The idea

We have been wanting to work on a MetroidVania type of game for a while. But at the same time we want to make an innovative type of game, something we can call fun, different and ours at the same time. We had multiple idea sessions with a bunch of mixes of MetroidVania with other genres. We ended up choosing a mix of Metal Slug with Metroid / Castlevania and some small city builder mechanics!

The name

The name is temporary. We are still deciding on a good game name, but for now, we decided on just giving the project the codename Betavania. Because its pretty much a beta test on a new genre mix as well as a beta test for the team workflow.

Isn’t it too early to post about the game?

Yes, but we want to get in the habit of regularly posting updates and devlogs, and in that case, the earlier the better!

The story

The story is still a HUGE work in progress. We have multiple drafts which are many pages long, but since nothing has been decided yet, here’s the basic scenario and premise:

• There is an underwater military base in a fictional world.
• The player will enter this base, as one operative from a team of elite one-army-men soldiers, with the objective of rescuing a team of scientists.
• The military base will also have a team of enemy elite soldiers, and each of them will be a game boss.
• As the player progresses and conflicts arise, the base will slowly start to implode. Making it a race against time to get everyone together and leave the place. (the time is a story only element, it will not be incorporated into the gameplay). We have many ideas regarding the story, but we are still deciding what works best for the game, most of the scenarios we think of are revolving around these 3 questions:
• Is the underwater base a friend base that was attacked or an enemy base that is being invaded?
• Is it a team of soldiers that enters the base or is it a single unit?
• Whoever ended up invading the base, what is it that they are after?

The game design

While the game design is still getting tweaked and figured out. We do have some idea of what we want the game to be:

• A mix of MetroidVania with the Run & Gun genre.
• We want it to be action heavy, with lots of bullets on the screen!
• We want it to take a playful style, not taking the story or realism too seriously
• As the player finds scientists, we want to build a small safe room, safe space where everyone gathers, and as more and more scientists join, we want to give players more resources and tricks they can use. Make this somewhat of a city builder mechanic, like in Digimon World games.
• A modifier/equipment system, based on dog-tags, allowing the player to give their play style more flexibility.

The team

For now, the team is just 2 people, we plan on keeping it that way until we have basic mechanics and gameplay nailed down. We can then find artists or musicians to help with other parts of the game. Current Team:

• CodingKitsune: Mostly a programmer.
• Arthur Pesco: Mostly a designer.

The tech

We settled for using Godot. Reasons are not too complicated. We wanted to use an engine that would support the game genre, that was “light-ish”, worked on all major platforms, has a good balance of productivity and performance. We also wanted to use something we could automate building and testing (CI for games). Godot has all that, plus it also has no silly runtime or sale fees!

The schedule

While we do want to make a polished game we don’t really want to spend 2 or 3 years on this. Our goal is to have it finished or at least close to finished by December 2024. Let’s see how it goes, and let’s hope we don’t get caught in development hell!

The next steps

We will continue working on this project and as we update things and make more and more decisions, we will update this page and also post some devlogs on this website!