Overview: A Metroidvania and puzzle platformer which uses magnetic polarity as the basis for gameplay.
20141119:
At the beginning of the game, Teslagrad appears to be an average platformer. As one jumps and runs through the opening scenes, one takes in the beautiful artwork. Soon, the player is introduced to the game's primary gameplay mechanic. Through various means, objects and the player character can become magnetized (colored blue or red). Like magnets, like objects (same color) repel each other and opposites (different color) attract.
While the game is fairly linear in the sense that it is typically obvious where the player needs to go next, the game does give the player the chance to revisit previous areas, generally to uncover secrets as the player gains new abilities and can more easily access new areas. All-in-all, Teslagrad is a Metroidvania, except there is little-to-no backtracking or exploration required during the first pass through the game. In contrast, all the Metroid and Castlevania Metroivanias I've played require a decent amount of traveling back and forth between previous areas simply in order to progress the main story.*, **
Steam Game Time: 117 minutes (total game time)
*20230308: Ending Spoiler #1: In order to unlock the final boss room, the player needs to collect at least 15 out of 40 cards spread throughout the game. I find this easy enough to do without trying, so most players will have probably met this criteria and not need to backtrack at all. I put it here because I saw a Reddit post where the player was deeply saddened that there was no indication of this action being required and didn't want to backtrack at all. Ending Spoiler #2: In order to unlock the best ending, the player needs to collect all 40 out of 40 cards spread throughout the game. A completionist would therefore have to backtrack and explore previous areas in order to meet this criteria.
**On 20141213, I further wrote "It is unclear to me how much backtracking is necessary to obtain all the achievements (the achievements are spread throughout the game and often require thought and/or skill in order to obtain them)." As of 20230308, I know the answer: a player with the time to hunt for all the achievements will likely have to revisit and explore previous areas multiple times. Unlike the square gridded maps of Castlevania games, the map in Teslagrad does not readily lend itself to the location of secrets. With that being said, an experienced player will often know where to look. Personally, I enjoyed at least 90% of the experience pursuing these achievements.
[20141213 Edit][20230308 Edit]
Recommendation:
While I can probably say more about Teslagrad, the only important compliments that remain to be said are that I absolutely enjoy this game and that you should absolutely play it!
20230211:
Today I decided to start playing Teslagrad again. It's been a long time (over eight years). There was no prior cloud save so I decided to start a new file. I figured I had previously only logged 2 hours of game time, and it was probably worth going back to the basics anyways.
Getting into the game, I had to set up the controls. For some reason the only gamepad buttons that were premapped were the direction keys via the analog stick and the jump button. Actually the start button was also mapped but to a different button than the standard start button on my gamepad. I mapped various keys, remapped the directional keys to the D-pad, and later I mapped new keys as new abilities were required.
At the end of the day, I was glad I ended up replaying the start of the game. The basic acquired abilities occur within the first two hours of the game, and the game does a decent to great job of getting the player to understand how to use those newly acquired abilities. In different words, the game presented enough challenge at the right moments to keep a newly acquired skill engaging - all the way up until the next skill or gameplay element was introduced.
With that being said, there were some situations where the solution to a puzzle was unsatisfying. In fact, I'm currently stuck on a puzzle, but in a feel-bad way. That is, if I'm stuck on puzzle, because I can't execute an action correctly, then that feels good. If I'm stuck, because I dont understand the elements of the puzzle, then that feels bad.
Gameplay Log: Have trouble making progress.
Earlier I blinked with the hood activated but it might not have been activated correctly, so I died, which led me to believe that the action was not possible until about half an hour of game time later I accidentally succeeded.
Although I was able to access the horizontal platform and two vertical stoppers above, I am now stuck again and don't know what to do (mentioned above; re: "feel-bad way")
Steam Game Time: 4.7 hours (total game time) / 2.7 hours (session game time)
20230212 Comment:
I decided to watch a YouTube video to get past where I'm stuck (spoiler: https://youtu.be/X4SwA4oUV7o?t=2325). It seems I didn't realize that the component that moves up and down is a passageway that the player can enter. How annoying.
