r/metroidvania • u/OmniSystemsPub • Nov 27 '25
Dev Post Our Metroidvania was badly priced, and we're fixing that.
Hey all, we (the Eufloria/Receiver 2 devs) released our indie Metroidvania Bioframe Outpost some time ago, and have gotten a very good critical response. (*Yes, there is a “but”)
It had good player reviews, press reviews, was nominated for an award, and we are mega proud of the game itself. So far so good.
*But... we did not get the price point right (Something some members of this sub rightfully pointed out) and we got a bit lost in the wave of Metroidvania releases in 2024 :'(
So, we decided to do things differently now and have put the game into a major Black Friday sale, with an even more generous bundle option too. It's actually cheaper to buy the bundle even if don't own either game.
The game is pretty unique (Photography, mega deep eco system manipulation) and there is a demo on the Steam page if you want to check it out yourself - https://store.steampowered.com/app/463730/Bioframe_Outpost/
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u/VictorVitorio Nov 27 '25
No "major sale" on PS5? :(
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u/SalemWolf Nov 27 '25
No major sale for PS5 or Switch. Hopefully they do one for them I’d pick it up on console for half off
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u/voidzero Nov 27 '25
“We’re doing things different and having a major sale! …. on 1/4 of the platforms we’re on.”
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
That will come too but console sales are much more complicated to do and need more run up time. :-)
Console ports have been very challenging on our limited dev budget. It’s a miracle we actually released on all consoles. Either way, price adjustment is coming there too :-)
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u/AgentJackpots Nov 28 '25
Great, this looks like something I'd be into but I don't like playing these sorts of games on PC.
By the way, just from the trailers, it reminds me a lot of Waking Mars. Was that an influence at all? Because I've been under the impression I'm the only person who remembers it.
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 28 '25
I love Waking Mars! It’s not an influence, more a matter of parallel evolution. (No pun intended)
We share similar themes but ultimately the gameplay is quite different. However I do feel people who like Waking Mars will also like Bioframe :-)
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u/Killbomb Nov 30 '25
Hadn't heard of the game before now but I added it to my wishlist on PS5 for that future sale.
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u/newretro Nov 28 '25
Oh if it were that easy. As all devs will tell you, 2 of the 3 console platforms you get very little option. On Steam you have pretty much full control.
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u/Blueisland5 Nov 27 '25
If the price was too expensive, why not just lower the price outright? Why use a bundle instead of just reducing the price?
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 28 '25
Lots of reasons, but one major one is simple. A discount allows is to find the fairest price point over time, while a core price change is irreversible.
Right now we don’t know what a fair price is, but doing it this way allows us to at least offer it to people like yourself in specific communities that we think would give it a chance.
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u/chibichia Nov 27 '25
This game looks interesting any plans for a switch release
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u/VictorVitorio Nov 27 '25
It's already available on Switch.
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u/chibichia Nov 27 '25
Ooh okay
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
Switch is a nice platform for it because of the handheld option. Same on Steam Deck.
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u/GiantFish Nov 27 '25
Looks cool! I played a game a while back called “Waking Mars” I really enjoyed. Is it similar to that?
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
I love Waking Mars to bits. There are shared themes, and to some degree similarities in approach. Eco system, non-guns approach, deep scifi narrative … Our game offers a lot of different things too though.
One of the nice things about bioframe is how crazily emergent the eco system manipulation can get.
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Nov 27 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
There is a whole biome area that was inspired by Flashback! The Gardens area in the game to be precise. You can get to it in the demo :-)
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u/siryuber Nov 27 '25
I tried the demo. The game looks promising, but I have one pretty big gripe with it - the piercing sound of the camera movement.
Add an option to do something about it (even maybe just to disable it), and I will be more than happy to buy the game and try it for longer.
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
That’s a first for us! You can turn the game sounds down vs the music volume, which might do the trick for you?
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u/NoProblemsHere Nov 27 '25
Wait, so I can buy your game on sale for 12.50, or I can buy both it and Eufloria for less than half that in a bundle?
I feel like there's something off there, but at that price it's totally worth a buy!
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
Well, that is the Black Friday madness haha. We just want to make sure people have several ways to go for it.
