next »

[tesselode]

I think sometime I want to make a metroidvania game. However, I don't want to bother with the whole standard jump upgrade and new ability thing. What would be good alternatives to upgrades? I was thinking of an inventory with various special or not-so-special items that you could use in certain areas, sort of like a point-and-click adventure game. Ideas?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

to me, the essential part of a metroidvania is not "upgrades" it's "finding new abilities or items which allow you to open new areas and paths up". this can be done entirely without the idea of "upgrades". you'd still need some sort of new ability or item, but that can be done in a variety of ways. aquaria does it by teaching the player new songs, for instance.

[SundownKid]

It doesn't have to be an ability or item at all, it could be something in the game world that is found by exploration or puzzle solving. For example, let's say you're in a house and you go to the basement, solve a puzzle, and then a path in the attic opens up. The environment could even replace abilities, similar to, say, turning on the Gel in Portal 2.

[Happy Shabby Games]

You could have a squad of guys that follow you around and help you find and capture points that unlock other areas. It could be like tribal warfare exploration. You gain new types of units and unlock a new area when you capture a village. That would be really fun. 

[gimymblert]

Don't upgrade the player upgrade the environment, like previously elevator system that was off or flood entire section of the level so they feel fresh and anew?

[MaloEspada]

you could also have the entire game open-ended (basically no upgrades), sort of how zelda 1 works, but then you must question if the game you are making fits under "metroidvania"...

[baconman]

Make sure your scenes have some near-irreversible sense of directional flow, and that they loop around, intersect, and tie back into one another near the starting point. Watch a few "Impossible" runs of I Wanna Be The Guy to get an idea of what I'm talking about, as it's about the most prominent example I can think of. Hero:Core is pretty close, too.

Paul: Songs on Aquaria grant you new abilities. They have no effect before you "learn" them, btw; by the plotline events that give you said abilities. Therefore, they are definitively "upgrades," because they add to your capabilities.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think there's confusion about the various terms used here, to me 'upgrade' means an ability that gets better (often an ability you start with), like jumping, life, movement speed, weapon power, etc.

i don't really think you can have a metroidvania without gaining new abilities in any sense, but i do think you can have one without gaining upgrades to your abilities

also, rdein, zelda1 did have upgrades: you could upgrade your shield to the big shield, you could upgrade your number of hearts, you could upgrade your defensive ability with the blue and red rings, and you could upgrade the sword through 3 levels of power; you could also upgrade the wand to shoot fire with the book of magic, and you could upgrade the blue candle into the red one so that it can use fire all the time rather than once per room

[sonicblastoise]

i think there's confusion about the various terms used here, to me 'upgrade' means an ability that gets better (often an ability you start with), like jumping, life, movement speed, weapon power, etc.

i don't really think you can have a metroidvania without gaining new abilities in any sense, but i do think you can have one without gaining upgrades to your abilities

also, rdein, zelda1 did have upgrades: you could upgrade your shield to the big shield, you could upgrade your number of hearts, you could upgrade your defensive ability with the blue and red rings, and you could upgrade the sword through 3 levels of power; you could also upgrade the wand to shoot fire with the book of magic, and you could upgrade the blue candle into the red one so that it can use fire all the time rather than once per room

True, but few, if any of those upgrades were necessary to beat the game.

I think the metroidvania genre is defined by the acquisition of new abilities though. Like what has already been said, the progression of the game is measured and propelled by getting new abilities. Upgrades, in the strict sense of taking existing abilities and increasing their "power", are not necessarily mandatory (even in Super Metroid, you didn't need to get all of the beam upgrades to get to the final battle).

[MaloEspada]

also, rdein, zelda1 did have upgrades: you could upgrade your shield to the big shield, you could upgrade your number of hearts, you could upgrade your defensive ability with the blue and red rings, and you could upgrade the sword through 3 levels of power; you could also upgrade the wand to shoot fire with the book of magic, and you could upgrade the blue candle into the red one so that it can use fire all the time rather than once per room

i meant it in a sense that you can basically access like 95% of the game map without any abilities at all. only for some cases you need the boat or the wand to burn a tree and enter a dungeon...
at least the great majority of the game can be explored if you are a good player.

not to mention, most of the upgrades you mentioned don't really influence on the exploration aspect, but on the character power.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah but that's the case for pretty much all upgrades in any game; in no game (that i know of) does upgrading your attack power or life bar make it so you can access new areas

[JasonPickering]

what about Hero Core mentioned earlier. did that have any upgrades that were needed to get to the boss? I thought it just had sections locked away that you had to open by going to other sections and blowing up generators.

