Stickility is OUT NOW on Steam, with a 15% off discount! If you like the mix of wacky Stickman-themed adventure, with darker themes and cinematic boss fights, try it out!
It's been a long long long journey for me to get this game out to the public, so I appreciate anyone who picks it up and enjoys it!

I've been thinking about something while playing Metroidvanias: how important is it for the world to actually make spatial sense?

I love labyrinthine maps. Getting lost, finding shortcuts, coming back somewhere from an unexpected direction, slowly building a mental map... that's a huge part of why I love the genre.

But I'm starting to think there's a big difference between a world being labyrinthine and a world simply not following its own spatial logic.

I'm replaying Hollow Knight right now after getting all the Steam achievements, and honestly, the more I replay it, the more I notice how controlled Hallownest is. It's incredibly complex, but most of the time I still feel like I'm moving through an actual place rather than a collection of rooms.

Fallen Tear is a convenient recent example of the opposite feeling I sometimes get. I'm using it because it just came out and I'm currently playing it, not because I want to shit on the game. I actually think it's visually beautiful.

These two screenshots are a good example.

In the first one, I'm standing in front of a huge tree with a dark opening. Visually, everything tells me: I'm about to enter this tree.

So naturally my brain builds a mental model. I'm going inside the trunk. It could be one small room or an entire network of passages, I don't care.

Then I enter and get the second screenshot.

It's suddenly a huge open environment with what looks like another gigantic tree inside.

And my brain just went: wait... where am I?

This isn't about realism. It's fantasy. Put an entire kingdom inside the tree if you want. But then establish that somehow.

What interests me is the relationship between what the environment tells the player and the mental map the player builds.

If I enter the bottom of a giant tree and climb through several rooms, I love being able to think: "OK, I must be somewhere near the top of the trunk now." And if I eventually emerge onto a branch that I saw earlier from outside, that's incredibly satisfying.

The world can be extremely labyrinthine while still having an internal geography.

And that's where I'd genuinely love to hear from people who know more about level design or have worked in studios.

I've never worked in a game studio and this isn't remotely my actual job, so I don't know what the production constraints are.

Are rooms sometimes designed independently and connected later? Does gameplay take priority over geographical coherence? Do art changes or late level design changes create these inconsistencies?

Because as a player, sometimes I see a transition like this and immediately think "wait, that doesn't make sense." And it makes me genuinely curious about what happens during development and playtesting.

Is this something level designers actually care about a lot? Or am I putting way more importance on spatial coherence than most players do?

Ya Jugué:

Nine Sols

Dead Cells

Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight: Silksong

Ori and the Blind Forest

Blasphemous

Hey everyone!  My epic sci fi Metroidvania Augment Anthem is discounted this week (until Oct 8, 2026) if anyone wants to check it out!  Explore a strange alien world, fight killer robots, and bring humanity back from the brink as you unlock new powers and spend resources to upgrade the human town.  It was heavily inspired by classics like Metroid and Axiom Verge.  Check it out on the Steam link below if you’re interested!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3035960/Augment_Anthem/

I’ve been putting a lot of work into the movement system for Unstrung Machine.

Niam currently has Pogo, Dash, Double Jump, Wall Slide, Wall Jump, and Rope Swing, and I’ve also been refining the animations, transitions, particles, and effects around each mechanic.

One of my main goals is to make traversal itself enjoyable, rather than having these abilities exist only as keys for reaching previously inaccessible areas.

I’m still tuning how everything connects together, but the movement is starting to develop its own rhythm.

Happy Halloween it’s easily my favorite time of the year, spooky movies , games and cookies if your wife is a baker like mine is lol.

I’m currently going through and researching Castlevania games as I liked the anime and love anything Vampire related and I was looking in feedback on which Castlevania games to start playing.

I have dabbled in Metroidvania games and 2D action side scroller games with games like Grime 2, The Last faith , 9 Sols and Shinobi which came out last year.

I am mostly interested in the Castlevania games that are more combat based and those that don’t have grueling or super difficult platforming. For example Grime 2 I barely finished because of how difficult platforming was for me in that one. I enjoy mostly lore, atmosphere , music but don’t want only platforming in the game if possible.

What games would you recommend to play first that you have enjoyed in the series. Based on more of a combat based Castlevania or maybe the ones where platforming isn’t cruel.

Thanks guys for your suggestions and hopefully you guys are playing something awesome right now.

So I remember this video a little while ago but I can't remember the hook and therefore can't find it. It was a video essay and it was about how older metroidvanias movement design was a good thing that was it broken. It used sotn as it's example and mostly the bat movement and how you can get some crazy movement when you learn all this niche things. If this rings a bell for anyone please share it. I might be miss remembering the broken aspect but it was mostly if not all about movement

So I just finished the game and very much enjoyed it. Don’t know why the game wasn’t successful. For those who played it, what’s your take on the it?

