designed, and not just because the physics are punishing. So, Spryke has a little less inertia. Spryke also has slightly faster acceleration (ie. goes from stationary to top speed in less time) than SMB. In addition, I utilise the gamepad's analogue controls, which I don't believe SMB does (I could be wrong). In other words, if you feather the thumbstick, you'll get a slower movement than if you press it fully. However, I've kept this implementation extremely subtle and it doesn't make a major difference (keyboard players will be fine without it). Though it does help when, say, inching towards a cliff edge.

Spryke also has a wall jump, which works similarly to SMB. I was never fully satisfied with the stickiness of SMB's wall mechanics. Once you stick to the wall in SMB, it's kinda hard to get off: you have to pull in the opposite direction for a second or so. I did a lot of testing in this area, and have reduced this delay somewhat to a level that seems optimal to me (again, more iteration will happen during playtesting) . So, Spryke still sticks to walls, and there's still a delay before you can unstick from them. In my testing, this delay is long enough to prevent unsticking by accident, but is shorter than SMB, which makes it less frustrating for when you do want to unstick.

In addition to wall stickiness, Spryke can stick and glide across ceilings! This ceiling glide works for a limited time before losing grip and falling back down. I'm quite happy with this mechanic, and I haven't really seen it anywhere before. It's a bit hard to explain, but it adds an extra element to the dynamic and helps the action feel even faster and more sprightly IMO.

I agree that horizontal control in mid-air is one of SMB's strengths, and I've implemented this in Spryke as well. In addition there's a sort of a 'parachute' mechanic, which is similar to what you'll see in the Rayman games (and some of the alternate characters in SMB): while in mid-air, you can hold down the jump button to temporarily slow down your fall. There's a trade-off though: your horizontal control is significantly compromised when doing this, so you become slower, but clumsier. Also, it only lasts a second or so, and when it runs out you start falling fast again. It's kind of a 'last-gasp-save' mechanic (which means that I can afford to make the levels a little more difficult to compensate). It also enables you to reach certain areas that would normally be inaccessible, by giving you the option of an alternate type of maneuverability during long falls.

@glass: I haven't actually heard of fenix rage (ironically, once I started making a game, I've had way less time to play games or even read about them). Thanks - I've just downloaded the demo. I own Dustforce and agree it's a good reference.

@Census: skipable cutscenes - couldn't agree more with that! Also, the advice about multiple-route levels is excellent, and I'll make sure to always keep that in mind. I'm definitely considering multiple characters, because that was something I really enjoyed about SMB. I loved how every level was completable using the default character (so you didn't feel crippled from the start like in some games), but you had the option of using different characters which had different advantage/disadvantage tradeoffs. One of the best things about this was that you had a really high level of incentive for unlocking the next characters. That's a lesson many other games should heed actually (eg. Assassins' Creed style games, which often give you a million collectibles to find, but little reason to bother finding them)

@omnipotent duckling: I totally agree that SMB had a strong cohesive design sense. I can't promise that everyone will fall in love with Spryke, but I can certainly promise that the last thing it will be is a cheap knockoff. It's very much a labour of love, and I intend on filling it to the brim with lots of detail, such as lots of background animations and interesting sound design, to make its world feel like a great place to spend time in. If you look at my devblog, you'll see that I've even designed a full alien alphabet for it!

[glass]

I really like leaderboards, i think they are an integral part to the longlivity of a game like this both accumilated for ranks and ILs. Like 'the sun and moon's http://www.speedrun.com/tsam or dustforce's dustworth.com/rankings.
Do watch the trailer the sun and moon it may generate ideas.

If it isnt too much work, consider making a mailing list so that interested party can easily get announcements (such as creation of ks, etc) and once the game is futher develop, a presskit() would be a great idea.

Edit: another thing i'd like to mention is the accuracy of timers and how floats are handled. In smb, the uploaded timing might be in accurate, in fenix the timer doesnt tell apart one frame from another (you need many frames for one increment of the timer), in dustforce there is something with the round i dont quite remeber.

