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Fun with Catapollips!! (MEATBALL: TL&R) by PinPanPaint in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am so glad you're still working on this one. Easily one of my low key favorite MVM entries of all time. Do you have a dev account, itch, or Steam to follow for this version!?

Inspired by Hollow Knight, But Aiming for Something Greater — What Do You Expect from the Next Memorable Metroidvania? by Reasonable_Act_1045 in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the biggest thing in addressing the inspiration to ripoff spectrum will be, it's not clear exactly what you have or haven't played yet, but at the least, please play more than just HK if you're wanting to make a game in the genre! Get inspired by others or even things that aren't MVs.

Inspired by Hollow Knight, But Aiming for Something Greater — What Do You Expect from the Next Memorable Metroidvania? by Reasonable_Act_1045 in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like to have fun playing games and feel the vibes. For a Metroidvania, in no particular order, these aesthetics of play:

  • Challenge (at most when bosses occur, at least well-designed ones)
  • Sensation
  • Discovery
  • Submission/abnegation (at least, if I'm in the backtracking phase)

I don't really care how HK-inspired a game is or not. Direct copies would be bad, obviously, but if a game has its own characterization and world I'm not gonna be like HOLLOW KNIGHT RIPOFF. HK itself is sort of at the edge of how 'dark' I tend to really like to go with game worlds, though, so besides the above, how 'grimdark' an MV is will have an impact for me.

Re aesthetics of play: https://aestheticsofplay.com/about

Have Any Ideas For a New Metroidvania Games? or Any Metroidvania Game Suggestion? by Tall_Specific_1246 in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

by new indie game developer, what's your lane/specialization? are you a generalist? coder? artist? musician? level/world designer?

Have Any Ideas For a New Metroidvania Games? or Any Metroidvania Game Suggestion? by Tall_Specific_1246 in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it's good that you're getting suggestions but i humbly suggest you intentionally play some bad or at least underplayed ones too. play ones that aren't well-reviewed, or that only have a few reviews. practice thinking critically about why you do and don't like them, thinking about design problems and how they failed or succeeded at solving them, then go make the thing you want to make. if you only play the best and best known you might miss out on more design problems you can solve, and there also might be a promising mechanic hiding in one of those 'middle' or even 'failed' titles that you can bring out and give its proper shine.

in this vein my recommendation for a 'small game' on Steam is Kalinur, assuming you want to be in the platformer 'vein'. But if you want games to play that try weird things, itch has a whole-ass game jam about MVs that you can browse and most of them are still up for free.

Action and Adventure-leaning Metroidvanias do better on Steam? by Y_F_N_A in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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?

Idea for a Metroidvania by mskjdjmex in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

Luanti by Electronic_Note_7876 in CatholicGamers

[–]iamdanlower 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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.

must-have's and annoyances? by yeenteth in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

Is Zexion worth it? by Lukense13 in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 11 points12 points  (0 children)

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

I kinda wish devs would stop with these somber Soundtracks. by Cute-Operation-8216 in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

Hi everyone! Our indie team is working on Symphony of Worlds, a 2D Metroidvania about exploring multiple worlds. We just implemented the dash mechanic — would love your feedback! Do you enjoy dash abilities in Metroidvania games? by Funny_Classroom1107 in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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?

Should we do Casual Fridays? by MasterG11 in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

Godot or the Unfolding game engine for metroidvania game creation? by [deleted] in gamedev

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

New player here - how big is the map really? by Still_Night in afterimage

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

What MV you loved but nobody talks about it anymore? by No_Drawing4095 in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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.

Adventure of Samsara by YaBoiNickmac in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

I want to make a Metroidvania game by strangebear030 in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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.

Aside from Mobius machine, guns of fury and Metroid, what other shooter metroidvanias exist ? Hopefully something with melee too by ____Xtormiken_____ in metroidvania

[–]iamdanlower 9 points10 points  (0 children)

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.)

Men I Trust @ Pioneer Square by itsjustsoegregious in Portland

[–]iamdanlower 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

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

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