Hey everyone! I'm Bread, the developer of Bolt & Whalington.
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In the previous Playtest , many players mentioned that they found the Configurator mechanic—which allows the protagonist to change gameplay modes by switching settings—really fun and unique.
So, we’ve decided to expand on this feature and make it a more significant part of future level design.
If you’re curious, feel free to click the link below to watch the video , or scroll down to check out the details and screenshots!
In addition to its default presets, the Configurator also allows you to manually add new settings.
In certain areas of the map, you may come across hidden cards marked with strange symbols. When you find one, try grabbing it and inserting it into a nearby Configurator — who knows, you might just unlock some mysterious new settings!
The Residential Zone is an area focused on high-speed movement and mobility-based challenges, so the Configurator in this region needs to be designed around that concept.
At the same time, we have to ensure that this mechanic doesn’t make exploration — the core of a Metroidvania — too easy. We also wanted to give players a creative and unconventional way to move around.
That’s how we came up with a non-traditional, counterintuitive movement mechanic — teleportation.
At this point, some players might say, “Wait, doesn’t the mech’s teleportation gun already let you teleport? What’s the difference?”
Well, I’d say there’s quite a big difference. The mech’s teleportation requires you to fire a bullet to open a portal, which means you can only teleport to places the bullet can reach.
On top of that, you also need to have a toilet nearby for Screw to jump into in order to teleport — so yeah, it comes with quite a few limitations.
The Configurator’s teleportation, on the other hand, is a scene-based mechanic — it allows you to turn any environmental element into a teleportation portal.
For example, here I’ve set the rule to “Borders = Teleport.” After that, whenever Screw (the mech) touches the edge of the map, he’ll automatically teleport to the opposite side of the screen.
This design fits perfectly with the game’s exploration theme. Players may notice treasure chests they passed earlier, sealed inside walls or seemingly unreachable — but now, with this “Teleport” setting, they can finally reach those places.
It’s a mechanic that makes full use of the map’s potential, giving players that “aha!” moment of excitement when they revisit old areas and discover new possibilities.
Moreover, this setting can be combined with Screw’s (the mech’s) own abilities, allowing us to design a deeper layer of emergent, knowledge-based progression locks.
It can also interact with other game systems, giving puzzle rooms and parkour-style stages multiple possible solutions. This creates a satisfying sense of breaking the game’s rules — the feeling that players are truly mastering and bending the world to their will.
For example, take the racing challenge we mentioned earlier — if you just follow behind the robot, you won’t even catch its exhaust, let alone reach the time-locked chests.
But once players unlock the “Borders = Teleport” setting, they’ll remember that some of those race tracks also have map borders. By using this setting, they can create shortcuts, skipping large sections of the route and finally overcoming challenges that once seemed impossible.
The potential of free border teleportation is huge, which is exactly why it needs to be limited to specific areas — otherwise, level design would lose its structure. This makes it perfectly aligned with the localized nature of the Configurator system.
That’s all for this dev log — we’ll wrap it up here for now!
If you have any wild or creative ideas about the Configurator system, feel free to share them in the comments — we’d love to hear your thoughts and discuss them with you.
Developing a Metroidvania isn’t easy, especially for a small indie team. So if you find Screw & the Floating City interesting, please consider adding it to your Steam wishlist — it really means a lot to us!
See you in the next dev log video! 🚀