Echovania Postmortem

With MVM:26 jam coming up, I felt like it was a good time to review Echovania and break down what went right and what fell short - both in terms of gameplay and design but also development process.

What went well: MVP strategy

Part of the issue I ran into with Azltan is that I tried to create an entire metroidvania from the get go, which meant it had to be redesigned and rebalanced as I made changes. It also meant at any one time it would ship with some part of the game in an incomplete state.

This time, I cut the initial game down to; one power up, a route only usable with the powerup and the final boss. From there I 'pushed' the start and ending apart with small polished chunks of content - adding longer corridors or small secret rooms.

This worked great and the game was much easier to keep working on.

What went well: Genre Study

After performing fairly poorly in the previous MVM, I spent time studying of metroidvanias as a genre and better understood the idea of traversing the same area you'd been through previously but with a new powerup that recontextualised where you could go and how. As a result I came up with this initial design for how the overall game would flow, focused on going back and forth across the initial area using the powers obtained in the side areas.

This worked really well, with 'Metroidvania' being the highest scored aspect of the game!

It also allowed me to keep a guiding principle as I made the game bigger - having a main central area that progressing through the game always brought you back through.

What went well: Boss Fight Study

I've never been exceptional at designing boss fights, I tend to end up focusing on systems and content generation. This time I made the final boss one of the very first things I worked on, studying bosses from a range of popular metroivania (and zelda) games and trying to break down what made them interesting. I looked at how different attacks were telegraphed, how they reacted to being hit, what the UI was like and how the bosses both announced themselves and died.

One of the main points of pride I have with Echovania is actually the opening sequence of the final boss fight - a pause, inhale and huge roar - before the lich's name fills the screen and the fight begins. It felt really dramatic and exactly what I was going for after studying those other bosses.

What went well: Tutorial

The tutorial area also worked really well. I liked how games like 9Sols and Metroid:Dread lead the player through a natural feeling flow of tiny obstacles to encourage learning the controls as well as setting up enemies and challenges before they actually had to be faced.

I'm not ashamed to say I copied a lot of the setup and pacing these games used and I got good feedback from it. The mechanics were learned quickly with little handholding or text.

What fell short: Enemy design

There is certainly some variety in enemy design within Echovania, it doesn't really stand out at all to me. None of them really make me change up my playstyle too much and the 'danger' I feel from them is mostly where the attacks come out too suddenly to be easily dodged.

Which is a shame, I spent a lot of time trying to design a varied set of enemies that attacked in different ways but I think because there weren't many powerups that changed combat, enemies couldn't really ask much of the player in terms of adaption. For the next one I definitely want to incorporate more of the powerups into combat - a tricky ask as each new mechanic needs to do multiple things within the game to feel truly like a metroidvania mechanic!

What had mixed results: Combat

The combat in Echovania is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the special attacks and dodge rolls give some much needed weight to the game. On the other hand, the slamming music track conflicts a lot with how the fights play out: stand next to an enemy and spam a weak feeling slash. I think either the game needed to have a more chill feel to it to fit the slower, more awkward combat or the combat needs to be way more dynamic and bombastic with the player slamming around and dashing as they attack. The current mix just isn't quite it.

What had mixed results: Camera

Platformers tend to adopt one of a few types of camera:

• Fixed camera, player moves between 'rooms'
• Locked camera, which moves around the level exactly with the player
• Elastic camera, which follows the player but had some drag to it to avoid jerky movement

I tried to create the third. It took a lot of iteration to get right, the initial versions even gave my playtester motion sickness. Eventually I ended up with a camera that was elastic on two axis independently and had a dead zone near the middle of the screen. The result is a camera that follows you, makes big drops feel more dramatic but doesn't feel like it accelerates awkwardly or slides about.

Final Notes

Echovania was much more successful than Azltan was, a more complete game that started small and made sure whatever I had would be 'shippable'. I understood how to recreate the appeal of metroidvanias much better, but still have a way to go on my combat design and platform controls. Hopefully next time I can reach my goal of breaking the top 25%!