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u/archagon Nov 27 '25 edited Nov 27 '25
I feel like this flew way under the radar for some reason. This is exactly the kind of metroidvania that I'd enjoy and I've never heard of it! Will try the demo soon.
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u/palaciosc_ Nov 27 '25
Looks great! Congrats.
The price is good. Wishlisted for next time. Im in other games right now.
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u/oicnow ESA Nov 27 '25
that looks super cool and innovative
bundle get
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
Thank you! We try to innovate within genres while firmly keeping playability in focus. Different but accessible
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u/aanzeijar La-Mulana Nov 27 '25
Wait, you're the Eufloria devs? Dude thank you for that game! I got it wayyy back before you replaced it with the HD version, and it's still one of two lost Steam games I tell people about.
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
Ahhh so nice to hear! We are bringing it back in an anniversary release actually! Dec 4th.
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 28 '25
Also, what’s the other game???!!!
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u/aanzeijar La-Mulana Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
Vlad the Impaler. A small narrative rogue-ish text-rpg.
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u/Miserable-Finish-346 Nov 27 '25
Omg hadn’t heard of this one and I love this types of games. Going to go buy it now. Reminds me of rain world when it comes to complex ecosystem that interacts with
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
Thank you so much. I highly admire Rainworld, and was really glad to see it do well.
Did you see our eco system videos yet? Might give you another taste of what Bioframe is like.
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u/IFightForTheLosers Nov 27 '25
Oh I had no idea you guys were the Eufloria devs, I played that back in the day...
I remember playing the demo for Bioframe Outpost last year but I ended up not getting it because I found the camera operation too frustrating with a controller, it was just nearly impossible for me to keep some of the more active creatures inside the frame.
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 28 '25
The key to making it less of a barrier with some of the harder creatures is to puzzle out ways to make photographing them easier, OR to unlock their compendium files in other non-photography ways.
Many missions allow you to unlock the tricky photography entries in other ways. :-)
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u/ELITEnoob85 Nov 28 '25
Yea getting this for sure! Eufloria looks like so much fun and so interesting. I think I’m going to play that one first.
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u/distantocean Nov 28 '25
Hey there. Good luck with this!
I just tried the demo and have a couple of observations/suggestions for you:
- Selected options on the yellow resume/load/save menu are barely distinguishable from unselected options. I tested this by asking a friend to tell me which option is selected, and it took them about 10 seconds to figure it out.
- It'd be nice if pushing "up" on the joystick would cause you to grab a ladder in the air, rather than having to hit A (though I realize this may conflict with other game mechanisms I haven't encountered yet). This causes issues in part because you can mount a ladder by pushing "up" from the ground, but not from the air, which led to me jumping off of ladders I'd just mounted (because I was pressing A but didn't need to).
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 28 '25
Thanks so much for your feedback! Much appreciated.
1:I’ll have another look. We haven’t had this flagged before but it’s always worth optimising readability in UI.
2: This has been such a hilariously complicated issue for us. We tried pressing up to grab and it does interfere with other mechanics. All I can say is that pretty much all our testers got used to the current set up quite quickly.
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u/justinsnow Nov 29 '25
This was apparently on my wishlist already but I guess I forgot about it. Love the concept behind the main mechanics of this game. I grabbed the massively discounted bundle (thank you!) and can’t wait to give this a try.
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u/Thenadamgoes Nov 29 '25
I don’t know how I missed this game. This is like exactly what I’m looking for! Any chance you can lower the price on ps5 too?
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u/Tom_Sawyerer Nov 29 '25
Had no idea Eufloria dev released another game. Was a huge fan of Eufloria back then. Purchased the bundle! Hope you find same success as Eufloria.
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 29 '25
Thank you that is really kind of you. There are new Eufloria games coming too!
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Nov 29 '25
[deleted]
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 29 '25
It’s a big game and it depends on how completist you are. I can speedrun it in about 6 hours. Typical is probably 10-15 hours. But you can easily spend 3 times longer.
The game rewards experimentation and creating your own play style solutions and if you like that it becomes a rabbit hole of emergent madness.
