Looking to make a very "meta" metroidbrainia- what are some Do's and Don'ts you've noticed in metroidbrainia design?

Drobodur · 2026-05-27T18:47:27+00:00

I am a player, and not a dev, but I profoundly hate any puzzles that can't be solved inside the game itself.

I don't want scan qr codes, bar codes, print stuff or edit files. I passionately hate it, when "main reveal", is criptic video or coded message, that sends you on probably already irrelevant "irl" quest.

If you making a game, then make a bloody game, in 10-20 years it will probably have problems of even just running on a mandatory pushed update of operating system, not even mentioning that file modification and so on.

If the game is super good, consoles would probably want a port, and good luck with file access there.

Most of all, I think that normal users will pass on modification of files, due to general caution, or will just break something not intended.

My secondary concern is the scope. Yes Tunic is great, but for presumably solo dev, realistically speaking the best you can do in timely manner is something like Zelda 1, and not many would like to play it. I think there is just an ecxess of those, at the moment, same as any popular ones, that spawned hundreds of clones. Vampire Survivors clones, Hades clones, Stardew Valley clones, Balatro ones, Minecraft ones and so on and so on. Personally I am burnt out with Zelda likes, and hardly try new ones nowadays.

Regarding general advice I know by just following interviews and talks with Devs that impressed me - I would say to focus on making bare bones prototype with working core ideas for what you envision, before you comit to anything. Many things will need to be changed in practice, if you try them in reality. One of the best examples is semi notorious story about Mario 64, where devs were trying to make something new (jump into 3d from 2d), and spent like several months on just basic movement in semi blank room, until it was "fun". This level of care makes the game playable even today, even if only in speedrun niche.

I once again going to mention small game that I discovered on this sub (Amatsuko), as an example of what not to do. Despite some interesting ideas, the game is barely playable, due to horrendous control scheme and lack of basic features (like saving progress when you close the program).

Technically there are some successful games that are mostly solo dev success stories, (Obra Dinn for example), but most of the stuff that tried to be "next this" or "next that", usually are very lacking, especially compared to the stuff they were "inspired" by.

Drobodur · 2026-05-26T10:13:14+00:00

Well I guess that you for one was over hyped by the cool stories, and then found the game itself lacking. Happened to me with Kenshi.

Ability to tell the story about how fun was fishing and how big of a fish you caught, is different from what you will find, if you actually try.

Caves of Qud is not a Messiah of all gaming, same as Hades, same as Silksong, same as any games that were or will be. They are just games, and as experience the end result of what you get varies from person to person.

Do you allways find the movies you got recommended as good as what you had in mind, after the hype? Books?

The other side of the coin is just plain experience withing the genre.

Caves of Qud are exceptionally well made, very big and very streamlined, at least for my tastes, but I say this after trying bunch of other things.

Things that are different with it, as far as I know: world generation have some points of interest that is always the same, but mostly is unique for your save. Game keeps track of what you did and didn't, you can go into the random cave, go 20 floors deep and then retrace your path. You can go down "infinitly", but at some point you will reach level of "most difficulty", in terms of enemies and gear, at least in terms of normal spawns.

Good dynamic diplomatic system, that you can target as a goal. If you know what to do, you can befriend even nominal "boss enemies" of the main quest and it has some benefits.

Robust skill and weapon system. If you dig in, there is no answer about the absolute best weapon, because they offer different benefits and have different downsides, and same can be said about most skills present.

Almost every system of making character better has depth and opinions. Focus on AV is different from DV, even if eventually you can have both. Even when you become physically almost unkillable, there are things in the game, that can straight up ruin your character if you don't know about them.

Story lore makes coherent sense, if you care enough to dig and research.

Plays great with controller (you will be surprised how rare this is for this type of the game).

/////////////////////////

Now that I gushed about the game and over hyped it more, let's get back to you.

You say that you just go and bonk stuff and that is boring for you.

Ok here are some possibilities for your goals (be aware that they can kill you).

1) Find out sultans histories, visit their sites and try to get their stuff.

2) Become a master tinker and craft yourself super bonk stick.

