Breaking Barriers: Rusted Moss Devs Talk Indie Game Development and Unique Metroidvania Mechanics

Rusted Moss stands out in the Metroidvania genre with its unique grappling hook traversal that adds a layer of skill and creativity to exploration. Developed by an all-female team of indie game enthusiasts, the game offers a familiar experience while incorporating new challenges that set it apart from other titles in the genre. Game Rant interviewed the developers to discuss their creative process, their views on Metroidvania gameplay, and the unique perspective they bring as an all-female team. The game's design decisions were influenced by personal preferences and the desire to prioritize level design that emphasized the grappling hook, which is more dynamic and fluid than double jumps or dashes. The boss fights are more about improvisation and thinking on your feet rather than memorization, which is a common feature in most Metroidvanias. The game also stands out with its absence of contact damage when touching enemies, a design choice that adds to the player's freedom of movement and exploration.

The level design in Rusted Moss is like a playground, where players have more options to overcome challenges instead of being restricted to certain solutions. The game emphasizes skill and creativity gates rather than ability-gated progression. Rusted Moss uses ranged combat instead of melee combat, which was a result of an experiment with 360-degree aiming. The goal of the game is to make traversal skill-based, rather than simply unlocking upgrades to access new areas.

In Rusted Moss, players experience a sense of personal growth as they progress through the game. Unlike other Metroidvanias where skills are carried over from other games, Rusted Moss challenges players to train their muscle memory on new abilities, such as using a grappling hook. As players expand their skills, earlier challenges become trivially easy. This feeling of progression is something that is not often seen in games.

For players who are creative and determined enough, Rusted Moss offers a truly nonlinear gaming experience. While there are suggestions for the path of least resistance, speedrunners demonstrate that there's a lot of unnecessary things that new players might assume are required. Designing a game without a linear pathway is a double-edged sword as some players prefer a more guided experience. However, the game respects the player's choices and allows for creativity and skill-based exploration. Players can decide what kind of game experience they want to have.

Rusted Moss' setting and theme were inspired by Faxdoc's personal art style and Sunnydaze and Happysquared's love for novels and folklore with fairies. Unlike many other Metroidvania games, Rusted Moss draws inspiration from sources outside of video games. Faxdoc's previous game, TWWWR, also features desolate landscapes overtaken by nature. The team did not base their game on current Metroidvania trends, as none of them even finished playing Hollow Knight.

We implemented small mechanics and shortcuts on the map that are challenging but can help players quickly navigate through the game. The grapple hook's high skill ceiling makes it a great fit for speedrunning as mastering it is engaging in itself. We also left in some bugs and quirks that speedrunners have creatively incorporated into their runs. Our goal was to encourage exploration and creativity in gameplay, allowing players to discover things on their own instead of being explicitly told what to do. The physics-based nature of Rusted Moss means that there are multiple solutions to each run, making it exciting for speedrunners to find the most efficient solution. Developing the grappling hook movement was a difficult balancing act, but ultimately rewarding.

With the grapple having bursts of momentum, traditional bosses were not possible in Rusted Moss. Boss fights required designing around the player's movement in a large arena without punishing a lack of twitch reflexes. The inspiration for a lot of the bosses was finding different incentives for the player to move around. Boss fights revolve more around navigating to keep the grapple usage relevant, rather than traditional mechanics like dodging or parrying. The boss fights serve as a way for players to develop their grapple skills and prepare for more challenging parts of the game later on. Rusted Moss initially lacked a tutorial level for the grapple upgrade, resulting in players struggling with its mechanics. The grapple requires players to consider their own momentum and weight, which was not conditioned in previous games. The grapple in Rusted Moss is more like a bungee cord.

Players have found that the true mastery of the grapple in Rusted Moss comes from practical usage in boss fights and challenging environments, rather than from the tutorial. The tutorial provides an overview of the grapple's characteristics and emphasizes the importance of jumping before grappling to gain maximum movement. However, it is the moments where the grapple "clicks" that truly allow players to enjoy the game. Despite the high skill ceiling and non-traditional gameplay, Rusted Moss has received very positive reviews on Steam, with fans praising both the gameplay and unusual story. The team behind Rusted Moss expected a more mixed reception, but they are thrilled that those who enjoy the game really love it.

