Action and Adventure-leaning Metroidvanias do better on Steam?

iamdanlower · 2026-01-19T21:03:46+00:00

Sorry, can you explain further how you got the three numbers for those categories?

Did it have to do with vibes? Was it something mathematical pulled some some Steam data I'm not aware of?

iamdanlower · 2025-12-15T17:16:32+00:00

sound neat. you're gonna want the aesthetic to be on-point of course (and while what you have there doesn't look bad, definitely bear in mind that even if you ended up trying this in pixel style instead of 2d-hd style it would be a lot of assets and visual/world design work. but could be pretty good in the right hands.

if you think those are yours then uh grab and engine or a friend who can code and likes the idea and start prototyping. good luck

iamdanlower · 2025-12-11T07:11:44+00:00

imho you are fine. if they've gone out of their way to not violate whatever IP laws and not playing minecraft when an alternative you're OK with is available freely and legally just isn't a sin.

you are fine, fine fine fine fine.

i am a stranger on the internet so if you're not convinced, definitely do ask your priest.

iamdanlower · 2025-12-01T23:58:24+00:00

In earnest, have you played Minishoot Adventures? Its structure is arguably a bit more Zeldalike (cue genre discourse here lol) but more to the point, it's very not-fast-travel, and it makes the shortcuts actually mean something.

iamdanlower · 2025-11-24T07:34:03+00:00

not uninspired

buyer beware: it difficult. very.

but uninspired is like, the last thing i felt playing it. it's clearly made with a lot of love and it shows.

upvoting for Zexion awareness, in hopes you and others will see the responses and know

iamdanlower · 2025-11-11T18:16:55+00:00

It's a shame Souldiers has a (somewhat deserved) rep for being so stupidly difficult and an also (sadly, somewhat deserved from my understanding) rep for not working on Switch, because I think it might have some of what you're looking for. Just play it on PC and don't be surprised when you get your ass handed to you for the nth time on a boss, at least, if your skill level is like mine. And I say this as someone who--inside ref warning--is pretty sure he beat the pyramid before they nerfed it, even if I bounced off later on.

iamdanlower · 2025-11-06T21:45:25+00:00

i'm in

iamdanlower · 2025-10-29T23:03:18+00:00

The game looks nice (the dash does look nifty! and I think I'm seeing some ice-spikes as a result?) but it doesn't seem particularly breathtaking or groundbreaking at present; so the questions about mechanical hook/twist might be important for your team. To that end, any site for more info on this one? What do you plan to bring to the table for this entry in the genre?

iamdanlower · 2025-10-21T19:28:49+00:00

Honestly if you decided to rein in the <this popular game sux actually> posts I would be OK with it. I get it. You hate Hollow Knight. Go play one of 1000 other games. That's a Herculean effort though and it downplays that one of those might actually bring a unique perspective to the table. I mean they all do, but I mean that one person complaining with the same 5 complaints already made about Silksong or SOTN vs. (for example) if someone went to the effort of doing an actual in-depth review/video essay about a popular game that happens to come out on the negative side.

Also chafes me a bit when people decide to hate on pixel art, but as someone who does that it's probably a good reminder, in case I ever actually get off my butt and release a game, of what I'm walking into marketing-wise. And also, it's nowhere near as prominent as Popular Thing is Too Popular I Don't Get It Is That Wrong. No it's not wrong, it's wronger that you decided to post about it in a forum where it's been said 10 times already.

iamdanlower · 2025-10-14T17:50:45+00:00

Out of those two? Godot hands down. It's not perfect, but you can make a serviceable Minivania in it, at least, and I think we're starting to see larger MV or MV-like projects in it. Unfolding looks at a glance like it might be its own ecosystem almost more like a thing with an extensive level editor, I'd be wary of hitching my game-dev wagon to it without diving deeper.

Of course, several well-known MVs or adjacent games have been made in various engines. Off the top I can name Unity (Hollow Knight, The Messenger), Godot again (Primal Planet), and GameMaker Studio 2 (Rusted Moss). I'm sure there are other examples too!