20230212:
Steam Game Time: 5.6 hours (total game time) / 0.9 hours (session game time)
20230217 AM Hours:
Today, the first task was going up the tower, flashing across lightning barriers. It took a while to finally pass, but possibly a reasonable number of tries to accomplish (i.e., on par with a difficult Super Meat Boy level). Furthermore, the game rewards the player with the next upgrade, and scaling the very top of the tower to acquire it was an epic feeling. Unfortunately, not long after acquanting the player with this new weapon, there's a boss with so many stages it was annoying. I don't remember the last time I fought a boss with so many stages. For this boss in particular, just when I thought I was done with it, there was one more stage to learn and so I died and had to redo all the stages over again. With that being said, I did get faster and more efficient at repeating the initial stages over time. Regardless, it felt incredibly tedious. While there exists a number of levels in Super Meat Boy which require more repetitions than this boss, in Super Meat Boy, the difficulty is the core experience and expected, whereas the difficulty here is unexpected. Afterward defeating this boss, I went around the map trying to retrace my steps and collect any cards which I was missing.
Steam Game Time: 7.3 hours (total game time) / 1.7 hours (session game time)
20230220:
I continued working on searching for cards. I ended today with trying to collect the card that requires traveling up the tower. When simply trying to travel up the tower, the player can slow down to make the task easier. In contrast, in order to collect the card, the player must keep a reasonable amount of speed in order to reach the top before the card. Remark: during my attempts, I discovered there is a side tunnel that allows the player to go up and down the tower without passing through the obstacles. However, I don't think it can be used to collect the card.
Steam Game Time: 9.0 hours (total game time) / 1.7 hours (session game time)
20230223:
By the end of today I collected 34 of 36 cards. I'm missing "The Guardian Fernus" and "Crafting Volt Walkers."
Tip: I only recently discovered this, but one can browse cards collected by going to the map menu (this is the map section), pressing right (this is the card section), and navigating up and down (the cards are themed in sets of three).
Steam Game Time: 10.1 hours (total game time) / 1.1 hours (session game time)
20230223:
Today I fully completed the game. With some help I collected all the cards, defeated the boss, and saw the good ending.
Gameplay Log:
Today I defeated the boss.* It felt very tedious, worse than the other boss which I felt was tedious.
Having defeated the boss, I went back to the cards. While I had two missing cards in-game, my Steam achievements indicated that I had 35 out of 36 of them. As such, I decided to refer to a spoiler map. I could see on the map that the hidden map area was not discovered - which means I couldn't have collected the card (card #3). And yet, according to Steam I had found it. In a way this was good, because I was dreading that the bug was in-game. Remark: I had made a note of this location in my screenshots, so I knew a secret was here, but I forgot to revisit it.
Since the spoiler map was sitting there in front of me, I ended up looking at the position for card #13 (the last one I had yet to find). Despite seeing its location on the spoiler map, and despite seeing it in-game from afar, it was still tricky to figure out how to reach it. I would say that at one point I had ever slightly suspected a card would be hidden in this open region of the map, but honestly I was too lazy to check. Furthermore, even if I had attempted to check, the chances were high that I would not have spotted it. Thus, unlike card #3, the chances were high that I would never have found card #13 without help.
I had to go back to the final boss and defeat him again. This time didn't take as many tries as before, because I had most of the strategy down.** With that being said, it still took a couple of tries.
After defeating the boss, I noticed the cat was not in the treasure room. Then there's a whole other part. The player character is transported back to the beginning of the tower. Here the player character retraces his steps back to his house. Along the way, the village people are seen with smiles. Finally, upon reaching home, the player character meets his mother and the cat. The mother is wearing a hood and wileding a tesla stick. The save file turns into a New Game Plus where in the player can play the game again but with all the equipment unlocked. However, I decided to stop playing there - at least for now.