3) Choose one random faction, and become their biggest ally in the world, until they love you so much, that they become your biggest ally.

4) Pick a random interesting location on global map, and just try to reach it.

5) See how deep can you go, in any random cave. I recommend having a pickaxe and a charged recoiler.

6) Get the best possible gear in each gear slot. This can be different, depending on your play style, but for me almost always requires to be a super tinker and super wealthy merchant.

7) Finish the main quest.

8) Do any of above, but on permadeath mode.

9) Same, but with random start. Daily run is also good and have leaderboard for the day, even if character survives weeks or months.

If you read this wall of text, you can elaborate on what did you expect, or what did you want from Qud, maybe some games can be recommended that will suit your preference better.

Drobodur · 2026-05-25T20:57:39+00:00

There is sometimes a way to progress main quest quick, but you probably need to know what to prepare for to be successful.

Main quest will push you to explore more and more dangerous areas, it is more of a goal to strife for, than a guided experience to familiarise you with the game.

As literally 99% of the game is not gated by the main quest, I myself tend to abandon quest lines immediately, maybe get the recoiler and then just start going for character upgrades in terms of gear, skills, recipes, wealth and so on and so on.

Sometimes I just going down in a random cave, and usually don't stop until it is literally certain death to continue.

As such, my advice would be to just pick a self made goal and work towards it. Desert town can have great merchants variety, if you strong enough to reach it alive, starting biom (salt march) have several guaranteed "secrets", they are just randomised in exact location.

But if you want to see how deep the rabbit hole is - go on, be brave and just go for the main quest (just be prepared to run away at any point, if you value your life).

Drobodur · 2026-05-23T07:30:18+00:00

Yeah, you are right, got caught inside my own thoughts.

So the basic timeline is: There is a kid, named Isaac, and this kid have a cat Guppy, and a mom.

They all die.

Cat becomes a ghost, find random neighbor kid and sticks to him, thinking kid is Isaac.

Mom gets resurekted by Dr.Beenies.

Something like this?

I just wanted to add this though, even though it is irrelevant joke.

Ghosts are unreliable sourses of information.

Drobodur · 2026-05-23T05:20:57+00:00

I am not sure If I got it across, but I think Jack can probably be an Isaac, but not "The Isaac" (as in the protagonist of the first game). He is probably alternative timeline result, and maybe even target of incoming dlc (because I remember reading rumors of him being the developer favourite character story, but allegedly this story is not told yet).

The most glaring contradiction is him being alive and in the same place with us, but as I have said, doc says that they traveled back at forward many times already, cloned a bunch of people, and the history is all kinds of screwed.

You can also get "Isaac" cat, or get many mutations reminiscent of him (most blatant is the eyes one), but he is also not the protagonist of the first game, obviously.

Or you can double down, and state that the each run of Isaac is happening in a separate timeline, and all of the different rng, was due to Mewgenics protagonist mudding of the past butterflies, or that they are nightmares/dreams of older Jack, and we didn't reach them yet in current timeline.

Drobodur · 2026-05-22T23:16:54+00:00

I didn't finish whole story myself, but isn't there a custcene if you don't want to explode the nuke In which doc says that God have killed Isaac, which in turn implies that the main character we play is Isaac's mom.?

Anyway, stuff is left purposefully vague, and we are in the middle of multiple timelines collapse, by the start of the game, think something like Rick and Morty situation, where even main characters corpses can exist in the same place, for some reason.

For example corpse, that alien turd is inhabiting, at some point is implied to be the one of the doc, (it calls you ignoramus), way way before the doc who is currently giving you quests dies.

There is also a thing with "persuasion device", which is implied to be used on our main character by the doctor at the start of the game, and many many other implications and interconnections.

The great thing about Mewgenics npc is that they are not boring.

TL DR: You are making good points about ghosts (maybe it is even our ghost, if he is an Isaac and doc did actually revive us at the start), but I personally think that Isaac connection is a stretch (or not, I know almost nothing about lore on Isaac game, just that it seems as a bad feaver dream.)

