Sundered (metroidvania)

[vortex]

From the creators of Jotun

 

[FUDU]

Do you want to relive that 1980's video arcade experience, when girls wore sweaters on their legs, guys thought parachute pants were cool, and people still had pubic hair. Then this might be the game for you.

 

[Mozg]

All these beautiful 2D platformers that I buy and then play for a half-hour before I have to once again face that I don't much like platformers. Sucks that it's the genre that is at the investment sweet spot for current indie dev.

 

[vortex]

Mozg FUDU
What should good platformers feature to satisfy just gaming standards?

 

[FUDU]

Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the game. I like the art style and graphics. It's a very nice looking game.

When I saw the trailer, it just reminded me of the good ole days of playing video games in an arcade. God I'm old.

 

[vortex]

Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the game. I like the art style and graphics. It's a very nice looking game.

Oh, I didn't want to pose ironical question as you being a demanding player. I want to know what would players want out of such 2D game.
I've started a small game project so I'm eager to know how to improve that design.
Being an indie dev you have to tell something large without huge amount of skills.

How to improve 2D isometric and 2D platform game with similar artstyle ?
Would you be interested in RPG layer in those game, strong story narration ...?

 

[nomask7]

RPG stuff in a platformer or action game is cosmetic at best, or close to cosmetic - or it is one of two things:

(1) Grind to win, and thus dumb.
(2) Forces the game to be too easy to avoid "grind to win" (e.g. Symphony of the Night), and as such even worse than (1).

The solution is to not care about the opinions of people who aren't interested in the genre.

 

[Damned Registrations]

RPG stuff in a platformer or action game is cosmetic at best, or close to cosmetic - or it is one of two things:

(1) Grind to win, and thus dumb.
(2) Forces the game to be too easy to avoid "grind to win" (e.g. Symphony of the Night), and as such even worse than (1).

The solution is to not care about the opinions of people who aren't interested in the genre.

This is only true of monster xp and random drops though. SoTN could be balanced properly around exploration for gear upgrades and consumable stat boosters, though it would be a fuckton of work. The 'problem' of difficulty in an open game applies to any open game without level scaling- obviously if you explore the whole game you'll become overpowered at some point, or else you never really had the freedom of where to go. People enjoy that though, it speeds up the endgame and gives satisfying changes to gameplay early on.

 

[Mozg]

Mozg FUDU
What should good platformers feature to satisfy just gaming standards?

I just don't like 2D platformers and in retrospect I never really did.

Metroidvania mechanics or plain high production values used to be able to pull me through my basic ambivalence to the platforming but I've run out of gas on all the ones I've tried in the past few years.

I remember beating Rogue Legacy because it fundamentally has very little tedium (the dungeon is only a couple of minutes across and gets re-rolled into a new configuration when you die) and it's really short both in terms of single play sessions (minutes) and overall-until-the-end (a few hours). Plus the jumps and airdashes feel good. But it's all really shallow and designed not to wear out its welcome; it's a 'vania for people that don't much like the genre.

 

[Excidium II]

nice grafics.

 

[nomask7]

This is only true of monster xp and random drops though. SoTN could be balanced properly around exploration for gear upgrades and consumable stat boosters, though it would be a fuckton of work. The 'problem' of difficulty in an open game applies to any open game without level scaling- obviously if you explore the whole game you'll become overpowered at some point, or else you never really had the freedom of where to go. People enjoy that though, it speeds up the endgame and gives satisfying changes to gameplay early on.

If you take away ability to grind for xp and loot in SotN and then balance the levels to align with the available boosts so that you're meant to tackle certain areas after certain upgrades and boosts, then you've pretty much made the RPG elements, such as they remain, entirely cosmetic.

Of course, level-scaling would be a way to balance a game where you don't know the path of progression, but level-scaling again makes the RPG elements cosmetic. IMO, better at that point to just figure out some other way of providing interest. Getting levels when it doesn't amount to jack shit isn't exactly deep gameplay.

(The exception being level-scaling where character building is complex and you need to be very good at it to keep up with the scaled enemies. That's a sort of meta game that may be interesting if people manage to not spoil themselves with guides.)

 

[Damned Registrations]

It doesn't need to be certain upgrades and boosts though, it can simply be an amount of upgrades. Like the way they handled exploration in general- there were areas you could get to with wolf form and double jump, or just bat form. Or other areas you needed bat form or super jump, but double jump wouldn't cut it. And areas where bat form wouldn't work but super jumps would. And so forth. You can do similar things with the combat, like making an area that requires a weapon of some element, but not any particular one.

 

[vortex]

 

[lightbane]

Impressive art style, although it obviously has long loading times that will hopefully be fixed. There's no such thing as too many Metroidvanias, especially now that Metroid's own creators have ditched Metroid and Samus Aran.

 

[vortex]

 

[vortex]

Going on KS:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thunderlotus/1569490481?token=26e71699

Sundered is a horrifying fight for survival and sanity, a hand-drawn epic from the creators of Jotun . It is a replayable metroidvania game where you resist or embrace ancient eldritch powers.

You play Eshe, a wanderer in a ruined world, trapped in ever-changing caverns teeming with eldritch horrors. Harness the power of corrupted relics to defeat gigantic bosses, at the cost of your humanity.

 

[CryptRat]

I don't know if procedural generation will work here. I will still keep an eye on the game (maybe I'll even back it), the graphics are nice and I like that you're seeing the scene from far (low level of zoom).

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Interesting. I'll keep following things on this as it continues.

 

[CryptRat]

It's already funded : https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ng-fight-for-survival-and-sanit/posts/1785423

 

[CryptRat]

Coming on July 2017 ; GoG page : https://af.gog.com/game/sundered?as=1649904300
The game is really gorgeous.

I don't know what visuals or trailer are new.

 

[Echo Mirage]

Well it’s out, Anyone playing it?

 

[Haba]

Word on the street is that it is crap.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Took a quick glance at the Steam reviews. The term "swerves between pathetically easy and cheesy-as-fuck hard without warning" seems to be the biggest issue.

Factor in that enemies are randomly determined most of the time, and people have good reason to be really hating on this game.

 

[sser]

Damn. The artwork and the trailer are pretty fucking good. I don't trust the Steam reviews -- seem to be some 'too hard' elements going on in there.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I rarely believe steam reviews. Steam can give 5 stars and walking simulators for fucks sake. As much as I'd like to try it out myself, I'll wait for more info. At the same time, randomly generated enemies may not necessarily be a bad thing. It could keep things difficult where it keeps you guessing on strategy, etc.