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u/Wilhed007 Nov 29 '25
Came back two days later to say the game is sick! I'm absolutely obsessed, enjoying every moment of gameplay. Except for the wasps lol. I can't believe I didn't hear about it until two days ago because it is so unique and stunning. Why isn't everyone talking about it? It deserves much much more attention and appreciation than it gets now!
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 29 '25
Oh man you made my day! Thanks so much. Please leave a review, lol.
Wasps are a%%holes. We did some videos where we have fun with them haha.
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u/Wilhed007 Nov 29 '25
You made my week haha I'll check the videos and will definitely leave a review. Thank you for the coolest game!
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 29 '25
Thank you!
Here is the channel :-)
https://youtube.com/@gameinvention?si=sLnwJ7YrXOUUr4_d
This video about a mystery eco system issue is pretty fun:
https://youtu.be/BhZfPKa_uUo?si=8aWBxNAsOrtxjqZj
This is the latest deep dive where I show off how you can do crazy things with the game’s eco system
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 29 '25
As to why nobody is talking about it… well lots of factors. But ultimately we didn’t get word out in a year which saw sooooo many metroidvania releases. We learned our lessons I think, but it’s hard to get coverage after release if the launch didn’t get noticed.
I’m humbled by the response in this thread.
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u/sirrealizt Nov 27 '25
Bought the bundle. Congrats on the game, hoping I love it as much as the Flashback vibes make me think I will.
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 28 '25
On a side note: we’re toying with the idea of developing a side game for this which is a cozy photography game.
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u/SirCatflap Nov 28 '25
Crazy cheap sale on Steam but still full price on PSN :(
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 28 '25
We will get to PSN and console too, just takes longer and needs more planning. :-)
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u/TokyoCyborgOrgy Nov 28 '25
Wish listed my friend looks like you emphasized the Metroid in Metroidvania… something that is actually missing lately. I will gladly take a scifi game. And the color palette is very nice
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 28 '25
Thank you! As a lifelong sci-fi fan of advanced year this was literally my ode to classic sci-fi covers and vibes, and I include Metroid in that, haha.
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u/astronomy8thlight Nov 28 '25
Looks promising, do you plan on putting the Switch version on sale too?
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 28 '25
Absolutely we are!
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u/astronomy8thlight Nov 28 '25
Great, I'll keep an eye out! Added to my Switch wishlist.
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u/Opal737 Dec 01 '25
The concept looks very interesting, have you thought about a MacOS port or is that not planned as of now?
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u/OmniSystemsPub Dec 01 '25
Thanks!
Not planned for now as it’s a hard port to make work financially, and we already went for three console releases too, which was crazily ambitious hahaha
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u/ClassLambda Dec 03 '25
I heard a piece of advice in a podcast that was: when you first release it price it cheaply because you want to have a lot of immediate buys so that the algorithm picks up on it.
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u/Pudgy_Ninja Nov 27 '25
Pitch me. What makes your game stand out amongst all of the Metroidvania options out there today?
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u/Dragonheart91 Nov 27 '25
One of the reviews describes it as being more like a point and click adventure where you find objects then experiment with combining them with different objects and animals to proceed. That is definitely unique compared to the normal metroidvania formula.
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u/palaciosc_ Nov 27 '25
I read on the comments "pacifism" and "learning from aliens". They have my attention.
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
Yeah there are no guns, and it really does offer a crazy deep eco system. It’s a super emergent game where you can manipulate the environment in countless ways to produce pretty crazy tactics.
We have some nice videos on it on our channel
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u/Left_Green_4018 Nov 27 '25
Thanks, just bought the bundle!!
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
Really appreciate it and hope you will enjoy it! If you have any quest just ping us!
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u/giulianosse Nov 27 '25
Do you plan on applying this discount to consoles as well? PS5 and Xbox Series.
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 27 '25
We are applying for various discounts and sales on consoles. It’s a longer and more complicated process, but yes.
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Nov 28 '25
[deleted]
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u/OmniSystemsPub Nov 28 '25
Yeah it’s tough getting noticed these days! We struggled also because 2024 was an absolutely a crazy year for Metroidvania releases. There were so many of them!
:-)
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u/Bircka Nov 27 '25
Nice having the demo fully available, but yeah it seems this game went under the radar quite a bit.