I have a terrible memory, which is sometimes an asset. It means that every now and then I get to experience a jolt of joy when I remember that Spelunky 2 is a thing - a thing that I've little doubt will take over my life in the same way that both the original freeware and the remaster did. If you somehow haven't played Spelunky,…
Feature: You can take it with you
Persistence & Permadeath: progression in Spelunky, Into the Breach and roguelikes
Progression is so often an illusion. Many games use the idea of permanent progression as a way of tickling our lizard brains with a growing pile of loot or numbers which constantly tick up, so that we feel like we’re achieving something while we sit in front of a computer and repeat the same set of tasks over and over again. The beauty of permadeath…
Keep an eye on the Sony announcements during Paris Games Week, I said. Maybe From Software would pull off a remarkable double-whammy by revealing Bloodborne 2 and saying it'd be coming to PC and that a special edition of the first would be arriving on Steam tomorrow. Maybe Naughty Dog would stroll onto a stage and declare that they'd accidentally made The Last Of Us…
Five indie developers, including the creators of Spelunky and Downwell, have teamed up to make fifty retro-styled games in UFO 50 [official site]. They say they're trying to "combine a familiar 8-bit aesthetic with new ideas and modern game design sensibilities." Coming some time in 2018, the UFO 50 collection includes everything from platformers and beat 'em ups to strategy games and RPGs, some with…
Feature: From code to chaos
This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites a developer to help him put their game up on blocks and take a wrench to hack out its best feature, just to see how it works. The arrow trap that shoots the croc man that causes him to telefrag you. Being caught mid-jump by a boomerang that juggles you towards a spike trap, leaving you stunned…
I'm used to Spelunky [official site] speedruns being filled with incredible feats, but the "No Gold True Pacifist Hell Run" below is a thing of wonder. To clarify: entering into the game's Hell world requires obtaining the Ankh from the Black Market, killing Anubis for his staff, killing Olmec, and completing the game requires killing Yama in hell. How do you kill things without violence?…
I inch my way through Spelunky [official site], trying to get a read on the layout of each randomised cavern. Caution doesn't always breed success and I rarely reach the ice levels, let alone the hellscape beneath. It's both chastening and invigorating to begin a weary Friday morning by watching a speedrun that sets a new world record - from start to finish in 3:44.…
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. I know the cause of every single one of my thousands of deaths in Spelunky. I died down that snake pit because I frittered away my bombs and ropes, leaving me with no way to escape. I died to that inanimate rock because…
Do you want to compete against your friends at Spelunky, the randomly generated platforming roguelike? That's what the Daily Challenge is for; each day, a single set of levels is generated which is the same for everyone and which can be played only once. But if once isn't enough to satisfy your competitive urges, there's now Seedlunky HD. The user-created tool lets you set a…
Some of you are going to think this isn't news, but I want to talk about it anyway. Caster Bananasaurus Rex has completed Spelunky in a Solo Eggplant Run. Don't know what that means? Come inside. Sit down. Let me explain.
If you're anything like me, you've played so much Spelunky that you can close your eyes and generate new levels for Derek Yu's roguelike platformer inside your own head. Here, look, I'm doing it now - bet on what's going to kill me... It was a frog. Sigh. For a more technical understanding of Spelunky's procedural level generation, take a look at Darius Kazemi's browser-based…
Here's some splendid news. Earlier this week I had a little grumblefest about the state of Spelunky's PC port, with a lack of resolution options, and very poor windowed mode support. I also had a dig about the unskippable intro animations that were also a pain in the 360 version. Whether it was in response to my moaning, or something they were doing anyway, the…
Spelunky is very, very tough. Sometimes, it's downright mean. But it pushes you so hard because it cares. Because it wants to see you do better, maybe even excel. It can only teach you so much, though. Eventually - through perseverance, hard-earned wisdom, and spelunking deep into the hardiest reaches of your own heart - you'll master all it has to offer. Unless... no, that's crazy.…
Thirty thirty thirty four days agoooooooo, I wanted Spelunky on PC to be dated. Nothing to do, nowhere to goOOoo, I wanted Spelunky on PC to be dated. Just get it on my level, put it on my plane. Hurry hurry hurry, before this song gets more inane. [Consoles] can't control my fingers, they can't control my brain. Oh no no no no no.
So many times, my finger has hovered over the purchase button on the spit'n'polished XBLA version of amazeballs roguelike/platformer Spelunky. Every time, I've thought 'no, surely it'll be on PC any day now. PC was its original home - it would only be right', and my finger was withdrawn. Actually, that's a lie, most of the time it was 'Oh Christ, the Xbox Live interface…
