Emlis: A Metroidvania of Elemental Mastery 

Emlis is a connected, exploration-driven Metroidvania where players control a slime wielding elemental powers. As invaders corrupt the forest of Soleen and steal its elemental spirits, Emlis must recover them, battling enemies and uncovering hidden secrets to restore balance.

At the core of Emlis is its well-crafted level design, built to reward curiosity and mastery of mechanics. Each environment features multiple paths—some accessible from the start, others requiring new abilities to unlock, encouraging players to backtrack and explore areas in new ways. Every mechanic in Emlis serves a dual purpose, seamlessly blending combat and traversal to create a fluid, interconnected world.

Cave level 

Forest fire zone level 

Level design process breakdown

Designing a Metroidvaina game like Emlis required a strong focus on level design, ensuring interconnected maps with multiple paths—some locked behind abilities that players must unlock and backtrack to access. To achieve this, I prioritized mechanics first, ensuring they integrated seamlessly into both combat and exploration.

Core Mechanics

I developed four unique mechanics that serve dual purposes in both combat and level traversal:

• Slam – A charged attack dealing area-of-effect damage. It can also break floors, unlocking cave levels.

• Stun – Freezes enemy movements and spike traps, offering both combat and puzzle-solving utility.

• Dash – Grants invincibility frames, allowing players to dash through enemies and break obstacle barriers.

• Melee – Twin-stick combat for precise control, also used to break objects for bonus rewards like souls (currency for upgrades).

Level Design Integration

By designing levels around these mechanics, I ensured they felt meaningful and interconnected. Each cave level requires players to locate a lever by solving a rock-turning puzzle, where symbols must be aligned to activate a switch. The lever itself is hidden within a breakable object behind a destructible barrier, requiring players to use Dash and Melee to access it.

This approach ensured a cohesive gameplay loop where exploration, combat, and puzzle-solving naturally intertwine, reinforcing the core Metroidvaina experience.

level design mechanics showcase

Exploration & narrative rewards 

Emlis rewards players for exploration by weaving narrative elements into level design. The game features a Slime Language, with hidden lore pages scattered throughout each level. Players can find three pages per level, which initially display lore in the unreadable Slime Language.

Collecting all pages of a book grants two rewards:

• A health upgrade to enhance survival.

• The ability to translate and read the full story in the lore menu.

This system encourages thorough exploration while providing both mechanical and narrative rewards, enhancing the player’s experience through world-building and progression.