Although I usually describe Reina & Jericho as a story-driven Metroidvania, the fact is it sits between a lot of different genres. The combat and movement is inspired by games like Mega Man X and there are platforming influences from games like Celeste. Metroidvania games typically have *some* platforming influences but they tend to not go too deep. Some of this is for good reason – if a player is backtracking across a screen four or five times they probably don’t want to do a difficult jumping problem over and over. That said, there are still lots of nooks and crannies where we can tuck away little challenges, usually for minor health power ups or bonuses of that sort. These past two weeks I have been working on these very platforming segments, so lets talk about them! Reina’s core movement skills are already quite impressive - she can run, jump, dash (in mid air or along the ground), dash into a long jump, grab walls, use aerial attacks to modify her mid-air movement, backstep, dodge roll, or perform an air dodge to add hang-time. This is a game about movement, and so it was important that Reina have very strong movement fundamentals. She is feeble at the beginning of the game but quickly gets to the point where she can bounce all over a room and is just… fast. [h2]Bumpers[/h2] With all of this in mind we wanted to create platforming mechanics that let the player leverage these abilities or push them even further. Reina can jump high and dash higher – how can we add even more height? Well for that we have these devices we call bumpers: [img]https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1157800/extras/bumpers.gif[/img] The mechanics are simple: if you attack them, they bump you in the opposite direction (with a bit of a bias towards launching you upwards). If they are orange and have the special icon on them (just in case you can’t differentiate the color orange) then they also refund your dash charge. The bumpers are nice because they allow for a tremendous amount of vertical traversal and hang time, and they perform a subtle timing test, as the player must get the timing and angle of their attack right for optimal bumping performance. [h2]The Spider Grip Artifact[/h2] I want to describe one more platforming object in the game, but before that I need to explain a new power up called the Spider Grip. If you play a lot of Metroidvania's it may look familiar, but we are pushing it way further than most games do. The idea is simple: Reina has, on her left hand, a power up that fires a beam of attractive force. If she were to hit a big and sturdy wall or ceiling with it she would be pulled across the room towards that point. [i]Unlike [/i]most Metroidvania’s with similar power ups, the Spider grip doesn’t work on special blocks or specific materials, it works on almost every single surface in the game. Reina can also disengage the beam part way through her trajectory and latch it onto something else – this can allow for some very fast traversal of certain areas, and some interesting sequence breaking. Furthermore, it isn’t just used for grabbing walls. If Reina were to hit something light with the Spider Grip she would stay still while it was pulled towards her, allowing her to grab things at distance. If Reina were to hit something, or someone, that had roughly the same mass as her then they would both be equally pulled towards each other. I won’t mention what happens next, but it ties in significantly to the combat mechanics of the game. Like I said Reina can really bounce around. [h2]Slingshots[/h2] Although the primary use of the Spider Grip is to latch onto walls, that does require a solid object to be present, and sometimes we want Reina to be able grab an object she can pass through. This is where the slingshots come in: [img]https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1157800/extras/spider-grip.gif[/img] Slingshots can be grabbed by the spider grip in mid-air. When Reina travels through them a portion of her Stamina is refunded, allowing her to chain several Spider Grip actions together, and letting her weave multiple complex maneuvers together all without touching the ground or any other solid material. Using these in rooms with lots of enemies is quite fun, as Reina can just whip herself around the room, constantly entering and exiting dangerous areas. I’m looking forward to sharing it with you!