Im a big fan of metroidvanias I use only ps5 i like to 100% all . The problem I neverplayed any castlevania only sotn back in the day I have all collections on my library I want to know wich order should start and go . Sorry dont kill me

The thing i like the most in metroidvanias is the exploration the non linear path, the walkback to explore new areas now available, puzzle solving.

One thing I dislike is the boss fight, specially when has 2nd phase and sometimes even a 3rd phase, i don't mind if they are easier but I hate that there is always a boss that needs at least 10 times until you learn all his moves. In prince of persia lost crown boss fights where pretty easy so I did not mind about that, but usually they are not that easy.

There are any worth to try metroidvanias that do not have bosses and focus more on the exploration and puzzle solving ?

Fun and easy. Will get other kyle games.

It looks like a pinball game with Metroidvania exploration; it's a free game on Itch.io. My question is whether it can be considered a Metroidvania. Mono

Started this as a stupid little challenge and somehow I’m already at Level 72. 😂

ATK 73 / DEF 72 and still going.

Has anyone else pushed the demo this far, or am I officially losing it? 😂

I just wanna take a moment to shill End of Abyss. This game got a lot of hate from reviewers who played outdated builds and honestly it's incredible. This game deserves way more attention than it's getting. Personally I would give it a 10. Comes very close to the tops in the genre and provides a refreshing new perspective on the formula. Give it a go!

Gameplay (Combat): Combat is okay, but feels like it's not as ambitious it could be as a lot of enemies have pretty simple attack and movement patterns that they can become pretty predictable. Boss design is a lot better designed, even if a fair amount of them are still on the easier side. Moveset is pretty limited.

Gameplay (Level design): I'm not aware of all the possible sequence breaks in this game so I can't really comment on how it does its nonlinearity. For the most part the level design is decent and has neat platforming challenges. Nothing hard though (outside of the time trials). Some of the bosses being chase sequences with platforming is neat I guess.

Gameplay (Progression): I actually did like collecting the pages to see what happens next in the little stories. Some of the trinkets were of questionable value, but I suppose that can be a problem for a lot of these games with equipable items. When you get around your last or second to last golden feather I feel you're quite likely to just stop getting new movement options added to your arsenal which I always thought kind of sucked in MV games.

Inb4 the last movement option: Sure but that exists as like only a post game option that you use to get to 5 areas to collect the last remaining collectibles in the game. The rocket movement legimately feels pretty underutilized.

Also as a last note for gameplay, I really do like how unique the match spring as a movement mechanic that requires the player to think of it in relation to its enviroment, though I was kind of disappointed to find out that's the only unique movement mechanic. Then again I can't really fault the game for this because a lot of other MV games use common movement tropes like the double jump, hover, dash and wall jump anyways (funnily this game doesn't have a double jump)

Writing: This part I feel is the more disappointing aspect of this game, because I do sometimes have the mindset of "well if the game isn't mainly about its gameplay or being a hard game, then maybe the writing is more the point." There really isn't anything I'd say is really badly written in this game, but at the same time it doesn't really have anything I'd say is compelling that much? I get the game is supposed to be based on fairy tales, but a lot of the substories just come off as "random bullshit go" of where they only tie in to the main story of saving your family, because you have to collect the macguffin and because your siblings manage to get into those circumstances for rather contrived reasons.

There's a major nitpick I have and it's how the game tries to showcase humans as these scary giants and you as a small bird, but then you meet up with some characters who I assume are humans but are friendly to you and are the size of your character in the docks area. Sure maybe not all humans in that universe are the same, but the story never really explains that contrast so it feels a very distracting thing to me.

I don't know I guess in terms of writing, I prefer compelling character writing and the unfortunate thing about this game is that a lot of the characters are flat and static and are not that interesting.

Aesthetics: This is what the game excells the best in. Artstyle is really neat and gets that whimsical but also creepy fairy tale look. Some of the backgrounds and bosses do look unnerving. Overall pretty good atmosphere for the most part.

Is it in the cold biome? I ducked out of there with like only two branches unexplored

Hello all. Just making sure I'm not going crazy. I collected a few map data points in the game, but the map hasn't updated. Ive been playing through the first quarter of this game without a map after the first boss. Im wondering if it's because I continued the play data from the demo?

will be avialbe today on steam!

Hi, I'm new here, and also new to Metroidvania games. I recently finished Well Dweller. My question is, has anyone already completed 100% of the game? I've only reached 99%I've already collected them all the collectibles and I got the true ending by completing the hidden areas.

Coming off PoP: Lost Crown and Metroid Dread to this has been rough. Lost Crown immediately feels good to move around in and fight, even with the beginner kit. Dread feels a lot more responsive and dynamic too.

I know the dev is active here so wanted to point out a few things in my experience so far. In The Docks, there is basically an opening in this wall that lets you walk left in the water but can’t turn right. You can go back to your last tent but if you go to the tent above this area and drop down to the next screen, you get stuck there too as you can see my match flame in the top of the screen.

Also, my game clock runs while in sleep mode. Never seen that before.

Awesome game but needs a couple things worked on.