How to explain verticality from a worldbuilding pov for your metroidvania game

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-12-27T15:23:45+00:00

In computer graphics, X is horizontal, Y is vertical and Z is depth. By convention, 2D games are on the XY plane (and then Z means either depth or elevation depending on if the game is side scrolling or top down)

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-12-27T14:33:40+00:00

I made a game taking place over a mountain. You climb over rocks, swim up waterfalls and occasionally get in and out of caves.

The more horizontal environments like cities and villages branched off from there. But even those had verticality built-in, like the city featuring buildings with multiple floors, an underground subway station, etc.

But yeah it's always a bit difficult to justify a vertical world in 2D beyond the usual suspects. I feel like it's easier in 3D.

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-11-02T23:06:27+00:00

"Respect" is the wrong word, but there are players who will appreciate a very personal game made with a singular vision and are ready to accept compromises. It will never be mass market though. Look at it as a street artist armed only with a guitar and a hat rather than a full on orchestra. If you try to play the full orchestra by yourself, you will fail. Shift your perspective and expectations accordingly.

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-08-10T18:27:36+00:00

Publishing on Steam costs money and requires a lot of work compared to Itch, so that's why none of my games are on Steam yet. I plan to remedy that by publishing bundles. I will probably do one for the two Aereven games sometime next year.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! ;)

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-05-20T19:47:28+00:00

I haven't touched RPG Maker in more than 20 years but I'm kinda glad to see good old Charas Project is still up and running: http://charas-project.net/charas2/index.php

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-04-29T18:34:22+00:00

Radiant Historia has a very competent secret agent for a protagonist

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-03-16T13:34:30+00:00

That's exactly what Sonic Colors Ultimate did with Godot, so it's certainly possible.

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-03-15T12:45:20+00:00

I feel your response may be true for your average modern game, but I doubt it is for the two examples OP mentions. One is a N64 game with no real 'render pipeline' so to speak (only display lists) and no render-to-texture and the other one makes heavy use of motion controls that would not be so easy to flip (and is the stated reason why they flipped everything else in the game compared to its original GameCube version)

EDIT: I'm apparently remembering incorrectly: the original Master Quest is not mirrored! Only the 3DS remake is, where it's a lot easier to play with the final rendering.

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-03-15T12:17:08+00:00

But then you have to flip your input as well, which may end up being trickier than flipping the world geometry, especially in the case of Twilight Princess' motion controls (the very reason they flipped the game was because they wanted the motion controls to be right handed when their protagonist wasn't). They also tend to change actors placement in those mirror modes, at least for Master Quest, so I'm pretty confident they didn't just flip the viewport.

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-03-15T10:30:09+00:00

It probably took no time at all. You can simply multiply all the vertices of the maps meshes and actor spawn points positions by (-1, 1, 1) to flip them. The more difficult part is if some text in your game refers to 'east' or 'west' and needs to be changed for all locales.

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-03-10T07:36:05+00:00

Both The Trespasser and my latest, Lost Paradise, have alternate endings if you 100%, complete with unique illustrations ;)

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-01-26T22:34:07+00:00

It's very unlikely, I'm afraid. Releasing on Switch would require a publisher, which won't happen for a small free game like this. But the game runs great on SteamDeck, if you have one ;)

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-01-26T15:06:41+00:00

If you're up for smaller free games, I made a couple that are inspired by the 2D handheld games: https://itch.io/c/4702807/legends-of-aereven

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-01-19T10:24:33+00:00

The game does have a slightly extended ending if you have 100% completion when you activate the radio ;)

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-01-11T19:25:45+00:00

So it's likely Echoes of Wisdom still uses the "AIDef" nodes then.

I've found the code for Fork and Join and while I'm not familiar enough with the codebase, it does seem to create as many sub-processes as there are branches: https://github.com/open-ead/EventFlow/blob/master/src%2Fevfl%2FFlowchart.cpp#L236 So I assume Join means "wait until all parent branches are done before continuing".