*The boss can be broken down into four stages which are repeated three times: 1) Crown attack, 2) Various attacks, 3) Red/Blue platforms, and 4) Bubble attack. The first stage ("Crown attack") has noticeable variations during the second and third rounds. During the second round, two blades slowly rotate on the ground. During the third round, two blades quickly rotate on the ground.
**My strategy to the defeat the boss mostly has to do with the first stage (see * footnote). The first time he does his crown attack, I tightly move right, left, and right under the crown (saves the most time). The second time, I wait at the far left (a player may prefer to reverse this strategy to the far right). When the crown arrives, I tightly move under it (right left right), flash towards the center, wait for the crown to cross the screen, flash past it. Finally, during the third time, I wait at the far left. When the crown arrives, I flash towards the center (making sure to stay long enough so that the crown attacks, i.e., don't flash too early). When the crown arrives for the second time, I flash towards the right. When the crown arrives for the third time, I walk under it and wait for the crown to cross the screen. I flash towards the center.
Steam Game Time: 12.5 hours (total game time) / 2.4 hours (session game time)
20220223 Comment:
Today I watched a speedrun where the runner did a lot of cool tricks. While the run was glitchless, there were perhaps a couple of instances where the movement executed fell outside the expectation of desired gameplay. With that being said, a lot of respect to the speedrunner for executing many high precision movements - especially for a game that feels like its controls are not fine-tuned. Furthermore, it is further impressive that the speedrunner has executed all the high precision movements in one run.
20231221:
Backing up the save file from Steam Deck to PC.
Steam Game Time: 12.6 hours (cumulative game time) / 0.1 hours (session game time) / 4 minutes (last two weeks)
Teslagrad (PC) (2013)
Relevant Links:
Teslagrad Website
Teslagrad (Steam Store Page)
Teslagrad (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
 |
| At the start, you're just a normal boy. |
20141119:
At the beginning of the game, Teslagrad appears to be an average platformer. As one jumps and runs through the opening scenes, one takes in the beautiful artwork. Soon, the player is introduced to the game's primary gameplay mechanic. Through various means, objects and the player character can become magnetized (colored blue or red). Like magnets, like objects (same color) repel each other and opposites (different color) attract.
While the game is fairly linear in the sense that it is typically obvious where the player needs to go next, the game does give the player the chance to revisit previous areas, generally to uncover secrets as the player gains new abilities and can more easily access new areas. All-in-all, Teslagrad is a Metroidvania, except there is little-to-no backtracking or exploration required during the first pass through the game. In contrast, all the Metroid and Castlevania Metroivanias I've played require a decent amount of traveling back and forth between previous areas simply in order to progress the main story.*, **
Steam Game Time: 117 minutes (total game time)
*20230308: Ending Spoiler #1: In order to unlock the final boss room, the player needs to collect at least 15 out of 40 cards spread throughout the game. I find this easy enough to do without trying, so most players will have probably met this criteria and not need to backtrack at all. I put it here because I saw a Reddit post where the player was deeply saddened that there was no indication of this action being required and didn't want to backtrack at all. Ending Spoiler #2: In order to unlock the best ending, the player needs to collect all 40 out of 40 cards spread throughout the game. A completionist would therefore have to backtrack and explore previous areas in order to meet this criteria.
**On 20141213, I further wrote "It is unclear to me how much backtracking is necessary to obtain all the achievements (the achievements are spread throughout the game and often require thought and/or skill in order to obtain them)." As of 20230308, I know the answer: a player with the time to hunt for all the achievements will likely have to revisit and explore previous areas multiple times. Unlike the square gridded maps of Castlevania games, the map in Teslagrad does not readily lend itself to the location of secrets. With that being said, an experienced player will often know where to look. Personally, I enjoyed at least 90% of the experience pursuing these achievements.
