A game about a robot and a world ruled by a virus
From the beginning, our group was in agreement that our project would be focused on making a game in the “metroidvania” subgenre of 2D platforming games. It’s a subgenre most of us were familiar with, and one which has remained popular even in modern times despite great leaps in graphic fidelity. They are known for being challenging and frequently feature high-scale pixel art assets. Thanks to platforms like Steam, and many game development programs, independent developers with small or single-person teams are able to successfully make and release these games in the modern market. This enduring relevance makes them an interesting example of games with a very direct lineage to early arcade and console games, while most triple-A studios now focus on 3D releases with mechanics that can be more difficult to trace or correlate back to the early days of video games.
2D platformers in general go back to the “Golden Age” of arcades, with early examples showing up in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Many early examples featured static scenes that fit on a single screen, such as Space Panic (released in 1980 by Universal), and it’s unofficial home computer port Apple Panic(released 1981 by Broderbund Software), which allowed for movement between platforms through ladders and falling from higher platforms to lower ones. These could be considered an ur-platformer of sorts: most of the time when referring to “platformer” games as a genre, one of the assumptions is a jump mechanic, which the two previous titles lacked. Donkey Kong brought the jump mechanic into the platforming formula, which Nintendo would carry forward into games such as Donkey Kong Jr., Mario Bros., and the classic Super Mario Bros., released in 1985, which quickly became the standard for platforming games, complete with vast, side-scrolling, multi-stage environments, defeatable enemies, environmental obstacles, secrets and shortcuts, as well as power-ups and collectable items.
Many, if not all, of these elements are extended into metroidvania style games. The title itself comes from a portmanteau of Metroid and Castlevania, two games (and their associated series/franchises) that led to this particular style of platform game. The first installment for both series were released in 1986 for the Japanese Famicom system and were released in North America on the NES later the following year. Both games featured a darker tone from previous platforms, with sprite characters represented in more realistic proportions, more detailed environments, and more emphasis in gameplay on combat. Metroid was notable for being one of the first non-linear games (with the original Legend of Zelda on the Famicom/NES being another notable example, which also debuted the same year), with many passages and doors being impassable without first acquiring power-ups that were available elsewhere in the game. This encouraged exploration, experimentation, and revisiting of old areas in ways that most other video games did not. In addition to jumping and moving, the game also focused on a simple shooting mechanic to open doorways and defeat enemies.
The first Castlevania game was a series of 18 separate stages in a linear progression with a “boss battle” every third level. Like Metroid, Castlevania had a focus on combat in gameplay in addition to movement/navigation: the player could use a whip in addition to a limited supply of magic projectiles. However, the linear level design was also timed, encouraging the player to move quickly to complete the level. While the game did include hidden items, such as chicken hidden in breakable segments of the environment, the player had to generally move forward and couldn’t spend too much time on exploration. Completing the game also unlocked a harder difficulty mode, often referred to as “new game+” and has become a common occurrence in these kinds of games and other genres since. Castlevania 2 forced the player to revisit previous levels to solve puzzles and collect items, but it was the tenth installment in the series, Castlevania: Symphonia of the Night released in 1997, which contributed most to the metroidvania sub-genre. This title introduced RPG-like elements but also marked a design shift towards more open-ended level design that permitted the player to explore and revisit older areas on a single giant map to uncover secrets and open locked/blocked passages in similar fashion to the Metroid games. These choices were deliberate by the creators, who viewed previously titles critically. They stated that by taking criticism of previous games into account alongside inspiration from the game Legend of Zelda, they wanted to make a game with more replay value, especially by focusing more on exploration and doing away with the linear series of stages in favor of an “open world” game. (https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-03-21-koji-igarashi-says-castlevania-sotn-was-inspired-by-zelda-not-metroid)
The Mega Man series is another action platforming game that intersects with the metroidvania subgenre at times. Similar to Metroid, the game had shooting based combat with numerous enemies and levels were composed of multiple screens that the player could move back and forth between. Returning to previous areas in these games was rarely required for the game, but could be done to gain additional power-ups, such as increasing maximum health and new weapons/armor. These games also allowed you to choose the order you played the different stages, which was an unusual method of non-linear gameplay. An iconic turning point in the series, similar to Castlevania’s Symphony of the Night, came in the form of the sub-series Mega Man X, and later it’s spin-off Mega Man Zero.At the time of Mega Man X, Capcom was looking for a way to revitalize the franchise. Better graphics, improved movement mechanics, and a larger open world with side-scrolling instead of transitioning screens made the games come more in line with the later idea of metroidvania games.
We discussed several possibilities for a metroidvania style game. One of the early decisions we made was between sci-fi and fantasy, as most games in the genre tended to lean in one direction over the other, with games like Castlevania and Hollow Knight focusing more on melee combat and magical elements, and other games such as Metroid and Mega Man dealing more with aliens and robots and featuring more ranged combat in general. In the end we opted for a sci-fi game, deciding on a story-line about an android that wakes up in a factory with no memory, and having to fight robots and monsters to escape.
Given the level of skill and time required to make pixel art in games, we looked at collecting royalty free assets from places such as itch.io and OpenGameArt.org. Given the quality of the art assets and the appreciation for the series, we also turned to the Mega Man for inspiration in making modified and custom assets. In the end, due to time constraints, we were only able to create a few in game assets of our own. The player character ended up being a reskin of the character Zero from the Mega Man X series, and only a few other sprites were made. Custom music was able to be created and imported into the game however, which helped to make the project feel more like our own. Luckily, we chose an easy program to work with for our game project from the start.
Early on, we looked at several engines before deciding on Pixel Game Maker MV. Developed by KODOKAWA, the developer behind the RPG Maker programs, this relatively new software already had several tutorials built in and available online. We were drawn to this program in particular not just for its community and support, but also because of the reputation and our previous experiences of the RPG Maker programs. This software required little to no coding, but had the option of editing the game in JavaScript, which some of the team was already familiar with. Additionally, this software was designed with this kind of game in mind, with two separate options for either side-scrolling action games (platformer/metroidvania) or top-down action games (Legend of Zelda/Bindind of Isaac style).
Written by Joel Clapp, with help from Anthony Mondragon, Ross Griffus, and Cody Armstrong