You may recall a game called Return of the Zombie King (Free) being released back in October of last year and how it made quite an impression on our community and the TA staff. The idea was that it was a level-based auto-runner where you’d slowly gain new abilities which would then allow you to make it further during each run. It was a really unique idea, one I’m surprised I hadn’t seen done in a runner before, and many players said it had a Metroidvania feel. Well, the game’s developer Return to Adventure Mountain took that to heart and used it as the basis for his next game Castleoid which really takes the Metroidvania thing to heart and runs with it. Check out a preview of a very early version of Castleoid we were shown at GDC.

I really like the idea of Castleoid and much like Return of the Zombie King I’m surprised I haven’t seen this done before. Now the onus is on Return to Adventure Mountain to fully flesh out the game with an interesting world to explore, as well as tackle the various other aspects that make for a good Metroidvania game but in the context of an auto-runner. The version we saw at GDC was quite early but the developer hopes to release Castleoid by the end of summer this year.