[20141213 Edit][20230308 Edit]
Recommendation:
While I can probably say more about Teslagrad, the only important compliments that remain to be said are that I absolutely enjoy this game and that you should absolutely play it!
 |
| One of the bosses. |
20230211:
Today I decided to start playing Teslagrad again. It's been a long time (over eight years). There was no prior cloud save so I decided to start a new file. I figured I had previously only logged 2 hours of game time, and it was probably worth going back to the basics anyways.
Getting into the game, I had to set up the controls. For some reason the only gamepad buttons that were premapped were the direction keys via the analog stick and the jump button. Actually the start button was also mapped but to a different button than the standard start button on my gamepad. I mapped various keys, remapped the directional keys to the D-pad, and later I mapped new keys as new abilities were required.
At the end of the day, I was glad I ended up replaying the start of the game. The basic acquired abilities occur within the first two hours of the game, and the game does a decent to great job of getting the player to understand how to use those newly acquired abilities. In different words, the game presented enough challenge at the right moments to keep a newly acquired skill engaging - all the way up until the next skill or gameplay element was introduced.
With that being said, there were some situations where the solution to a puzzle was unsatisfying. In fact, I'm currently stuck on a puzzle, but in a feel-bad way. That is, if I'm stuck on puzzle, because I can't execute an action correctly, then that feels good. If I'm stuck, because I dont understand the elements of the puzzle, then that feels bad.
Gameplay Log: Have trouble making progress.
Earlier I blinked with the hood activated but it might not have been activated correctly, so I died, which led me to believe that the action was not possible until about half an hour of game time later I accidentally succeeded.
Although I was able to access the horizontal platform and two vertical stoppers above, I am now stuck again and don't know what to do (mentioned above; re: "feel-bad way")
Steam Game Time: 4.7 hours (total game time) / 2.7 hours (session game time)
 |
| Getting/finding the achievements often feels rewarding. |
20230212 Comment:
I decided to watch a YouTube video to get past where I'm stuck (spoiler: https://youtu.be/X4SwA4oUV7o?t=2325). It seems I didn't realize that the component that moves up and down is a passageway that the player can enter. How annoying.
20230212:
Steam Game Time: 5.6 hours (total game time) / 0.9 hours (session game time)
20230217 AM Hours:
Today, the first task was going up the tower, flashing across lightning barriers. It took a while to finally pass, but possibly a reasonable number of tries to accomplish (i.e., on par with a difficult Super Meat Boy level). Furthermore, the game rewards the player with the next upgrade, and scaling the very top of the tower to acquire it was an epic feeling. Unfortunately, not long after acquanting the player with this new weapon, there's a boss with so many stages it was annoying. I don't remember the last time I fought a boss with so many stages. For this boss in particular, just when I thought I was done with it, there was one more stage to learn and so I died and had to redo all the stages over again. With that being said, I did get faster and more efficient at repeating the initial stages over time. Regardless, it felt incredibly tedious. While there exists a number of levels in Super Meat Boy which require more repetitions than this boss, in Super Meat Boy, the difficulty is the core experience and expected, whereas the difficulty here is unexpected. Afterward defeating this boss, I went around the map trying to retrace my steps and collect any cards which I was missing.
Steam Game Time: 7.3 hours (total game time) / 1.7 hours (session game time)
 |
| Sometimes you know where they are, but they are challenging to obtain. |
20230220:
I continued working on searching for cards. I ended today with trying to collect the card that requires traveling up the tower. When simply trying to travel up the tower, the player can slow down to make the task easier. In contrast, in order to collect the card, the player must keep a reasonable amount of speed in order to reach the top before the card. Remark: during my attempts, I discovered there is a side tunnel that allows the player to go up and down the tower without passing through the obstacles. However, I don't think it can be used to collect the card.
Steam Game Time: 9.0 hours (total game time) / 1.7 hours (session game time)
20230223:
By the end of today I collected 34 of 36 cards. I'm missing "The Guardian Fernus" and "Crafting Volt Walkers."