[jdonftw]

In my opinion, any sort of random generation would ruin a platformer such as this. My favorite part about Super Meat Boy is getting to a new level and learning how the hazards move, and coordinating my movements through trial and error. If, for example, the enemies were spawned in different positions each time, this would be impossible (plus, no-death runs would involve a bit of dumb luck).
Achievements, please! If I beat a rage-inducing game, I want people to know
It would be cool if there were multiple unlockable characters with different skills- not necessarily other indie characters, but just unique characters.
Your game sounds great by the way, I'll be checking it out. Do you plan to put it on steam? I'd greenlight it.

[Vaagur]

Originally posted by jgd3:

In my opinion, any sort of random generation would ruin a platformer such as this. My favorite part about Super Meat Boy is getting to a new level and learning how the hazards move, and coordinating my movements through trial and error. If, for example, the enemies were spawned in different positions each time, this would be impossible (plus, no-death runs would involve a bit of dumb luck).
Achievements, please! If I beat a rage-inducing game, I want people to know :beatmeat:
It would be cool if there were multiple unlockable characters with different skills- not necessarily other indie characters, but just unique characters.
Your game sounds great by the way, I'll be checking it out. Do you plan to put it on steam? I'd greenlight it.

Optional modes...

[Volnaiskra]

@headtourist: would local VS multiplayer interest you? Or only online?

Originally posted by xXJ_D0nFTWXx:

In my opinion, any sort of random generation would ruin a platformer such as this. My favorite part about Super Meat Boy is getting to a new level and learning how the hazards move, and coordinating my movements through trial and error. If, for example, the enemies were spawned in different positions each time, this would be impossible (plus, no-death runs would involve a bit of dumb luck).
Achievements, please! If I beat a rage-inducing game, I want people to know :beatmeat:
It would be cool if there were multiple unlockable characters with different skills- not necessarily other indie characters, but just unique characters.
Your game sounds great by the way, I'll be checking it out. Do you plan to put it on steam? I'd greenlight it.

I don't think I'll use random generation, or at least not for the core game - maybe for bonus levels or something like that.

I'm definitely mindful of keeping all aspects of levels as consistently timed as possible (ie. everything loads in identical spots and times each playthrough). I hadn't thought about different PC speeds affecting that though, as some people have mentioned! I'll look into that.

Actually, there was a holiday sale SMB achievement called "medium well" a few years back that I really enjoyed, and I'm considering using that as a core aspect of Spryke's gameplay.

The achievement required you to finish all Hell levels under 500 seconds, *cumulatively*. In general, you had to be even quicker than just A+ on most levels. But the tradeoff was that if there were one or two levels you weren't good at, you could still get the achievement by shaving seconds off all the other ones.

What I loved about this was that it gave you incentive to keep getting better and better at all the levels, even after hitting A+. Yet it also gave you the flexibility to perfect the levels you liked most and/or were best at: being stuck on one level didn't abort your entire progress. I'm considering using this as a core mechanic in Spryke, so that progression in the game (and/or unlocking various things) is based not on linear completion of levels, but on cumulative mastery of them.

Speaking of achievements, I will put in a lot of effort to make the achievements as interesting as possible. A pet peeve of mine is unimaginative achievements (eg. "complete level 10"). I believe that most achievements should either require:

(a) increased difficulty (eg. complete level 10 in under xx seconds)
(b) playing the game in an interesting new way (eg. complete level 10 without ever once touching the ground).

Yes, the game will definitely be on Greenlight. Most likely, it will appear there in about June, when I'll also be running a kickstarter to secure extra funding. You can follow https://www.facebook.com/Volnaiskra to be kept up-to-date when that happens. :)

[Volnaiskra]

It's been a super long time since I posted here (1.5 years!). Spryke is coming along great. The game's evolved a lot, but it still has SMBesque gameplay at its core. I'll have a playable demo in a few weeks, and I'll be asking you guys to give me feedback on that.

In the meantime though, here's Spryke's first trailer. I hope you like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvNNG0tExhQ

[jdonftw]

That looks great! Is this on greenlight?

[Virtuous Rogue]

Looks great! I've been keeping up with your facebook page since you posted last year. I'm excited to try it out!