Good evening everybody! This is Aifos coming to you alive from the Holy City of the Echaton! It's very scary here! I want to go home! Send help! Please! But while I hide here in these dark caverns, waiting to be attacked by some sort of eldritch abomination of unfathomable horror, let's make a post! Metroidvanias are one of, if not the, best genre of video game, imo. When done right, there is just almost nothing as engaging as exploring these vast interconnected worlds! And even when done wrong, they still tend to be fun enough games, just ones that never quite hit the heights of their brethren. But before I actually get into the topic at hand, the word "Metroidvania" gets passed around a lot, and a lot of games that aren't Metroidvanias--such as Dead Cells or Bloodstained--still get the Metroidvania title. So, just so we're all on the same page; [b]What is a Metroidvania:[/b] [spoiler]A Metroidvania is a game set within an interconnected world, wherein there is a non-linear, but not completely open, progression, that relies on the idea of obtaining new upgrades allowing you to backtrack and open up new areas. Think of a Zelda dungeon (and I mean a [i]real[/i] Zelda dungeon, not that BotW nonsense), but on a larger scale.[/spoiler] If any of you have played an open world game, then you know the fun of exploration. But, open world games give you exploration at the cost of proper progression, and that's the real genius of Metroidvanias; still giving you that amazing sense of exploration, but doing so in a way that still gives you a good sense of progression. But Metroidvanias have one really big problem, at least they do for me. Once I finish a Metroidvania, I always wind up wanting more, but, since so much of the fun of a Metroidvania relies on exploration, they don't have a whole lot of immediate replay value--you have to wait until you don't remember every inch of the world to really have a sense of exploration again, and even then, it's still never like your first time. And the best way to treat a replayability problem? Make it a Roguelike! The Roguelike genre has been crossed over with everything from sneaky-stabby assassin games, to card games, to shooters, and even rhythm games! Before we continue, though, let's just make sure we're all on the same page again, and here's a description of what a Roguelike is; [b]What is a Roguelike;[/b] [spoiler]A Roguelike is a game that features two things: A. A procedurally generated world. B. Perma-death. "True" Roguelikes give you a completely fresh start every time you die, but "Roguelites" will carry over things from previous runs, like money, or unlocked weapons and skins.[/spoiler] Now, a Roguelike's strength relies in its ability to throw you back at the beginning every time you die, meaning they're great games to just turn on, play a round or two, and then get off. This makes them super replayable, because you'll always have something to do. But, we've got an issue with this idea of a Roguelike Metroidvania, and that's the fact that the two genres are kind of at odds with eachother. It's a simple fact that procedurally generated environments aren't as fun to explore as hand crafted ones, but it's the procedurally generated environments that make Roguelikes work in the first place. For a while, I was under the impression, that this hurdle would pretty much soil any attempt at really making one of these games work. But, then, this Christmas, I got myself a game I've had my eye on for a while; Sundered. Sundered is, as you've probably guessed, an attempt at a Roguelike Metroidvania.. Or, Roguelite, anyway. The game was great in some ways, not so great at others, but by far its most impressive feature is the way it handles that issue of making a procedurally generated world just as fun to explore as a handcrafted one. So, let's start by explaining how Sundered's map even works. You have these large rooms, that I'm going to call caverns--though bear in mind they can be anything from eldritch cathedrals, to lush forests, or high tech laboratories--that always have the same layout. Cavern 1 will always connect to cavern 2, which will always connect to both cavern 3 and cavern 4, etc. But, once you enter one of these caverns, you'll notice that a smaller room will appear within the larger one, and these smaller rooms are procedurally generated. The way they connect to other rooms is only set in stone for the rooms that connect to other caverns, but the connections between other rooms within the same cavern, and the routes that run between them all, can vary wildly; it could be a straight line from the entrance of the cavern to the exit, or it could swerve around in a squiggly W shape. Combine that with some caverns always being the same (such as where you find abilities), and certain sections of the map having different environments from others, and somehow, Sundered manages to create a procedurally generated area that feels just as fun to explore as a handcrafted one. But, you'll notice I only said "setting the foundations" in the title, so what does Sundered do wrong? Well, a few things. For one, once you find a cavern, it'll stay on your map, even if you die, and any shortcuts you open stay open. Any abilities you've collected transfer over, and bosses, once killed, stay dead. This means you're never really starting a run from scratch, but rather each run is chipping away at your overarching goal. The same abilities are also always found in the same place, which works for Sundered's systems themselves, but in a full-blown Roguelike, this would get a little stale. Basically, Sundered is missing a pretty big part of the Roguelike genre; perma-death, and for this reason, I wouldn't actually call Sundered a Roguelike, or even a Roguelite, but rather just a Metroidvania, and the game would honestly probably have just been better making a regular handcrafted map. Of course, I wouldn't be making this post, if it didn't impress me, and if a game were to learn from Sundered's example, and take things just a little bit further, I think we could finally get the Roguelike-Metroidvania we've (or at least I've) been desperately wanting! And I would end the post there, with a whole "Tl;dr Sundered lets you explore really well, but doesn't reset things enough", but before I do that, I'm going to try and make an example of just how a true Roguelike-Metroidvania could work. But, eh, just keep in mind I'm not a game designer. [b]Expanding upon Sundered's systems:[/b] [spoiler]So, first thing's first, caverns would have to be hidden. They would still exist, just like they do in Sundered, but if they were visible, players might open their map, and see that the caverns are all laid out in the same way, and think "Oh, haven't I seen this map before?", which could ruin a bit of the fun. Of course, they wouldn't just be one map, but I'd estimate probably about 5. These five maps would always have abilities in the same places, but the caverns running between those abilities (of which, there would probably be 3 per map) would always be different, and the abilities themselves would be chosen from a random pool of about 9ish. Two of the three abilities would have a room before them that has an ability gate, meaning you have to pick up the abilities in a certain order, which most of the time, would require you running through the map in a non-linear fashion. Each ability would be guarded by a mini-boss, that must be defeated before picking it up. Much like everything else, the mini-boss would be randomly chosen from a pool of, I dunno, 15? Once you get the final ability, you could reach the final boss, who would be blocked off by a similar ability gate, and beating them would be a win. Potentially, it could warp you to the next map, and each run you'd have to go through three different maps, though in that case the map total would probably need to be bigger than 5, or you risk having everything beginning to feel samey. Finally, each map would have certain locations that contain optional upgrades, such as health/mana potions, or weapon upgrades, etc. The optional upgrade in each location would be randomly chosen, but the amount of each upgrade would be set (there would always be, for example, 3 health upgrades), and in order to reach them you'd have to pass through an ability gate that could be from any of the three available abilities on the map (or if there's a 3-map run, it could pull from any abilities you've gotten up to that point). And finally, of course, death would reset everything. You lose your abilities and upgrades, the map gets wiped, and then you can start again. Ah, that just sounds so fun! I want this game, now![/spoiler] Maybe one day.. *longing sigh* [b][u]Tl;dr? Here's my point![/u][/b] Sundered has some really neat mechanics in its procedurally generated Metroidvania world, that I think could be the key to making a true Roguelike-Metroidvania. Sundered isn't quite a Roguelike itself, but it leads the way for a game to follow in its footsteps to be a great one. Well, that's all for now, folks! Jambuhbye! I'm going to go play more Sundered!