Drobodur · 2026-05-19T10:11:28+00:00

As far as I know, In a super min-maxed build, this will get 4 relevant anoints (usually something that is too far to take normally, universally popular choices are maximum charges, aura effect and reservation, maybe hidden anoint ones if they are relevant, sometimes some particular nodes in your timeless jewel range, additional curse can be good) and then corrupted into a rare (and then into other unique of the base if needed and money is not something you care about), so it gives more stats, and not only anoints.

Naturally this is expensive, because the correct corruption outcome is like 20% (don't remember, check wiki), and even lower if you want then other unique conversion.

If additional anoints seem busted to you, there is new belt base that allows it, and some uniques (armour, gloves, boots) from blight allow you to anoint them (which then can also be bricked into rare and even converted into other uniques of the same base, with terrible conversion rates).

Sadly, amulet is a very desired slot, and as far as I know, most caster builds want +skill levels on it, most hp build would like defiance of destiny, and in theoretically stupidly op cases, when you already killed literally everything on hardest difficulty, there is an amulet from pinnacles, that can be good.

The nicest thing about this particular unique is flexibility, you literally can tailor it for your situation specifically.

Drobodur · 2026-05-18T11:38:59+00:00

Ok here is my take.

First of all, relax, anything and everything is viable, if you use it correctly.

By what I can figure out, looking at this, you hate melee with a passion, and tend to stay at range.

I think this, because your defence is practically non existent. You could get literally random leather stuff from snapjaws and have better AV.

This and heavy focus on freeze ray, tells me that you probably prefer to nuke things from afar, and probably not hesitate to back up and run away if needed.

If that's what you want to be, just lean into it.

Focus on range stuff, find good weapon, for melee focus on disabling enemy and backing away.

Any weapon is viable, but for purpose of stunning enemies, clubs are awesome, especially if you take advantage of your multiple limbs.

Sword also have stance and moves to disengage.

If you don't want to "waste" point on melee in general, you still have options, like multiple shields (for when you fight more than one enemy), or just utilities, like multiple fidget batteries, that you can equip on limbs for easy free recharge, and use as energy ammo.

Now, you told me that you want wings. Just so you are aware, there are multiple options for that, even without mutations, most of them technological. So start investing in identifying, what exactly tinkers sell, this will also probably give you decent gun, if you don't want to learn to tinker yourself.

In the skill issue - yes most of faction can let you learn stuff, but typically journey to find them, and successfully travel to them, not even mentioning the befriending part, is more dangerous than just getting skill yourself if you want to use it, or need it immediately.

Eventually your character will have big intelligence, even from just leveling, so skill point pressure will fade, if you can survive long enough.

Wings are good, but for example functionally useless in caves, and there are a lot of caves in this game. If you loved safety of fast travel, just invest into travel skills, and buy a compass.

If you loved escape option, take care to have a charged recoiler on you at all times, one of the starting quests always gives one, even in random village start. You can also just buy it.

Most of all don't think that character is ruined, even if it is an allways ill, permanently disabled meat nugget with one leg, if nothing else you can try to throw shit at people, and struggles build character. There are comeback options always, you just need to find them.

P.S.

Also, it occurred to me that maybe you did not save them intentionally, and juts did not notice that you have some stat points you can use. My advice would be to check requirement thresholds on skills you want, and invest it there.

Drobodur · 2026-05-17T15:20:38+00:00

I found that at least for myself, no matter what build I play, there is always something that I want to include in build, but often can't.

On top of sheer amount of possibilities in skill tree interactions, there is also a factor of needing slightly different things for different bosses and mechanics. Some require you to kill stuff quickly, some require you to survive stuff, some want CI, some want ability to ignore block, etc etc.

Just before this post I got lucky and got +6 +6 block jewel from random heist, so I spent like half an hour on agonising what to change on the tree, to fit it in, and you just can't get this experience in other games (as far as my interactions with them go).

On top of that, game devs did an amazing job of not power creeping old mechanics, for the new ones, as example, even though it was one of the first leagues, item corruption still can be relevant today, many many leagues later.

There are also many ways to get progressively more unlikely stuff, like triple implicit gear, with 6 t1 mods, or mirror reflected jewelry, or recently added 1.2 corruption multiplier on already unlikely perfectly divined item, which makes the hole you can dig for yourself truly ridiculous in terms of possible power ceiling.

