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Broke: changing your art to try and please people who have different tastes than you
Bespoke: hearing from people who have different tastes than you and deepening your understanding of your own art enough to know what needs to change to please yourself
Bespoke: hearing from people who have different tastes than you and deepening your understanding of your own art enough to know what needs to change to please yourself
Sometimes I have to remind myself I’m doing the latter because I do it often enough that it sometimes looks like I’m doing the former
I heard multiple people say “I don’t like metroidvanias” while I was working on Beyond the Rift, people I cared about who I wanted to like my work.
But when they told me why they didn’t like metroidvanias I realized I didn’t like those things either.
But when they told me why they didn’t like metroidvanias I realized I didn’t like those things either.
So from that point I wasn’t making the game specifically to get those friends to want to play my game, I was making the game to resolve a thing I could understand was an unnecessary shortcoming of the genre (repeated backtracking and frustrating boss fights).
The game is a thousand times better for it. I discarded the parts of the game that involved Moving from room to room one at a time, and instead changed it to “you can go anywhere at any time as long as you’ve been there before”
And those frustrating boss fights? Now they’re story matter.
“Tell us how you failed, and how many times you failed, and then tell us how you finally succeeded.”
Because it’s that last part that makes the frustration worth it.
“Tell us how you failed, and how many times you failed, and then tell us how you finally succeeded.”
Because it’s that last part that makes the frustration worth it.
Beyond the Rift maybe isn’t a perfect 1:1 representation of metroidvania gameplay. But it’s much more like the game I want it to be, and so for people who play it, it’s closer to something I’m confident they’ll enjoy as well.
Don’t just cater your design to the loudest complaint.
Study the complaint that speaks to you on a level you agree with, figure out where it comes from in yourself, and then answer *that* need.
Study the complaint that speaks to you on a level you agree with, figure out where it comes from in yourself, and then answer *that* need.