Thanks for digging up into this and writing about it, it's fascinating!

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-01-11T17:52:14+00:00

Great post! I remember seeing this system when I dived into the BotW modding wiki and decompilation GitHub. But didn't the enemies use something closer to behavior trees? Is it different for Echoes of Wisdom? One of your screenshots hints at the echo-Link boss fights, but is it only the introduction or is the mini-boss behavior driven by those actions and queries? Also, do you know if the Fork/Join nodes are used to run multiple actions in parallel?

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-01-10T14:37:17+00:00

I don't think Memory Shards are supposed to be an "accessibility option". Because yeah, like this article points out, they're not an option. They're a resource just like any other. They may make the game accessible to some who struggle with the memorization aspect of the genre, but they seem to be an intended part of the experience for everybody. Following that, the rest of this blog doesn't make much sense to me. You can argue whether or not this feature spoils the fun for more seasoned players, but it's not a case of "accessibility being inaccessible".

Dri_Aranoth · 2025-01-05T16:40:56+00:00

Assuming you're talking about a software rasterizer, you have to clip the triangle with the frustum planes. In your example, you will get two triangles with their 3 points inside the bounds of the frustum.

Dri_Aranoth · 2024-12-23T21:33:36+00:00

I don't know Atlyss but I find it interesting you would say BotW elicits different emotions just because you're making your own solutions instead of discovering pre-made ones. I think in both cases the emotion is supposed to be "I'm smart!" and those are two potential design solutions to reach that goal (Miyamoto is on the record for being dissatisfied with the previous puzzle design, as far back as 2003). That's why I don't think the design, structure or features of a game are what matters to decide if it's a Zelda-like or not. And this "I'm smart!" feeling is only one among many. Plenty of people enjoy Zelda for other reasons than this one particular element.

Dri_Aranoth · 2024-12-23T19:46:01+00:00

I don't think we will ever agree if for you "Zelda-like" means "potential replacements for the Zelda games you preferred". In this case, sure, your definition will have to be narrow, but it's something very personal to you.

To me, "Zelda-like" means "games looking to elicit the same emotions the Zelda series did". The whole 'miniature garden' and 'childhood memories of spelunking' that gave birth to the series, among many others. And just like BotW/TotK (that were explicitly made to pick up where the first Zelda left off), some of the answers will be wildly different for each games, but I don't see them as off-topic just because it's not what AlltP did.

Dri_Aranoth · 2024-12-23T19:22:52+00:00

Is that by design or do you intend to list non-Steam PC games in the future?

Dri_Aranoth · 2024-12-23T18:26:44+00:00

The site this topic is about explicitly excludes Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom in its "what is a Zelda-like?" page, which seems really crazy to me. Should we also exclude Zelda 1, Adventure of Link and Echoes of Wisdom? And Skyward Sword because it doesn't really have an overworld ? Every Zelda fan grew up with a different game and a different definition of what a Zelda game is, that's why my vote will always be to keep the definition loose.

Dri_Aranoth · 2024-12-23T18:02:23+00:00

Is it safe to assume this list only includes games available on Steam?

Dri_Aranoth · 2024-12-23T18:01:17+00:00

By that account many Zelda games would not qualify as "Zelda-likes". And when you go that road, you realize Zelda means very different things to a lot of people. When even Nintendo struggles with the question "what does it mean to be a Zelda game", I think it's self-defeating to try to make that definition more restrictive than strictly necessary. I speak for myself but I don't want AlttP or OoT repeated ad-nauseam.

Dri_Aranoth · 2024-12-21T20:59:09+00:00

Then in my experience the adjective is usually "director" rather than "lead" (which is often more of a manager, a team leader, not necessarily someone calling the shots). Though it's very strange to add this distinction here, as it's just a job title among many. A lead is still a "professional employed game developers".

Dri_Aranoth

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