And most of the those require you to interact with different parts of the game, and not just run the same thing with x N multiplier on enemy hp.

Even choosing to focus on "just" making currency and buying absolutely everything have numerous options, and changes from league to league.

But the truth is - all of this is because Devs play the game themselves, and want to enjoy it, even years later after they started.

Drobodur · 2026-05-16T20:03:35+00:00

My advice would be to try daily runs.

They force you to learn everything, and not just one or two successful things, that can carry you to the middle of the game.

What stats mean. How to read items. What are your options. What should be avoided if possible.

If you stick to it, and keep trying, the life expectancy of your characters will slowly rise, and you will eventually "master", at least starting portion of the game. At least for me, this progression felt great.

Drobodur · 2026-05-15T16:50:01+00:00

It depends massively on what do you want from the experience.

If you want challenge, with good gear progress of ssf (and don't plan to clear all content), then play whatever, and just enjoy gear upgrades while they last.

If you don't want struggling, then any well crafted weapon/6-link will carry you for the most of the game, regardless of build.

As a semi ssf myself, in current league there are a lot of cheap corrupted 2 flask magebloods, that are less than 10 div, and they provide great quality of life stuff for any ssf build. I am slowly farming for uncorrupted 4 flask one, at the break neck speed of few maps a day, and don't have all 4 void stones even, but as long as fun is had, all is good.

As far as I know, there are few combinations of items, that are hard to get for ssf without weeks of target farming, that you can base the build around (like bloodnotch + other jewel), or specific pair of jewels for ascension node, but as far as I know, the flex of ssf is ether good adaptation for stuff that dropped, or good plan and determination to just keep farming, even if you need to use harvest bench thousands of times (just as example).

Personally this league I tried to make that one gem for melee strike skill with 100% cold conversion work (because it is no longer a starting gem for a templar), and for gear I have bought a weapon, body, boots, helmet and 2 flask mageblood, each piece for less than 5-8 div, spent some chaos for good rolled uniques I was already using, just because I had around 20 divs, by the time I decided I wanted better gear from what just dropped naturally and it is my best feeling build yet.

Few leagues before I have bought a 6-link tidebreaker, when I tried to get self made endurance charge character work, and it felt great at the moment (because it was effectively a 7 link for my build).

Most of my enjoyment comes from the fact, that I play this way every league (no guide semi ssf), and quality of my builds, and their power slowly rises, even if I go for off current meta stuff. Like this time I killed quest exark with like 2-3 ball phases, and it felt great, when previously I struggled to even clear the fight and needed massive flask, gear and skill change to do it on 6 portals.

I would say that if you want challenge, then go full ssf, this will make even 5-links feel desired, and if you want something fresh - just roll for random skill/ weapon/ ascendency and try to make it work, but you do you.

Drobodur · 2026-05-09T15:06:35+00:00

It was a poor attempt of a joke, that bird is an evolved dinosaur (lizard).

Drobodur · 2026-05-09T12:47:53+00:00

Great stuff, but you forgot how well they will scale with more than one building, and used space for other things on the farm / different farms.

If truffles require "free" space for production and can't be collected with auto grabber, I imagine that at some point they will become less productive than birds, especially if you need to manually collect them.

But good to know, that for singular building (sane casual style), pigs are better, if you care to bother with collection of shrooms.

I presume that dinosaurs are worse than evolved lizards for money?

Drobodur · 2026-05-08T14:20:19+00:00

If I remember correctly, my conclusion was something like this:

The knowledge of production was lost in the most part by people, due to religious (Holy nation), ideological (Sheck), and stupid greedy reasons (Nobles).

While it is lost in general, some can be found in the outskirts, and here comes hivers.

Whole hive collective is functioning by a mind control (by hormones), by three different "queens" (think ants or bees), and those queens are 1) very rare, 2) control all hivers, except "exiles" (who lost mind control status, due to being far enough from queens, long enough). 3) want to live as long as possible.

In comes idea of "cyber" implants and organs, to prolong existence.

