Hello! So I love metroidvanias which makes me lean a little towards Pipistrello but seeing all of the hype surrounding Mina I can help but feel pulled to give it a go. I would appreciate some help choosing between the two, like which one tends to be longer, which has more bosses, which one feels better to control. Thank you!

Edit- Thank you for all the responses! I’m going to go with Pipistrello fist since it’s on sale and the general consensus is that it’s easier/friendlier lol. I’ll be playing Mina the Hollower once I’m done!

Almost 4 years ago I sat down and played the Link’s Awakening remake with my daughter. She loved the goofy characters, the cartoon style, and she loved solving puzzles across the island. The combat was something she was not interested in, especially when it got stressful with low hearts or hard bosses. Near the end of the game she gave up and I asked her if she wanted to make a game and she could decide exactly what was in it.

So the idea of Star Fable was born.

We planned abilities with a focus on non-combat, exploration powers. The first ability was using sparkly magic instead of a sword, it helps drive home that we aren’t combat focused. Then transforming into Stardust was born because my preK son wanted to run away from everything, escape enemies and keep exploring. A year after starting out my daughter was bolder and asked for some tools to fight back, so fire based abilities were added with Starfire, a straight forward projectile and Supernova our explosive ability. Over the years we’ve locked it down to 7 abilities and 3 companions.

This week we posted our announcement trailer. If you like adventure games, check it out. If you know some kids that need need introduced to adventure games, share the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF4Xq_I7_3Q

So like the title says, i wanted to blend Zelda 64's fun puzzles in a game that felt a bit more complex and customizable like Skyrim.

For anyone interested, Its taken almost 5 years to build this! Game engine, assets and all! Not sure if I'll be able to port it over to other systems because its running off of ancient DirectX9.

I really appreciate you guys for taking a peek at it and leaving any feedback.

Enjoy your day!

Hey everyone,

We're making a top-down, Zelda-inspired game called Colossus: Eternal Blight and we just launched on Kickstarter today and released our new trailer! We're completely blown away by all the love and support so far - and we're already 84% funded in just 10 hours 🥹

If you'd like to check out the campaign, here's the link:

Colossus: Eternal Blight — Kickstarter

As an overview:

Colossus: Eternal Blight: an upcoming top-down action-RPG combining the fluid modern gameplay of games like Hyper Light Drifter, with the deep immersive narrative experience of classic JRPGs. Combining gameplay inspirations from Zelda, Ys, CrossCode - set to hand-drawn pixel art, in the rich world of Eireos that is being corrupted by a mysterious darkness - your actions (or inactions) will shape who lives and who is consumed by the Blight…

Core Features:

• Fast-paced action combat with parries, counters, skills and more!
• 3 planned classes to choose from, each offering different builds and skill-trees.
• 4 distinct regions, featuring classic Zelda-inspired puzzles and regional dungeons.
• Purification Quests - save NPCs from their Blights, or they will be lost forever! 
• Hand-crafted pixel art aesthetic.
• Side quests and minigames!

If you like what you see, feel free to check out the Kickstarter campaign, or our Steam page. We also have a Discord server for anyone that wants to drop by and say hi :)

We're completely blown away by the love and support from everyone so far - thank you all so much <3

As a kid, I always preferred the top down Zelda entries over the 3D games. Been playing a million sidescrolling metroidvanias lately and it’s been giving me a major itch to play stuff similar to LttP/Link’s Awakening/Oracles. I’ve played Hyper Light Drifter and Tunic (I guess Tunic is isometric but it’s clearly /heavily/ inspired), and have also been recommended Tombwater and Tearscape as well as planning on picking up Mina when it comes out (tomorrow I think?).

So what are the other heavy hitters from the genre? I prefer challenging combat and/or puzzles, but wouldn’t mind more easygoing games too as long as there are other design elements to keep it interesting

Edit: wasn’t expecting so many replies this quick! Rather than reply individually I’ll just upvote everyone and start cataloging the recs. Thanks very much all <3

Full disclosure: I have not played this game yet - but this intrigued me for purchasing. I may still wait for an eventual discount due to a backlog of games I have at the moment - but I am hearing great things about Yacht Club Games newest zeldalike.

As a big alttp randomizer fan, this is great news and may lead me to getting the game sooner rather than later.

Hi all! I've been working on this game called Temple Maker 64 for roughly a year and a half now and I'm pretty stoked with how it's shaping out.

The concept is that you create your own 3D multi-floor dungeons and publish them for others to solve and explore. There's a demo on Steam if you're interested!

Hey everyone!

Today during AG French Direct, I finally announced the release date for my game Maseylia: Echoes of the Past, launching June 19, 2026 on Steam.

