Unlock Your Creativity: Rusted Moss Devs on Breaking the Metroidvania Mold

Rusted Moss has a stunning pixel art style and offers fluid physics-based movement, making it a well-received Metroidvania game with great potential for speedrunning. The game has ventured into unique design decisions, setting it apart from other indie games. What makes Rusted Moss stand out is its open-ended level design, which relates to the game's primary means of traversal.

According to a recent interview by Game Rant with Rusted Moss developers Faxdoc, Hayppysquared, and Sunnydaze, the game is built around the concept of "creativity gates" for exploration. Unlike most Metroidvania games that rely on rigid upgrade systems to unlock new parts of the map, Rusted Moss uses creativity gates to drive exploration.

One of the defining features of Metroidvanias such as Hollow Knight is their direct connection between progression systems and exploration. Players may come across a ledge that is slightly too high to jump to, indicating that they must return later after obtaining a double jump ability. This can result in frustrating backtracking, making the seemingly open world more linear as the map requires a sequence of upgrades to access later areas. However, Happysquared suggests that in Rusted Moss, players can actually access certain areas much faster than others due to the game's open level design. This openness may not be apparent to new players until they replay the game with the knowledge gained from their previous playthrough.

The Rusted Moss game offers a unique platforming challenge where players have the freedom to come up with their own solutions. This sets it apart from other games that rely on predetermined solutions. The game's skill and creativity gates rather than ability-gated mechanics make it accessible to most players with Fern's basic grappling hook ability. The developers have worked hard to subvert the genre convention, inspiring a community of talented speedrunners to master the game's fluid physics-based movement. Interestingly, the game focuses on the player's skill development rather than the character's abilities.

One of the key attractions of challenging games such as Dark Souls is the sense of mastery that comes from overcoming its obstacles. From the outset, players in Dark Souls have all the necessary tools to tackle any challenge that comes their way. This focus on player-based rather than character-based progression is a major source of satisfaction for gamers, and it's a philosophy that the Rusted Moss team has fully embraced in their own game. As Happysquared notes:

Playing a game and actually improving at it is an incredible feeling. In Rusted Moss, you get that sense of personal growth as a player, rather than just seeing your character grow stronger. When you first start using the grappling hook, it can be tough to get the hang of it, but as you keep practicing and improving, it becomes an incredibly rewarding tool to use.

However, as you progress through the game, you will quickly realize that the challenges you faced earlier have become child's play. This is a rare occurrence in Metroidvanias as most games allow you to carry over skills from previous games. But Rusted Moss requires you to develop a completely new set of skills, such as mastering the grapple, which is not easily transferrable from other games. Even veterans of the genre who have mastered games like Castlevania or Metroid will find themselves starting from scratch. This presents a unique opportunity for players of all skill levels to experience the feeling of growth and mastery as they progress through the game. Rusted Moss can be played on PC.