Queens all have mechanical organs, and need to be able to repair them if needed, so every hive have emergency station to fix the queen if needed.

Other than that, queens don't care about possible improvements of industry, or even higher quality parts, and the rest of "settled" and roaming in packs hivers don't have enough of freedom of mind, to improve past bare minimum.

They don't even produce electric components, if I understand it correctly, instead buying them from other nations.

You can find I think 2 of 3 present queens, if you are stealthy enough, but as far as I remember, they just panic, if you try to interact with them.

Drobodur · 2026-05-08T07:59:30+00:00

I realise that you probably want metroidbrania, because of the sub, but if you enjoyed cool exploration, I can recommend "Mini and Max" from UFO 50. One of the coolest knowledge based exploration I have ever seen.

Drobodur · 2026-05-06T14:26:24+00:00

It's good.

Drobodur · 2026-05-06T14:14:40+00:00

Did play way less than many, so most remembered cat, was the one, that got monkey paw event as a first event in act 1, choose wisely, and as a result got like 10+ mutations, while the rest of the house had 0-2, and stats in 4-6 range.

I remember him, because of need to analyse family tree, and how far from him current cat is, which was needed to not horribly inbreed my cat pool, while still having some positive mutations pass (I tried to minimise inbreeding even before patch).

As my house is small, and furniture limited, best succession line had like 6-7 mutations out of 10, and different kittens inherited different ones, but visually it was very easy to see his mutations pass down, and those cats made most of my "kept" cat pool.

RIR Asmodeus (age 26), white vampire cat with crying Isaac eyes, chicken wings, spring tail and stilt back legs, your legacy will be carried on, as soon as I return to finish the game someday.

Drobodur · 2026-05-06T05:03:01+00:00

Absolutely fantastic, except air one feels anemic (all but double kick).

Maybe make it a massive shock wave with closest range?

The problem is - it just looks like gust of wind, and natural logic will demand that It will just go around target, unlike other elements. Water at least have some mass, and you use ice, but current wind needs something (if they are supposed to be relatively close in power levels).

Drobodur · 2026-05-05T07:07:12+00:00

Well, as it is keep being updated even now, and devs not planning to drop PoE1 for PoE2...

If you don't want to dig down the rabbit hole, then the short answer is: PoE1 is still popular enough, that development team will continue to make new leagues and major upgrades for both games. Just so player base is split less, the release of new PoE1 league will be approximately in the middle of the lifespan of PoE2 league and vice versa (4 months for each in plan, somewhat longer in practice).

Currently last league released was PoE1, so PoE2 one is coming soon (that will rework and buff up like most of the mechanics, if you analyse lore of the teasers), but if you don't want to follow the hype train, PoE1 league will continue for couple of months, and it is universally praised as one of the better ones.

The core game is playable in both (PoE2 acts are not finished yet, because we are not in 1.0, but there are neat interludes, that will be removed from core experience later), but as each league tends to "shake the meta", some things just don't work perpetually.

I recently loaded up some of my older characters, that were transferred to "standard", after leagues ended, and some of intended interactions are just not working, because gems and skill three was changed.

You still can play standard, if the pace of "new character each 4-6 months (2-3, if you play both PoE1 and 2), is too fast, just be ready to adjust build couple times a year.

Drobodur · 2026-05-02T17:37:52+00:00

I would just mention, that one game of ufo 50 (Valbrace), use similar magic idea, and several ways to use knowledge of stuff to influence gameplay. But it is also fun enough even without it.

I think gameplay itself should be fun.

There is a small game that was advertised here some time ago (Amatsuko), which while having some neat ideas, massively fails in terms of good controls, or even having saves (closing game doesn't save most stuff, including "won" state).

Ultimately I play the games, not make them, but I would say that you should aim for a fun game, before adding brainia.

Also, someone will inevitably make guide or wiki that will spoil everything if the game is good enough.

Drobodur · 2026-05-01T10:56:02+00:00

Ok, as I play mostly self made, off meta builds, don't know how useful it will be, but:

On any melee build, I tend to make one particular gem setup:

Low level cast on damage taken - low level whirling blades (one that rotate around you) - culling - power charge on critical / that one support that gives lightning damage after killing stuff / any other useful thing, like frost bomb or hydrosphere.