Tip: I only recently discovered this, but one can browse cards collected by going to the map menu (this is the map section), pressing right (this is the card section), and navigating up and down (the cards are themed in sets of three).
Steam Game Time: 10.1 hours (total game time) / 1.1 hours (session game time)
 |
| The hood is awesome. Here, red repels red, so I hover over the lava to safety. |
20230223:
Today I fully completed the game. With some help I collected all the cards, defeated the boss, and saw the good ending.
Gameplay Log:
Today I defeated the boss.* It felt very tedious, worse than the other boss which I felt was tedious.
Having defeated the boss, I went back to the cards. While I had two missing cards in-game, my Steam achievements indicated that I had 35 out of 36 of them. As such, I decided to refer to a spoiler map. I could see on the map that the hidden map area was not discovered - which means I couldn't have collected the card (card #3). And yet, according to Steam I had found it. In a way this was good, because I was dreading that the bug was in-game. Remark: I had made a note of this location in my screenshots, so I knew a secret was here, but I forgot to revisit it.
Since the spoiler map was sitting there in front of me, I ended up looking at the position for card #13 (the last one I had yet to find). Despite seeing its location on the spoiler map, and despite seeing it in-game from afar, it was still tricky to figure out how to reach it. I would say that at one point I had ever slightly suspected a card would be hidden in this open region of the map, but honestly I was too lazy to check. Furthermore, even if I had attempted to check, the chances were high that I would not have spotted it. Thus, unlike card #3, the chances were high that I would never have found card #13 without help.
I had to go back to the final boss and defeat him again. This time didn't take as many tries as before, because I had most of the strategy down.** With that being said, it still took a couple of tries.
After defeating the boss, I noticed the cat was not in the treasure room. Then there's a whole other part. The player character is transported back to the beginning of the tower. Here the player character retraces his steps back to his house. Along the way, the village people are seen with smiles. Finally, upon reaching home, the player character meets his mother and the cat. The mother is wearing a hood and wileding a tesla stick. The save file turns into a New Game Plus where in the player can play the game again but with all the equipment unlocked. However, I decided to stop playing there - at least for now.
*The boss can be broken down into four stages which are repeated three times: 1) Crown attack, 2) Various attacks, 3) Red/Blue platforms, and 4) Bubble attack. The first stage ("Crown attack") has noticeable variations during the second and third rounds. During the second round, two blades slowly rotate on the ground. During the third round, two blades quickly rotate on the ground.
**My strategy to the defeat the boss mostly has to do with the first stage (see * footnote). The first time he does his crown attack, I tightly move right, left, and right under the crown (saves the most time). The second time, I wait at the far left (a player may prefer to reverse this strategy to the far right). When the crown arrives, I tightly move under it (right left right), flash towards the center, wait for the crown to cross the screen, flash past it. Finally, during the third time, I wait at the far left. When the crown arrives, I flash towards the center (making sure to stay long enough so that the crown attacks, i.e., don't flash too early). When the crown arrives for the second time, I flash towards the right. When the crown arrives for the third time, I walk under it and wait for the crown to cross the screen. I flash towards the center.
Steam Game Time: 12.5 hours (total game time) / 2.4 hours (session game time)
 |
| The flash boots are super cool! |
20220223 Comment:
Today I watched a speedrun where the runner did a lot of cool tricks. While the run was glitchless, there were perhaps a couple of instances where the movement executed fell outside the expectation of desired gameplay. With that being said, a lot of respect to the speedrunner for executing many high precision movements - especially for a game that feels like its controls are not fine-tuned. Furthermore, it is further impressive that the speedrunner has executed all the high precision movements in one run.
20231221:
Backing up the save file from Steam Deck to PC.
Steam Game Time: 12.6 hours (cumulative game time) / 0.1 hours (session game time) / 4 minutes (last two weeks)
Teslagrad (PC) (2013)
Relevant Links:
Teslagrad Website
Teslagrad (Steam Store Page)
Teslagrad (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
Date/Time
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
@
18:15
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