momentum-based-grapplehook-bullethell-ish-metroidvania-platformer; a shameless but good-intentioned amalgamation of “indie speed game” tropes, mechanics, and ideas that are sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating, but obviously brimming with passion.
like most teenage gamers with ample free time, few skills, and an earnest but underdeveloped critical eye for games, i dreamed of one day making a game. for me. my ideal. i’ve wanted to make a game for as long as i can remember. throughout highschool i scribbled into my spanish notebook margins drawings of characters and enemies and my understanding of level design to an obsessive degree: detailed maps spanned pages, obscuring practice conversations we’d recite, intermixed with conjugation tables were sketches of character upgrades and their applications. i’m not sure i learned much spanish the semester i became entranced with my never-to-be notebookbound video game. when i wasn’t in the mood to get caught doodling i’d just stare at the poster denoting spanish words for colors and break into a cold sweat playing out perfectly choreographed boss scenes. in my mind. it was devoted thinking time.
the game i desperately wanted to create was a momentum-based-grapplehook-bullethell-ish-metroidvania-platformer; a shameless but good-intentioned amalgamation of “indie speed game” tropes, mechanics, and ideas that surely would have been horrible though brimming with passion. spurred on by my then recent discovery of the perennial masterpiece metroid fusion, i was excited by the possibility of the genre and the breadth of options it gave players. of course, those familiar with metroid fusion may see the problem already, and where this may be going.
which means it’s time to talk about rusted moss. hi, rusted moss. i’ve been waiting for you for a long time.
i tell this story about the game i once yearned to create to establish that rusted moss was always going to happen. one way or another, this game was going to get made. it’s too enticing. that string of words, that mouthful abomination steam tagline buzzword laundry list headlining the review, that’s what the idea of rusted moss feels like. it’s beyond having cake and eating it too; rusted moss is downing the entire city cafe dessert menu in one, big. gulp. it's the end goal for games designed to last an eternity. it’s pieces of inspiration scattered across all of indie-dom jigsaw’d into a game, not out of any amount of cynicism, but reverence. love. rusted moss is the collective game of our dreams.
a bunch of cool shit from other cool video games thrown in because having cool shit times eighteen is, mathematically speaking, cool as shit.
i think it’d be a waste of time to detail the popularity and prevalence of metroidvanias (or “search action” if you dont like fun words. [small tangent but metroidvania is absolutely the most aesthetically pleasing descriptor for a genre, like, ever. what a word. i don’t care much for the arguments against it nor the arguments for search action solely on the basis that i love how fun “metroidvania” looks and sounds. ok tangent over.]) throughout the indie scene since basically ground zero. we all know it. indies love they metroid. almost as much as they love games that encourage speedrunning, games about movement, games that are a little unfair, semi-bullet hell-ness…
this is all no secret. rusted moss is not trying to deceive you. it’s upfront with its inspirations. the game’s site is plastered with references that allude to such. “Traverse the perilous lands of a dying world in this bullet-hell inspired metroidvania!” the first sentence presupposing the entire page. a pax east 2022 demo listicle cited on the same page said rusted moss “ticks an incredible number of boxes.” this reddit comment from rusted moss developer happysquared transparently states how the game was built around their tastes, citing the high skill ceiling, speedrunning, and sequence break potential as important to the game’s identity.
we all know what kind of game this is.
i’ve found it hard to admit that rusted moss didn’t meet my impossibly high expectations. rusted moss was not the game of my dreams. it wasn’t as good as i imagined it to be in the margins of my high school spanish notebook. it could never be. it’d be criminal to place that responsibility, of being as good as i wanted it to be, in the game’s hands. in many ways, rusted moss is acutely attuned to the type of player it knows knows about it. it delivers an experience ripe for exploitation, mastering its mechanics and taking them to illogical extremes, impressively so. in many ways, rusted moss is really good.
it’s just not for me. not any more. it’s taken several frustrated sessions through rusted moss for me to finally come to this conclusion, sad and desolate as it may be; withstanding axiom verge, gritting my teeth through hollow knight, dragging my legs like a giant metal plate on concrete through tens of hours of dead cells, and getting pingpong’d across metroid “lock-all-the-doors-until-you-fight-these-completely-unfun-space-pirates-for-the-fiftieth-time” prime’s map for what felt like an eternity
i don’t necessarily like metroidvanias. i just really like metroid fusion.
i mistook my love for metroid fusion as a sign i’d love the genre it resides in, despite my real attraction towards it being its narrative, themes, how it corrupts the concept of “metroidvania” and metroid itself and invasively interweaves it into all aspects of its design. coming to this realization, that the game i dreamed about was born out of a false understanding of my love for a different game, it crushed me.
rusted moss honestly left me devastated, and it's my fault
–
i feel somewhat guilty for waffling on about how i gaslit myself without directly addressing rusted moss’s quality, which i think should absolutely be noted. if you’re looking for a recommendation, i say yes. the world is beautiful and open-ended, the grapplehook has its fun moments, and most of the bosses are great.