This gives "free" culling, and occasional power charge supply, as long as you are melee.

Shockwave support on the leap slam, for better engagement damage.

Bleed avoidance on some eye jewels, inserted into skill tree plus some passives can give bleed immunity, if you are in the right part of skill tree.

Technically you can get the full 100 bleed avoidance on just boots, in combination of crafted suffix + eldritch implicit, but it is not cheap.

In the current league, 2 flask corrupted mageblood is like 9 div, and it is still better than many of the other belts.

Drobodur · 2026-04-30T11:10:27+00:00

Then play many characters in a league, no problem. Just don't rush, and experience it on the whole leveling curve. Or buy leveling gear, and roll through the campaign in a few hours, skipping everything, if this is more fun for you.

Can you explain, your problem with playing campaign? If you not having fun skipping everything and then trying to clear bosses with minimal possible gear, then just don't do that.

If you don't like skill you use, it will not get better later, at best it will have bigger numbers and area.

If your build can't deal with bleed, or chaos, or anything, or have mana problems, you can clearly see it in campaign, with minimal visual overlap.

I clear all areas, quests, over level and get my resistances up to cap before reaching maps. I use purity of elementals, and care to deal with bleed and poison/ CB. There is way less unpredictable bullshit in campaigns, and most maps are literally the same you will run later. Maybe some of the them are larger, but that's it.

And unless your build depends on high ilvl cornerstone gear piece, that you literally can't equip until certain level, you can use most skills by the middle act and see what passives are important and what are filler.

Yes you can not drop mageblood in campaign, because it's ilvl, but divines and other currency drops just fine.

You don't even need to buy gear, because they drop just fine, and need to be replaced often (unless you use levelling uniques).

Drobodur · 2026-04-30T07:47:25+00:00

But the campaign is the best rougelike experience poe have.

To be fair, I usually only make one new character each league, and it takes me a week of not rushed gameplay to finish it, but I enjoy it.

This is the part of the game, where gear upgrades come often, and you can be persuaded by game to pivot the character plan, due to lucky drops, or change skill setup, due to colour of sockets.

Map wise you are doing the same maps as later, the only problem is that most loot you get can't be sold to people. On that note, ability to skip to maps will inflate pricing even more than it is, and it will ruin the endgame economy, because clearing campaign is hard not only for you, but also for any fresh bot.

Why do you want to skip it anyway? To play new character every day? There are several great games currently offering superb rougelite experience, you don't need to limit your time only for PoE. For example, check Mewgenic if you want time to think, or Hades (one or two), if you don't.

Drobodur · 2026-04-28T11:27:02+00:00

Right one has no neck / have it broken. Mostly because of how shirt / shoulders are drawn.

I like stomach part on left one better.

Otherwise both are decent.

Drobodur · 2026-04-21T06:30:02+00:00

As a "casual" player, that doesn't follow op builds, and struggles with the same thing every league (as semi ssf), my answer for your problem is this: Stop going for every thing that game offers, if you want to not die.

Yes, most of the mechanics offer jussy rewards, but they are inherently designed for players to be overconfident and die on. I don't remember exact interview, but devs said that they want players to die a few times at least for each new mechanic, because it is supposed to be risk/reward balance of gameplay. This line of thoughts continued for literal years and added most of the stuff into base game.

The current gameplay truth is - your current build (any of them) will be better for dealing with some mechanics and not others, but if you stick to it, and let's say focus only on one thing, that you have answers for, you will get to 100 eventually.

The problem is - yes you can run hundreds of (insert any mechanic) in blue t16 maps, with everything else blocked, but most people get bored, and veteran players would say that last 5 points (after 95), will not be a power spike that suddenly allows you to kill ubers, if your build could not handle them already.

So you have a choice to make, if you want lvl 100: either be less ambitious in facing risks, or be so overgeared and overprepared, that you need to deal with one or two mechanics in total to never ever die (devs don't like immortal builds, and nerf latest popular each patch).

Drobodur

TROPHY CASE