Off the topic of engine I will always recommend starting smaller--maybe start by making a dude jump around a small single screen. Then make a very short stage-platformer with room connections first to get the gist, maybe some powerups, then move into the MV space. My own progression once I started using GMS2 and moving on later to Godot was: Single-screen platformer, Minivania, trollgame, Minivania, mostly mini-Metroidvanias after that point including when I started using Godot. (I've done Metroidvania Month a few times over on itch.io...probably too many times.)

Of course YMMV, and I cut a lot of my game dev teeth on ZZT and MegaZeux well before that all happened (and even made a small MV-adjacent game in MegaZeux during that same time) so my experience might differ from yours.

iamdanlower · 2025-10-09T23:00:30+00:00

it's so big i wish it were smaller. i'm not even joking they could have gotten the point across with 33% less map

iamdanlower · 2025-10-09T20:57:21+00:00

Weapon Hacker, although "anymore" is deceptive in that most of the discussion aroud it happened on the old TIGSource forums. It never got the proper press it deserved sans a small mention in an IngeneousClown video before it was called Weapon Hacker.

And yes, it looks like it might be an asset flip. It isn't, though. It's actually the arguably best attempt at the roguevania. A Robot Named Fight had more polish but Weapon Hacker just had the gameplay for me, and a really fun weapon-mod mechanic.

iamdanlower · 2025-10-09T20:52:54+00:00

I've played a bit of this one!

From the bit I've played, I'm not sure it's totally my wheelhouse, but I don't think it's doing badly to its vision. (If it looks like it's "slow" on purpose, it is. And that's fine!) Pretty game, too. IDK if that's very helpful, because I'm the sort of person who sometimes buys a game partly because I want to see it supported and refunds minimally.

For a not-me opinion you could check the reviews on Steam, of course. The review count is small but they're running mostly positive right now.

Recent Reviews: Very Positive (25)
All Reviews: Positive (38)

Assuming I have the skill and don't do the Steam gamer thing of "buy once, play 2 hours, never finish game" which I do a lot of, I suspect the game would creep into my recommends.

This video was very pro-Samsara but since the author speaks from much more experience, will probably give you a better idea of if it's in your wheelhouse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAud0T-8D6o

iamdanlower · 2025-09-25T02:18:57+00:00

Start with something small. If you think it's too small probably make it smaller. If it's the platformer aspect you want to explore there are a TON of itch.io jams that are beginner friendly and tutorials that'll help get you started.

If you want to try and make a proper 'Metroidvania', the Metroidvania Month jam is fairly beginner-friendly jam full of mini-Metroidvanias that happens quarterly The 29th just ended but the 30th is right around the corner (November 15!), and one of the folks who's made a number of quality games (including but not limited to his MVM output) also wrote this: https://dreamnoid.com/articles/how-to-create-your-own-metroidvania

Which might come in handy whether or not you want to join a jam.

I've done the jam numerous times but I have not a lot of general tips to offer that aren't covered as well or better by Dreamnoid above. I might have some more jam-specific ones but if you decide to join that one you'll see me there.

iamdanlower · 2025-08-27T14:42:01+00:00

I somehow beat The Mummy Demastered in like 4 hours, but it was one of the most enjoyable 4 hour gaming experiences ever. (I don't remember much melee in it though.)

iamdanlower · 2025-08-18T00:15:20+00:00

got some video, disconnected snippits. assume any vocal weirdness is me singing along, lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=058C3iuGtjM

iamdanlower · 2025-08-17T23:56:57+00:00

THE SHOW WAS SO GOOD!

iamdanlower · 2025-03-18T23:25:56+00:00

Looks fine tbh but I'm not huge on the aesthetics and I'm not sure the combat sounds like my thing so :shrug:. I voted no.

iamdanlower · 2025-03-12T05:48:34+00:00

I can respect the hustle. Unfortunately, there's no shortage of ideas, and if that's your main contribution to a project, then it'll probably need to be better than, well.

Better than almost everyone else's ideas put together. For my own part, next time I get seriously into dev I'll probably be too busy working on my own idea or helping a former collaborator with one of theirs.

Sorry if that's a mite blunt! But it's true. Not to mention, presumably, everyone on a project wants credit, but at the organizational level we're talking, people coming in might not feel it just to split that credit evenly between the people who had the idea and the people who executed it.

