Home Artists Posts Import Register

Content

Holy moly! Did you see the Game Jam? We got over 1,000 entries. That's incredible. Please take a moment to try some games and give them ratings. 

To celebrate, here's the episode that just slipped past August - the Boss Keys episode on Super Metroid. I hope you enjoy it.

Files

The World Design of Super Metroid | Boss Keys

Making a Metroidvania is an enormous design challenge. How do you let a player loose in an interconnected world, without them becoming lost or frustrated? In this series, I'll be looking at key Metroid titles, and games inspired by the franchise, to see how this type of world is structured. In this episode, I'm looking at the SNES all-time classic, Super Metroid. Support Boss Keys on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/GameMakersToolkit Rate games in the GMTK Game Jam 2018 - https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2018/entries

Comments

Anonymous

I think you meant “Old Tourian” instead of “Old Brinstar”.

Matthew Wilmsmeyer

Excellent episode, Mark! Hearing the way you've analyzed it, it actually seems really similar to Patrick Holleman (Reverse Design)'s analysis of Chrono Trigger ( <a href="http://thegamedesignforum.com/features/reverse_design_CT_1.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://thegamedesignforum.com/features/reverse_design_CT_1.html</a> ) - that is, a fairly straightforward, linear, and hand-holding arc (locking doors behind the player, for instance), followed by a break-out point and opening up of the game to allow a myriad of choices, including many that the player was introduced to (but couldn't follow up on) during the first Act.

Matthew Wilmsmeyer

Also, I am EXTREMELY hyped for Symphony of the Night's episode. Great work! :D