like most teenage gamers with ample free time, few skills, and an earnest but underdeveloped critical eye for games, i dreamed of one day making a game. for me. my ideal. i’ve wanted to make a game for as long as i can remember. throughout highschool i scribbled into my spanish notebook margins drawings of characters and enemies and my understanding of level design to an obsessive degree: detailed maps spanned pages, obscuring practice conversations we’d recite, intermixed with conjugation tables were sketches of character upgrades and their applications. i’m not sure i learned much spanish the semester i became entranced with my never-to-be notebookbound video game. when i wasn’t in the mood to get caught doodling i’d just stare at the poster denoting spanish words for colors and break into a cold sweat playing out perfectly choreographed boss scenes. in my mind. it was devoted thinking time.
the game i desperately wanted to create was a momentum-based-grapplehook-bullethell-ish-metroidvania-platformer; a shameless but good-intentioned amalgamation of “indie speed game” tropes, mechanics, and ideas that surely would have been horrible though brimming with passion. spurred on by my then recent discovery of the perennial masterpiece metroid fusion, i was excited by the possibility of the genre and the breadth of options it gave players. of course, those familiar with metroid fusion may see the problem already, and where this may be going.
which means it’s time to talk about rusted moss. hi, rusted moss. i’ve been waiting for you for a long time.
i tell this story about the game i once yearned to create to establish that rusted moss was always going to happen. one way or another, this game was going to get made. it’s too enticing. that string of words, that mouthful abomination steam tagline buzzword laundry list headlining the review, that’s what the idea of rusted moss feels like. it’s beyond having cake and eating it too; rusted moss is downing the entire city cafe dessert menu in one, big. gulp. it's the end goal for games designed to last an eternity. it’s pieces of inspiration scattered across all of indie-dom jigsaw’d into a game, not out of any amount of cynicism, but reverence. love. rusted moss is the collective game of our dreams.
a bunch of cool shit from other cool video games thrown in because having cool shit times eighteen is, mathematically speaking, cool as shit.
i think it’d be a waste of time to detail the popularity and prevalence of metroidvanias (or “search action” if you dont like fun words. [small tangent but metroidvania is absolutely the most aesthetically pleasing descriptor for a genre, like, ever. what a word. i don’t care much for the arguments against it nor the arguments for search action solely on the basis that i love how fun “metroidvania” looks and sounds. ok tangent over.]) throughout the indie scene since basically ground zero. we all know it. indies love they metroid. almost as much as they love games that encourage speedrunning, games about movement, games that are a little unfair, semi-bullet hell-ness…
this is all no secret. rusted moss is not trying to deceive you. it’s upfront with its inspirations. the game’s site is plastered with references that allude to such. “Traverse the perilous lands of a dying world in this bullet-hell inspired metroidvania!” the first sentence presupposing the entire page. a pax east 2022 demo listicle cited on the same page said rusted moss “ticks an incredible number of boxes.” this reddit comment from rusted moss developer happysquared transparently states how the game was built around their tastes, citing the high skill ceiling, speedrunning, and sequence break potential as important to the game’s identity.
we all know what kind of game this is.
i’ve found it hard to admit that rusted moss didn’t meet my impossibly high expectations. rusted moss was not the game of my dreams. it wasn’t as good as i imagined it to be in the margins of my high school spanish notebook. it could never be. it’d be criminal to place that responsibility, of being as good as i wanted it to be, in the game’s hands. in many ways, rusted moss is acutely attuned to the type of player it knows knows about it. it delivers an experience ripe for exploitation, mastering its mechanics and taking them to illogical extremes, impressively so. in many ways, rusted moss is really good.
it’s just not for me. not any more. it’s taken several frustrated sessions through rusted moss for me to finally come to this conclusion, sad and desolate as it may be; withstanding axiom verge, gritting my teeth through hollow knight, dragging my legs like a giant metal plate on concrete through tens of hours of dead cells, and getting pingpong’d across metroid “lock-all-the-doors-until-you-fight-these-completely-unfun-space-pirates-for-the-fiftieth-time” prime’s map for what felt like an eternity
i don’t necessarily like metroidvanias. i just really like metroid fusion.
i mistook my love for metroid fusion as a sign i’d love the genre it resides in, despite my real attraction towards it being its narrative, themes, how it corrupts the concept of “metroidvania” and metroid itself and invasively interweaves it into all aspects of its design. coming to this realization, that the game i dreamed about was born out of a false understanding of my love for a different game, it crushed me.
rusted moss honestly left me devastated, and it's my fault
–
i feel somewhat guilty for waffling on about how i gaslit myself without directly addressing rusted moss’s quality, which i think should absolutely be noted. if you’re looking for a recommendation, i say yes. the world is beautiful and open-ended, the grapplehook has its fun moments, and most of the bosses are great.