Journey there and back again
Dev Diary 20
Let’s look at some game mechanics!
The game Elfscape: Ancestors is a metroidvania. Your adventure starts in a city that lies in the middle of the underground gameworld. Inside the city you can find ways to the surrounding levels and explore them. All of the levels (including the city) are connected together. The levels always have two doorways.
The doorways are indicated by a glowing light
Both doorways can serve as an entrance or as an exit. It means that the way you go from the city will also be the way you go back to the city. The way back to the city is usually shorter and easier - as you can see in this video:
When designing the levels, we focused on making the level obstacles work both ways - and for each way to give you a unique challenge. However, there are some levels you’ll have to pass through quite frequently. For the comfort of playing, these levels were designed as less difficult. Also later in the game you’ll get a map for better orientation - but we'll talk about the map some other time.