Maseylia is a true 3D Metroidvania inspired by Metroid Prime, Pseudoregalia, Hollow Knight, and the worlds of Moebius, focused on fluid movement, exploration, sequence breaking, and interconnected world design.

The game features:

• Non-linear 3D exploration
• Advanced movement abilities (360° Air Dash, Grapple, Double Jump, etc.)
• Movement-based progression
• Atmospheric sci-fi environments
• Steam Deck & Linux compatibility

Would love to hear what you think of the new trailer 🙂

Steam Page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2938870/Maseylia__Echoes_of_the_Past/

Ive been playing this game for about 11 hours now and it has been a blast... it has quite a few issues and the dev is working on them ive been reporting any bug and qol issues and they have been very receptive to most it is only 5 bucks and well worth every bit ... not perfect but some solid bones here and a very promising future

What's up, Doc? Yacht Club's next big hit, that's what.

Mina the Hollower is a great Metroidvania-adjacent game for Metroidvania Enjoyers.

_______________________________________

Who is the Metroidvania Guru?

A dude who plays Metroidvanias and talks too much. Probably takes the genre too seriously.​

After messing around with UnityExplorer for a while, I found a really clean way to increase movement speed in Elementallis without changing the entire game speed.

This only affects YOUR character movement:

• enemies stay normal
• combat timing stays normal
• menus stay normal
• only traversal becomes faster

Honestly makes the game feel way smoother for backtracking.

What I Used

• MelonLoader v0.7.3
• UnityExplorer v4.9.0 (MONO version, not IL2CPP)

Setup

1. Install MelonLoader into Elementallis
2. Download UnityExplorer (Mono build)
3. Put:
   • UnityExplorer.ML.Mono.dll into Mods
   • UniverseLib.Mono.dll into UserLibs
4. Launch the game
5. Press F7 (or Fn + F7 on some laptops)

ACTUAL PATH TO FIND MOVEMENT SPEED

This is the exact route:

Object Explorer

→ Scene Explorer

→ Scene: SCN_Managers

→ Search: player

You should then see:

Player

Click that.

Then in the Inspector window:

PlayerMovement

That’s the important component.

Inside PlayerMovement, edit:

speed

initialSpeed

Default values were:

4.7

I changed mine to:

8

…and it feels WAY better.

15 is hilarious but borderline teleporting 😄

There’s also:

dashSpeed

but I haven’t fully tested what affects it yet.

Important

Use the MONO UnityExplorer build.

The IL2CPP version would not load correctly for me.

Bonus

You can also inspect:

• player coordinates
• Rigidbody2D
• hitboxes
• abilities
• PlayMaker systems
• basically the live internals of the game

Pretty cool seeing how the Unity structure works under the hood.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4398190/INK_MAZE/

Think I like BOTW more than TOK, the building in TOK kind of frustrates me

I've been looking for quality Zelda-likes for years now. Isle of Reveries is the first one that genuinely blows me away. Its demo contains a relatively complex dungeon with unique mechanics and a true Oracle-esque level of difficulty. Not puzzles being an afterthought. This is the best Zelda-like I've played.

I started playing this game a few days ago, and it had a very promising start! I love most of it. I play these kinds of games for the dungeons, however, and I noticed the first dungeon was very simplistic. Didn't have any puzzles to speak of and it felt more like an autopilot tour.

I was wondering if the dungeons get better? Even Blossom Tales has a somewhat more complex first dungeon, and that game (though really nice to play no matter your age) seems to be made mostly with an easygoing journey in mind.

I’ve been working on Starfable with my kids for years and we finally made the decision to share it with the world. If you’re looking for a more casual, puzzle and exploration focused zelda-like then we got you covered.

A retro style open world adventure coming in 2026...

I am coming off of a Soulslike binge but wanted to play something retro, Tombwater is basically the perfect game that combines these and does a great job at it. I always thought combat in the 2D Zelda games all left a bit to be desired (boss battles were good but enemies were meh) but the worlds and puzzles always kept me playing. There's just something about that top-down view that feels nostalgic and Tombwater kept that while having the best combat I've played from a Zelda-like.

Dashing is a huge mechanic and at first it felt like I was doing it too much, but once it click the spacing dance you play with enemies just works so well. There's a ton of weapon variety and the guns are just so satisfying to use. Magic is pretty sweet too, it uses a insanity system instead of mana, so if you use too much you are punished instead of running out of a meter.

Big enemies and boss fights are where the game really shines, so if you are someone who wants a challenge with your Zelda-like you need to play this one.

Wishlist Isle of Reveries on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3100970/Isle_of_Reveries/