Despite the overwhelming popularity of metroidvanias in the indie space, very few lean into their non-linear structure in interesting ways, instead subtly railroading progression. Backtracking is simplified and streamlined with clearly telegraphed shortcuts between areas, instead of allowing the expanding move set to naturally recontextualize previously explored areas. New movement abilities unlocked throughout the game often act more as potential puzzle solutions or keys, without the more freeform exploration or spatial recontextualization found in a game like Super Metroid. Pseudoregalia – released initially as a smaller game jam title before getting expanded to a full commercial release in 2023 by indie dev “rittzler” – veers away from these trends in the genre, leaning into the strengths of its more expressive movement as a core part of its exploration.
The game initially throws the player into a quick, linear tutorial that introduces ledge grabbing, the protagonist Sybil’s sword, and the slide moves. Even with this initial limited move set there are still more advanced abilities like weapon tossing, somersaulting, and sliding off ledges to initiate bunny hopping. A lot of the early areas are designed with this limited movement in mind, which allows players to explore and obtain the most important early abilities in any order. Slide jumps and wall kicks can be easily obtained initially, with moves like wall riding and ground pounding, all requiring at least one or more of the previous abilities to access.
With each new upgrade though, there is more advanced movement tech that adds a layer of redundancy to the player’s toolkit. The ground pound can be chained directly into a jump to launch Sybil even higher, but the somersault can be used to access higher ledges without it. Chaining Sybil’s slide jump into most other moves allows for an extra boost to it in some way. Somersaulting after slide jumping launches Sybil twice as high as it normally would, and kicking off a wall after slide jumping will push Sybil further out from the wall and higher. The universality of these moves combined with the consistently smooth, usable surfaces of walls and platforms opens a host of options for midair recovery and chaining lengthy movement combos together. The versatility of Sybil’s slide jump allows for players to utilize her momentum in creative ways that can entirely avoid the need for wall riding or brute-forcing shortcuts across otherwise large gaps.
The expressiveness of the player’s toolkit directly benefits the metroidvania structure. Previously explored areas are constantly being recontextualized with each additional upgrade as obstacles become easier and easier to avoid. Because a good portion of the early game (particularly the Castle Sansa and Sansa Keep locations) is designed with a more limited move set in mind, backtracking through these areas can end in barely touching the ground through most rooms.
The game still has its choke points, though. Certain areas are only accessible by breaking weak floors with the ground pound ability. The majority of the other higher context moves are connected to Sybil’s Dream Breaker sword. One move is used to hit certain floating items for an upward boost, and a charge attack is the only way to break specific green walls. All these obstructions block pathways to the game’s only necessary collectibles, major keys.
Effectively, this creates three layers to the progression. The first layer is the early game spaces that are designed around a more limited tool kit as the initial, lower context moves that can be used anywhere and have broader movement functions are being obtained. The second layer is further in where the game expects at least one or more of these upgrades to already be unlocked, and this is where the higher context moves with more specialized functions for removing later obstacles are found. Finally, is the furthest part of the game where those high context moves are required, usually followed by some sort of platforming gauntlet that really pushes what the player knows and has unlocked up to this point. This can be a bit of an oversimplification of just how freeform the game’s structure actually is in places, but it illustrates the way the game uses the degree of context-sensitivity of its different abilities to balance its openness.
The game still has combat, but it’s relatively underutilized. Despite the decent amount of variety, enemy placement is sparse, and combat itself isn’t particularly fleshed out. It’s very similar to Hollow Knight, with primarily a single basic attack and heal recharge ability, with a charge and magic projectile attack both being unlocked later. The emphasis is more on dodging projectiles and platforming to the enemies in the first place. Unfortunately, the openness of most of the areas where combat makes avoiding these attacks fairly easy. There are only two boss fights, but the final fight in particular demonstrates the potential that more aggressive, bullet hell style attack patterns could do to more effectively combine platforming and combat.
The focus here is obviously on the gameplay, but there’s just enough to the bits of NPC dialogue scattered around and the general aesthetic to add the right amount of story and atmosphere. The simple texture work is reminiscent of Nintendo 64 games especially, and the visual variety between each area is enough to keep each location distinct without ever feeling out of place. The simple, repetitive textures can make it hard to initially differentiate individual rooms, but the spaces and arrangements of each room help counter that for the most part, even if it still takes some time to learn the game’s layout.
The initial game jam version is still available to download from rittzler’s itch.io page. It feels a lot more like a prototype with simpler area layouts, less visual variety, and at least a third less content overall. Locations like the Underbelly benefited greatly from the upgrade to the full game with a much easier to navigate layout, and the entirety of both Twilight Theatre and Listless Library are missing. A lot of the more advanced movement tech (somersaults and wall kick reversals most notably) are also missing, which makes their inclusion in the full game stand out a lot more as an intentional way to open up the game’s progression. It’s an interesting look at an early stage in the game’s development, but most of what’s there was just carried over and expanded on the full release.
In March of 2024, Pseudoregalia received its final major update, the Map Update. The main addition was the Memento upgrade, located in a room just off to the right after exiting the tutorial location. The map itself is only a top down view of each location, but that wasn’t the most useful change. Initially, the room to access the major key in the Underbelly was harder to find as the entrance to it was small and nearly tucked away in a corner. The update changed that to a much larger, easier to notice entryway in the middle of the room. There were a few other minor tweaks to the movement and level layout at points. It also added a handful of time trials scattered around the game. Each time trial adds a small set of collectables in the space around each time trial crystal location, unlocking a new outfit for Sybil after the beating them.
Update Comparisons
Game Jam Release Screens
Pseudoregalia was first posted on November 5, 2025 at 9:04 am.
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