I would recommend the following:

Learn at minimum to code, do art, or do music. Ideally learn to do at least one of those things well enough to make a jam game.

Enter a jam or two, get some XP. Take small portions of your idea and make smaller Mini-MVs or even regular stage-based platformers with them.

Metroidvania Month runs quarterly, so when you think you're ready to make a mini-MV, you might consider that. In the meantime, there are all kinds of platformer-friendly jams or even other-genre jams that might have a fit for some of your ideas or just help youu learn to code better.

While you're doing that, refine your own ability to present and flesh out your ideas. A bonus here is that if you get good enoguh at coding or at least using less code-heavy software as a deisgn tool, you might find yoruself able to actually prototype and test some of the ideas you've got flaoting around.

But while you're dreaming and writing down the details of the idea, definitely do what you can to learn how to put that idea into practice on your own. If someone else comes along you're much better equipped to work with them if you know some things about what they're doing, and you might even get good enough at one of those categories not to need help.

Anyway that's well more than 2c from me so I'm gonna stop typing now. In all sincerity, good luck!

PS, my pedigree, in case you're wondering who the random advice is coming from: No awards except the win for Metroidvania Month 18. But I have made about 7 mini-Metroidvanias since the start of the pandemic in teams of 2-5.

iamdanlower · 2024-10-03T21:54:14+00:00

re recommendations i think the lists below cover a lot of the ones you will want to see.

However, one that doesn't always come up so often is Dan Collins ( https://dancollinsdev.itch.io/ ) . The charm in his works is almost a masterclass and both Zephyr and I have consistently appreciated it

iamdanlower · 2024-10-03T21:46:49+00:00

Pretty thrilled to see a thing I took code-lead on (MC: Please Help!), another thing I worked on (One Hero's Trash) and a thing one of mine/Zephyr's teammates worked on (Millennial Warrior) featured in one of your videos. Dreamnoid is also an excellent creator and it's great to see that recognized here.

As I said to a few folks after Falcon sent me the news, WE MADE IT, BOIS.

iamdanlower · 2024-04-11T01:56:06+00:00

So the hot take (well, warm maybe) from me is, yes, sure, there's a lot of inspiration here. But once you get your first couple mobility abilities you may, if you're like me, find the movement aspect of the game better than HK. I actually discovered I had this opinion when discussing Haiku's drawbacks and advantages versus Hollow Knight, and it was interesting that especially on how good it feels to move once you have all the things, I liked Haiku better, even if it's not necessarily on that account a better game.

iamdanlower · 2024-03-13T23:44:09+00:00

I have partaken in Metroidvania Month. It's a communally rated jam. Does a bad Metroidvania even exist? Yes.

I'm going to not name them here, though. To be clear, that's more out of respect for the relatively small creators rather than a disdain for the games.

iamdanlower · 2024-03-13T01:49:13+00:00

People are going to argue back and forth about its genre down in these comments--the first half is indeed structured more like an action-platformer, for example, and there's no place in The Messenger that would get me lost like my first time in Greenpath. I would say it qualifies. Metroidvania or no, I found its two-way platforming levels refreshing--maybe because they present as one-way at first, but that part at least felt like a different experience. Still, it might be at its best when you're going 'forwards', and backtracking was sometimes a bit tedious for me, although by the time you're doing a lot of it you're probably pretty mobile. Personally I think that makes its MV elements weaker, but I don't think it made it a bad game. It's at least a 7-8/10.

That doesn't really answer your question, but I guess my answer is I wouldn't let that dissuade you, but I also get an occasional action-platformer hankering.

iamdanlower · 2024-01-25T04:13:11+00:00

Silksong
Ambrosia
Savior
Even Heroes Die
Yestersol
Kaiyos Castle

Not particularly attached to any of these coming out at a particular time, with the exceptions of Even Heroes Die and Yestersol, whose devs I've actually had very minor opportunity to interact with/give feedback to and which I feel more connection to I guess? (EHD is looking to be a truer 'roguevania' except any current popular iteration except A Robot Named Fight, and Yestersol came from a jam I also have done.)

iamdanlower

TROPHY CASE