Happysquared and Sunnydaze are amazed by the support they receive from fans of their game, especially when it comes to fan art, speed runs, and custom creations. One such creation was discovered by a player who found a way to change the color palette of the player character's sprite. This feature was never fully developed but was left in the game's local files for players to discover on their own. The discovery led to a Discord channel where players can show off their custom creations, which the developers find flattering. The game also had a level editor, which surprised the developers when players actually started creating their own challenges. Although there were some features that didn't make it into the final version, such as a melee weapon for Fern, the developers are still grateful for the support they receive from the community.

We initially had the idea of boss fights where you could use the grapple to tear parts of the boss out, such as pulling off guns or an arm. However, in practice, we found that it wasn't enjoyable and we couldn't make it work. While it was a cool concept, we had to abandon it.

Previously, we had an inventory system that used Tetris-style pieces instead of the current trinket system. Equipping a piece would give you a certain ability, such as healing. However, we decided to remove the system as it was too complicated and disrupted the pacing of the game.

As a super small team, we have a lot of work to do and adding in new systems requires even more work. Faxdoc handles programming while 99% of the art is done by me. We even had to bring in outside help for parts of the level editor.

During COVID, we participated in Game Jams and connected with each other through our games. We eventually formed a small Game Dev group that would do monthly "Show and Tells" to share our progress. One standout game from our group is Bonte Avond, where everyone is a musician and their games are like playing through a concept album.

The indie devs we know have a diverse range of backgrounds, which is something cool about them. For example, all of Bonte Avond are musicians, so when they write stuff for their games, dialogue, and songs, it feels like they have improvised for the game. They have these improvisational sessions of music, and then that eventually makes it into the game. The game has a ton of great musical numbers that they sing and perform. It's rare to see this level of musicality in games, which makes them unique. Another cool game that hasn't been released yet is Ants Took My Eyeball, which is a roguelike game.

If you're a fan of platforming games, then Sprout is one to watch out for. There are plenty of games that people in our group are currently working on.

As an all-female dev team, we have faced some challenges in the industry. For example, when we won the PAX Rising showcase at PAX East, people assumed that my male friend who was helping me out was the main dev. However, we have been fortunate enough to build a safe space for ourselves and interact mostly within our own supportive community. We have not had to deal with the horror stories that other female devs encounter when they need to go outside of their own group.

Being an all-female team has given us a unique perspective on the narrative of our game, Rusted Moss. One of the themes in the game is that the main character, Fern, and many children in the game are thought to be changelings, and are put into the oven by their families because they're thought to be imposters, changelings pretending to be human. This is based on traditional English faerie folklore and some Nordic folklore, where people in the past would blame a child that is overly melancholic or misbehaving for being a changeling, and folklore would say to throw the child into the fire or mistreat it.

Fern, one of the characters in the game, is written to be kind of spiteful and rude, with trouble understanding social cues that demand a person react in a certain way in a world where a lot of girls are conditioned to be very empathetic and nice. She's kind of like a power fantasy, which sounds bad when you see how callously she acts toward others, but it's in a venting kind of way. She wasn't written to be an instruction, but rather as a response to being told maybe one too many times, “Hey, you should smile, you’d be pretty if you smiled.” Some players hate her and call her a callous monster, while others find her relatable.

We hope players enjoy Rusted Moss overall and appreciate the novelty and uniqueness of the game's open design and physics-based movement. While we have many ideas for post-launch content, we're currently focused on patches and quality-of-life improvements. As for future projects, we're not a studio, just a group of friends who came together to create Rusted Moss. However, we would love to work together on future endeavors.

But indie dev involves more than just wanting to make a game. We have to consider things like salary and business aspects, which we don't currently have to worry about since I and my sister have full-time jobs, and Faxdoc is living off her life savings to fund Rusted Moss. However, this is not a sustainable solution for our next game.

Q: What aspects of Rusted Moss did each of you enjoy working on the most?

Sunnydaze: As the composer and sound designer, my favorite part was writing the final boss music and creating "unhappy endings" for the story.

Faxdoc: I found the process of adding detail to the player characters and perfecting the game's feel to be the most enjoyable.

Happysquared: I loved working on level design and world-building.

Q: Any final thoughts before we wrap up?

Happysquared: Rusted Moss came together almost accidentally, as none of us set out to make a game. Faxdoc wasn't even sure how many people would want to use the grappling hook. However, we were passionate about the project and decided to pursue it regardless of whether or not others would enjoy it.

Overall, indie game development requires a considerable amount of passion and dedication.

It has been both thrilling and uplifting to discover other players who share our vision and are equally enraptured by this unique gameplay mechanic. We were fortunate to find an audience for this unconventional approach. Don't forget, Rusted Moss can be played on PC.