[Moczan]

yeah but that's the case for pretty much all upgrades in any game; in no game (that i know of) does upgrading your attack power or life bar make it so you can access new areas

That would make good mechanics. More power in your sword to break big doors, rocks etc.? More health to go through flaming room of magma and survive it? The possibilities are endless.

[SaturnineGames]

Don't think of the things you collect as upgrades or abilities. Think of them as keys.

Missiles are the key to the red doors, Super Missiles the keys to green doors, High Jump is the key to the really high doors, etc.

Now think of your game in terms of what locks you can place in the world. You can literally do locks and keys. You can try things like having areas of the map be unpowered until you figure out how to activate them. You can have the world change in response to events - say you can make a tree fall to create a bridge across a pit. You can do make areas of the map "uninhabitable" until you complete a goal - maybe find a way to enable the climate controls to open a new section of the map.

[Fifth]

Does Kirby and the Amazing Mirror count as a metroidvania?  It was sort of a weird case, because the world was totally open and interconnected from the start, and the only real advances you made were beating bosses, finding little secret treasures (that did things like change your Kirby's color), exploring every bit of the map, and generally finding out how the game worked.

It was kinda of a nice feeling to be so confused from the apparent lack of direction, to be left to stumble around from area to area until you could make sense of the whole.  I don't know if it really counts, though.

There are kinda places locked off by a specific powerup from time to time, but you still get abilities in the traditional Kirby sense.

[s0]

yeah but that's the case for pretty much all upgrades in any game; in no game (that i know of) does upgrading your attack power or life bar make it so you can access new areas

you play jrpgs, right? ok maybe that doesnt count because the reestriction isnt "explicit"

what about metroid? better guns = ability to open more doors

[Farfin]

yeah but that's the case for pretty much all upgrades in any game; in no game (that i know of) does upgrading your attack power or life bar make it so you can access new areas

not to mention it's a metroid staple to upgrade your health so that you can go through a large damaging area in order to access a new area.

[tesselode]

To me, upgrades are improving an already existing ability. However, I don't really want the player to be looking for new abilities either.

The environmental puzzle idea is something I thought of briefly, and now that I think about it some more, it sounds like a better idea than the inventory system, since you don't have to come up with a bunch of items and figure out how they interact with every area in the game.

I understand that upgrades give you a wide range of possibilities for level design, but how many times do people want to get the same jump upgrades they've seen in every other metroidvania?

[Giaddon]

My thought is: what distinguishes the Metroidvania world design is that it is (often) a single, continuous map through which the player is expected to criss-cross and explore to find the path forward (this is as opposed to the linear level series). Designers put in upgrades because hey, getting new stuff is fun, and to effectively restrict certain areas of the map until the access upgrade has been found.

Really, you could replace combat upgrades with keys or spells or songs or switches or whatever, you wouldn't be making too meaningful a change, if they allowed access to a new area.

I'd recommend (if you are committed to getting away from upgrades) simply making a world which the player can freely explore, right from the beginning of the game (hence no need for upgrades). (Not to say you couldn't also have puzzles, just that they would all be solvable from the beginning of the game). This also forces you away from the standard equating of progressing geographically to progressing in the game (since your player could go anywhere at any time). As a simple, hasty idea, you could base game progress on knowledge, rather than geography. (Perhaps the player is a scientist, and as he travels through the game world he collects information about the world, and once he has enough the game concludes.)

Anyway, good luck with your design!

 

[MaloEspada]

yeah but that's the case for pretty much all upgrades in any game; in no game (that i know of) does upgrading your attack power or life bar make it so you can access new areas

with the exception of the fire wand that lets you access one of the dungeons in zelda 1, all the upgrades you mentioned in that post relate to character power and not exploration.
that's what i meant! getting the white sword or the big shield only change how much the combat is favorable for you, but don't really open new paths.

now onto the new question you raised, there are some examples of games that allow the player to explore more if the player character is strong enough in terms of power/health (not counting upgrades like wave beam, super bomb, etc). i think some people in the previous posts mentioned the lava rooms in metroid games and stuff like that. areas that are usually meant to be avoided can be passed if your character can resists the hazards. imo this is exploration that rewards those who are skilled in the game AND have a strong player character, usually in the case where the player doesn't have the "keys" (or upgrades) to go for a safer path.