Bloodstained E3 stream w/IGA, Ben Judd, Romscout discussion

I may have to re-watch the stream to hear if Romscout already answered these questions, but...

How did you react when you found out you'd be receiving the Bloodstained E3 demo in advance? How much time did you have to practice with it before the stream?

What part of the demo surprised you the most?

What are some things in the Bloodstained demo that you'd like to see changed or improved upon by the time the beta comes out?

What was your reaction to seeing and fighting the demo's boss for the first time?

What were some things you noticed about the demo that non-speedrunners might not realize?

It's not my fault e.e

I imagine they would not start working on this until they finish the main game, so it might be a while before they have serious design considerations for it. I think an ideal "speedrun mode" would not compromise the original design of the game at all, but would have a timer present in the UI (perhaps "split" times between boss kills as well) and the ability to skip or not have cutscenes at all. Other fun things to add beyond that would need to be more thoroughly considered and based around what kind of experience they want to design.




I no longer work on the GDQ staff, but I would say that it's certainly possible for Bloodstained to be considered for an upcoming marathon if there was enough content to make an interesting run. They featured the Hat in Time beta at the last AGDQ, so they have accepted these type of projects before.

I would not feel comfortable submitting the current demo to a speedrunning marathon because it would be about 3 minutes long and not have super unique tricks beyond some quick slashing, but I imagine that if a future beta has more areas to explore, it would be fascinating enough to try and showcase there.




1. I was not expecting to have any time to prepare for the segment beyond playing at the E3 booth, so I was incredibly giddy and extremely grateful when I found out I would have a little extra time to become acquainted with the controls. I had enough time to be prepared for a speedrun at the end of the segment, but unfortunately we didn't have enough time for that. I have an extensive amount of notes about the game mechanics and potential speedrun tech that I will be releasing once backers have access to the demo.

2. Even though I was incredibly happy that the movement and combat was a combination of the best mechanical aspects from previous IGAvanaias, that honestly didn't surprise me. IGA's team has a lot of experience and knows what makes playing these games feel good at this point.

I was worried the most about the transition to 2.5D graphics and how that would affect the atmosphere of the game, thinking that it might come off a little flat. I was pleasantly surprised when the graphics popped out beautifully and the colors felt vibrant. My biggest fear with the game has mostly been put to rest with just the first demo, so that's amazing.

3. This is mostly what I expected since it is a first demo, but some of the rooms felt pretty empty, and enemy placement felt like it was very much a demo to show that they exist more than having a heavily designed placement that makes you actively think about what you're doing. That being said, most of the vertical rooms actually seemed to have excellent enemy placement. I imagine a lot of these rooms will be designed slightly differently by the time the beta comes out, though.

4. The boss entrance is very exciting and awe-inspiring, and it looks really cool. Its presence being mixed in the background and foreground felt unique, and having to pay attention to attacks coming from the background kept me on my toes a little. The boss felt much easier than the first boss of many other IGAvanias, but I realize that this may partly be due to my massive experience over the years with the genre.

5. Perhaps the biggest thing that jumped out to me was what previous IGAvanias influenced the design choices with the mechanics. They took movement mechanics that matched the earlier IGAvanias but with slight rule changes, and combat mechanics influenced by the newer handheld ones. Attacks can be cancelled in almost the exact same ways as those games, although not quite as quickly with jump cancels since the minimum jump height is slightly increased. I think the newest, most unique combat additions that will come out of this game are the directional shards; never before have these games made use of 2 sticks for non-camera mechanics, so learning how to use those effectively should be interesting.

Thanks for stopping by, Romscout! I will be watching you speed run this along with all the other games you already run. If a speed run of the demo was planned, maybe you could Twitch it for us before we get it. I hope the design team pays close attention to any feedback you have. Not many people are going to have more experience with IGA's games than you have.

People can follow Romscout on Twitter @romscoutsda

yay, good info all around, im far too ocd and 100%y to ever pull off a competent speedrun in anything involving collecting, but seeing yall speedrun things the last couple years gave me a few fun tricks to try out with sequence breaking to make things a little more difficult ^_^/