Looking to make a very "meta" metroidbrainia- what are some Do's and Don'ts you've noticed in metroidbrainia design?
Hey all! Just discovered this sub after tossing around ideas for a metroidbrainia style game for the better part of a year now.
The rough concept of the game is a top-down Zelda style action game which can technically be played front to back without really getting too deep into metroidbrainia aspects, and then only noticing the knowledge-based puzzles on further playthroughs and following those threads to get to the true meat of the game (a structure heavily inspired by Void Stranger).
The main hinge point of the knowledge puzzles center around the idea that you the player are in fact playing a video game- a lot of my ideas for early puzzles focus on abusing traditional quicksaves as a kind of time manipulation / foresight ability, and then later puzzles getting REALLY meta with local file manipulation a la Doki Doki Literature Club or even stuff like using code injection into textbox entries to "break" the game itself.
So my question for all of you is what are some things I should keep in mind while drafting further development- do these puzzles sound prone to being too cumbersome and/or too archaic to be fun? Is there any feature or methodology you've come across in metroidbrainias that always makes you excited to see (or ones that have made you frustrated)? What, to your taste, gives metroidbrainias the "hell yeah" factor? Should I just stop overthinking and commit?
For reference I have played most of the metroidbrainia "hits" (Outer Wilds, Tunic, Void Stranger, Blue Prince, Animal Well, The Witness) but I have not delved super far into the recesses of underrated/obscure entries.