Topic: old style stair climbing, and face-on doors

[Arcraith]

hey people, i recently posted a thread to discuss whether instant death or falling damage would be acceptable in a castlevania game. I have another couple of questions to do with platforming gameplay features:

is there much of a possibility for future castlevanias re-incorporating the old style of stair climbing from the previous games, that is, pressing up near the bottom of a staircase or when jumping onto a staircase to start climbing it? Or is this just outdated in terms of todays standards of platform games? The way I see it, while it feels clumsy and there are various  problems like jumping and ducking while climbing a staircase, it does offer the possibility of providing two alternate routes from the same platform, i.e. climbing the staircase, or bypass it. That way the level design is not limited to such a two dimensional structure. Does anyone think there could be a good way of improving the system to make it less clumsy?

2nd question: what about face-on doors (don't know if theres a special term for this)? games like mario and commander keen used them so that you enter when you press up in front of them. Would this work for castlevania and why/why not? I know that it was used in OoE for the doors into the houses in Wygol village but nowhere else.

[Mystic Myotis]

Does anyone think there could be a good way of improving the system to make it less clumsy?

Use different buttons to go up/down stairs.  L/R buttons, perhaps.

2nd question: what about face-on doors (don't know if theres a special term for this)? games like mario and commander keen used them so that you enter when you press up in front of them. Would this work for castlevania and why/why not? I know that it was used in OoE for the doors into the houses in Wygol village but nowhere else.

Simon's Quest had that, too, and the 3d games have a variation. When you save in some of the games, you press up in front of the save spots.  Also, you do that to warp to different areas.
It's not used often in that way because of the map systems in the SotN onward games, I think.

[Munchy]

I think the fan game Soul of Dracula did this best, where stairs were more or less ramps that didn't require pressing up or down. Plus you could jump off without any restrictions.

[Reinhart77]

if the game is going for that retro feel, like Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth, then climbing stairs the old fashion way is fine.  otherwise, i don't really need them.

[Arcraith]

I think the fan game Soul of Dracula did this best, where stairs were more or less ramps that didn't require pressing up or down. Plus you could jump off without any restrictions.

yeah that idea was actually pretty good but basically it doesn't look that aesthetically pleasing when all the stairs don't have bottoms to them...

[Munchy]

yeah that idea was actually pretty good but basically it doesn't look that aesthetically pleasing when all the stairs don't have bottoms to them...

Do you mean having space behind the stairs? That could work if they were treated like thin platforms (drop through with down and jump).

[Arcraith]

yeah, that would work, but it means you have to jump onto a flight of stairs every time you want to climb them...

[Ghetto-blasteR]

yeah, that would work, but it means you have to jump onto a flight of stairs every time you want to climb them...

well, not if the game makes you climb the stairs by default. but then you get the same problem if you want to bypass the stairs... you'd have to walk on and then down+jump off

[Arcraith]

hm how about making the games 2.5d with limited movement in the forwards/backwards movement, like some of the corridor sequences in the Ys games?

[C Belmont]

If you plan on having exploration and backtracking then I would pass on using face-on doors (atleast I wouldn't use too many of them), I think they can sometimes make travel a little confusing in side scrollers unless they have linear gameplay.

In regards to the stairs I really don't think that there is a better way then pressing up to climb &  down to descend, all the alternative suggestions so far have downsides which the original approach simply doesn't have.

[TheouAegis]

All of those were incorporated in SOTN, weren't they? Weren't there stairs you could pass through? And the portals required pressing up.

Granted, you should be able to duck while on stairs, which would easily be accomplished by making left/right control stair climbing. But as for jumping onto stairs, I've always hated that mechanic. It's unrealistic. I said it before in my thread: if you try to jump onto a stair, you risk falling backwards and breaking your neck or falling forward and fracturing your shin.  With that said, it's not hard to incorporate it into old CV games if you really wanted. As is the case with all "new" game mechanics, it will take people a while to get used to.

An alternative to the doors that I thought of too was, in a linear CV, make the door automatic entry. So say, Trevor would walk towards the door which, up until that point, was set as a background, and then the other frame of the doorway and walls after that are set as foreground, so it looks like he walks into the building. A variation on that for Metroidvanias would be to add stairs inside the doorway, so gamers would know to press up at the door.

[Arcraith]

hm, i kind of like how it is in the later old games like bloodlines, how that when you walk off a platform with a pass-through-able staircase running off it, you walk down the staircase by default without dropping straight off the ledge like in the earliest games.

so how about this: just treat staircases like thin platforms, but you have to hold up to mount the staircase if you're running along on flat ground. Once you're on the staircase, you no longer need to hold up since its treated as being on a thin platform. And when you jump onto the staircase, you land on it without having to hold up like contrary to the old games, because its treated as a thin platform. The only problem i see there is if you're jumping around some place where there are stairs and you don't mean to jump onto them but can't not land on them. But thats the same problem you have with thin platforms anyway...It also means that you can't slide on them, but it makes sense that you can't slide on a thin platform anyway.

So the up button could be used for several 'interaction' sort of situations, for opening face-on doors, choosing to climb a staircase while running, flipping switches, talking to npcs, opening chests, a lot of the stuff OoE had anyway.
And using subweapon could be switched to using a different button, like some of the games had anyway. OoE didn't have that problem since it didn't use the classic weapon system.

[X]

hm, i kind of like how it is in the later old games like bloodlines, how that when you walk off a platform with a pass-through-able staircase running off it, you walk down the staircase by default without dropping straight off the ledge like in the earliest games.

This first appeared in SCV4 and I considered it a lifesaver at times Like the in final stage just after the crumbling bridge with those bats right behind you. It was also in CV: Dracula X (SNES), but to an extent. ie. meaning that if the staircase were solid underneath then you wouldn't need to press up or down to climb them. But other times where they weren't solid then you'd need to press up or down to traverse onto or off of a platform.

[Arcraith]

question: how would you implement a sidescrolling maze in a game like castlevania? wouldn't the best way be to use face on doors and have a top down map for that particular section?

[Flame]

IGA's Metroidvania castles ARE 2D mazes.