I don't like playing with gamepads and never really liked castlevania or those sorts of games. (In general, I dislike console games) So the move towards making AVWW2 more focused on console-like retro gameplay is really really disappointing. Neither does keyboard-only aiming appeal to me, which I gather is intended to just make the aiming/targeting harder.
.....but the first game was based on Metroid-vania and console platformer concepts to begin with, wasnt it? That's how it felt to me. Run around, explore big areas, get the items that you need in order to continue (in this case, crafting items usually), and then go through areas that you couldnt before. Not to mention the gameplay was about as console-tastic as you could get. Pure platforming, run and jump and shoot and dodge.
Well, I played AVWW on the "I don't want to be the second cousin of the nephew of The Guy" platforming difficulty setting, and if there was a setting that let you hover around instead of jump and fall, I probably would have used that. I generally hate console-style platforming, especially "jumping and timing puzzles", but between the easiest setting and the triple jump, rocket jump, teleport, and speed booster all boosting the freedom of movement, AVWW generally managed to make its platform aspects mostly acceptable or sometimes even fun for me.
I've never played Metroid - only Castlevania and some arcade equivalents, and my biggest mental associations with that game genre are:
- frustrating jumping and timing platforming puzzles
- awkward control scheme
- very limited ability to take damage or recover from it
all of which are big negatives for me, and all of which were not an issue for me in AVWW.
But for AVWW2, the platform difficulty adjustment setting is gone, the controls are trying to emulate those console games, and health is being lowered. So ironically, the things that made AVWW less like a Metroidvania game were things that let me enjoy it more.
Which Castlevania games did you actually PLAY, though? If it's any of the very first three games (back on the NES), or any of the early Game Boy titles, they dont count, as the series has moved on from that. The "Metroidvania" style of play did not show up in that series until Symphony of the Night. None of the later games have much in the way of irritating controls either, but the FIRST three games pretty much invented the idea of really awkward character movement. It's very, very easy to die in those early games simply because your character is so sluggish and utterly terrible at jumping and cannot run at all (or even walk very fast, usually)
The very limited ability to take damage bit also suggests it was one of the early games. In the Metroid series.... even in the very first.... usually you can take 8 squillion hits and keep going. Samus seriously has to get hit REALLY REALLY OFTEN in order to actually be defeated (and this is the case in MANY Metroidvania games, including Symphony of the Night and most of the Castlevania titles that followed it). Also, the Metroid games never did anything with "timing" when it came to jumps and such. Hell, did the first three games have ANYTHING like moving platforms and whatnot? I dont believe they did. I know the first one sure didn't. Those games were about exploration, not about trying to jump around without landing in insta-death spikes or a pit (again, that was the old Castlevanias that did THAT bit).
Most Metroidvania titles are actually very, very easy games (which is a problem I have with them) that focus almost too hard on exploration, and not all that often do they have things like spikes or instant-death pits or stuff like that.
AVWW is like that to me as well. The highest platforming difficulty, to me, only does one thing: make spikes do lots and lots of damage. Other than that..... getting around is usually very easy even on that difficulty. The game never seems to produce even remotely difficult jumps that need to be done, and offers about 5 bazillion options in terms of getting past such a spot even if one DID appear.
I'm really glad to see that you guys have done some research with regard to other platforming games, control schemes, etc. Please stand by your design - at least until it's been viewed by the ranking 'experts' on the forum (I'm sure you have a good idea of who they are) - and don't buckle under pressure to change things before they're even out.
I highly recommend the games Binding of Isaac and Spelunky if you haven't played them already. IMO they're the best examples available of random terrain generation of the kind you're talking about, and some of my favorite games of all time. Spelunky is also free and BoI has a demo.
This.
Though, Binding of Isaac is actually all pre-made rooms, similar to how the buildings work in AVWW. Some tile types are interchangeable depending on the exact room though. Play it enough, and they'll start to repeat (really, really often)
But yeah, Spelunky in particular is an amazing example of doing that type of generation without it ever LOOKING like it.
