Metroidvania Tips: 9 Runs Through a Pixel Castle

The first metroidvania tip for Mossvigil is to swing your sword as you explore: runs that walked and jumped without attacking had their health refilled twice each, while runs that swung about every 0.6 seconds refilled once or not at all. Every run that moved also stopped at the same place, about 1,760 pixels from the start, which tells you where the castle starts asking for more than a plain jump.

How Mossvigil works

Mossvigil is a pixel-art action platformer set in a dark castle of linked rooms. A red-haired warrior in green moves with the arrow keys, jumps with Z, swings a sword with X and dashes with Shift, as a hint over his head shows in the first hall. A mini map in the corner fills in as you explore, upgrades lie around the castle and are equipped from the pause menu, and save points offer to save your progress. In our measurements the warrior walks about 112 pixels a second, close to the game’s top speed setting of 110, and a jump peaks about 60 pixels up. The level data holds 33 enemies: 12 flying insects, 8 frozen commanders, 6 ghosts, 5 giants and 2 archer skeletons.

What we measured

We played in a test browser at 1280 by 720 pixels with software rendering, which is slow. A small script read the warrior’s position and health 6 to 7 times a second for 90 seconds per run. We tried three habits, three runs each: no input; walking right and jumping when blocked, turning back if still stuck; and the same walk with a sword swing about every 0.6 seconds. The script cannot read the map like a person, so the numbers show what each habit does, not how far a player can get.

9 runs in one test browser with slow software rendering, keys pressed by a script, not by people. “Health refilled” counts the times health jumped back up by more than 30 points; we did not check whether each was a return to a checkpoint or a health pick-up. Health starts at 100.

The first room is safe

All three runs that pressed nothing ended exactly where they began, at full health. There is time to read the controls, try the jump and the dash, and look at the map before stepping out.

Every moving run stopped at the same spot

Walking right and jumping when blocked carried the warrior about 1,760 pixels from the start in every one of the six moving runs, and no further. A plain walk and jump is not enough beyond that point: the castle wants another route, a better jump or an upgrade. That is the core of the genre, and it shows up even in a simple script.

Swinging kept health from running out

The walking runs met enemies on the way and dropped to 5 health, and their health was refilled twice in each run. With a sword swing about every 0.6 seconds the lowest health was 10, 10 and 3, with one refill or none, and one run brought the castle’s enemy count down from 33 to 30.

4 tips that follow from the numbers

• Use the first room. It cost no health in 90 seconds, so learn the jump and the dash there.
• Swing as you go. Attacking while moving meant fewer refills than walking alone.
• Expect a wall about 1,760 pixels in. Look for upgrades and other paths rather than repeating the same jump.
• Save when offered. Health fell to single digits in four of the six moving runs.

Where to try it

Try it yourself in Mossvigil. For more pixel platforming, Crypthop is a dungeon platformer, and Voltmarch is a platform shooter.