Grapplevania was orignially supposed to be an attempt at making a short and sweet metroidvania style game, where the player would explore this edo era japanese village to find the tools to use in order to explore even more of the village.

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However due to a combination of time constraints and technical diffulties with the engine we had to use, I opted to change the core gameplay to that of an action platformer, more similar to Ninja Gaiden, rather than a Metroid or Castlevania game.

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This switch cause a fair few redesigns in how I approached introducing the mechanics to the player, as they would now have all of the tools needed to complete the level from the beginning, rather than having to find each tool.