Hi guys,

I'm a bit late on that topic but the conversation was very interesting, just wanted to share my thoughts. In the past decades, a lot a people dove in the game development and tried to begin simple, a 2D platformer is simple but maybe a little bit too simple. The genre is pretty much the emblem of two generation of console. The next move is to think : "how can I enhance the formula", in a 2D platformer, there is not a million of options, so the metroidvania genre (which I prefer to call Casteloid) is the perfect way to improve a platformer without adding complicated fighting mechanics (or anything else which could really make a platformer stand out of the crowd).
I think the numerous clones of clones of metroidvania are made for an obvious reason, the simplicity. I'm not saying it's easy to make, good metroidvania are rare enough to prove how much difficult is it to make one, but simplicity in the game design process.