Haiku the Robot Developer Jordan Morris Discusses What He Feels Is the Essence of Metroidvanias

gamerant.com:

After a successful Kickstarter and two-and-a-half years of development, Haiku the Robot has been released on Steam. Fans of Hollow Knight would do well to keep an eye on the cute but challenging Metroidvania platformer where the titular robot hero, Haiku, navigates the virus-corrupted world of Arcadia. The most impressive thing about the new indie title, however, is that it was the work of a single developer: Jordan Morris.

Morris met with Game Rant to discuss his development process, Haiku's features, and shared several insights about what makes the Metroidvania genre tick.

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Following the critical and commercial successes of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night,and Hollow Knight, Metroidvanias have become an increasingly popular genre in indie game development. However, not all titles are created equally. For Morris, freedom of choice and independent exploration are two features that set these stellar exploration games apart from the crowd.

For me, it has to be a sense of exploration, and the sense of that exploration should be your own. I recently played Metroid Dread and I got very frustrated when they kept blocking off the paths behind you. So I couldn’t go back or explore as much as I would like to. And that’s something I really tried to emphasize in Haiku.

Rather than a guided tour, Hollow Knight sets players loose in an enormous world with precious little to go on, inviting them to get lost at their leisure. The result is a playthrough that is completely unique from player to player, and a tremendous sense of accomplishment. Every discovery is earned, and progress is a record of an individual's trial and error as opposed