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Spelunky!

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This Spelunky Classic video is amazing, because the guy plays nearly identically to Chris for most of it and because it has the most tragic ending possible.

 

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 I haven't ever seen what Spelunky Classic looks like, Tegan. After doing some Game Maker tutorials and then playing my daily, I watched that. I am saying things to myself like, "Oh, every sprite has an object." and "Does the shotgun have the shooting event as part of it's attributes, or does the character (if shotgun == True)?" How impressive that game is. I bet there is a lot to say about how Game Maker affected it's design.

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If you're really interested, you can download the GM source code for the game. It's publicly available on the website.

I don't know that I'm going to do this, but having the ability to appreciate the game this way is fucking cool.

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It's interesting to me that The Binding of Isaac is regularly in the Steam top 100 while Spelunky, with its Daily Challenge, isn't. Maybe I'm speculatively checking at the wrong time of day. Is it the power of BoILR?

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So the daily challenge for 01/21/14 is an eggplant seed with a very convenient jetpack early on.  I mean, I still died horribly after my plant was smashed but I appreciate the opportunity.

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After beaing Olmec on Friday for the first time, I haven't been able to get past the Jungle since.  This game confuses me.

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Hmmmmm...

 

Not sure how I feel about this.  On one hand, awesome to be able to play with seeds and share awesome discoveries.  On the other, it takes some of the faith out of the community that any future amazing runs/seeds weren't generated using a tool like this.

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I'm really afraid to try that out. I feel like if I do mess around with it I won't go back to how Spelunky is "supposed" to be played, destroying the purity of the whole thing.

 

Troublesome.

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The levels are still randomly generated, you're just providing the seed.  But if you find one that's amazing, easy, or special in some other way, it lets you "save" it since you can just reuse the same seed.

 

Although...OH MY GOD...the way it calculates seeds is that you can enter any combination of characters into the seed field.

 

That...

That means....

That means that we can play a level that was seeded with Lord Chris Remo's name.  We can play Congrats Nick Breckon.  We can jump and whip our way through Sean Vanaman, feeling his seething hatred for Spelunky from inside the game. 

 

We can seed a game with Far Cry 2.

 

The circle is complete.

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I can see certain seeds becoming known for being difficult or tricky and seeing speed runs come out of it.  Almost like a parallel daily challenge where people can challenge each other to the same map but instead of competing for score you're competing for time.

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We can jump and whip our way through Sean Vanaman, feeling his seething hatred for Spelunky from inside the game. 

 

Dat innuendo.

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Ladies and gentlment, I give you Spelunky: Far Cry 2 edition!

 

 

I only make it to the Black Market, and die in the dumbest way possible.  This was generated using a 32-Bit seed based on "Far Cry 2".  Highlights include apparently lots of money, a dark level, and a number of early scorpions. 

 

This is only the second level I've played using the seed tool.  Both were completely playable, though feel slightly different than natural seeds.  Like the key placement in the FC2 run, I've never seen that before. 

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In the last week, I've put 250-300 deaths into getting Low Scorer. It's much harder than Speedlunky, which I did not expect.

 

Some highlight losses:

  • On 4-3 with jetpack, shotgun and 20+ bombs, dying while jetpacking over a lava pit when a lava man spawned and took me out in mid-air
  • On 4-1, spawning within attack distance of Anubis, a mummy and an alligator man, only to make it successfully to the exit - except hitting an invisible gold nugget behind a corpse
  • In the ice caves, after opening 9 crates (24 ropes and a pair of climbing gloves) still managed to fall into the abyss

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Hmmmmm...

 

Not sure how I feel about this.  On one hand, awesome to be able to play with seeds and share awesome discoveries.  On the other, it takes some of the faith out of the community that any future amazing runs/seeds weren't generated using a tool like this.

 

Gross.  I didn't need to know this existed.

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I think it's awesome even though I'll never use it.

 

I see literally nothing wrong with it existing. ):

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I've played around with a bit now.  I was initially skeptical, but I do think it's a neat tool with a variety of legitimate uses.  I'll still play most of my games on either the Daily Challenge (which this is designed not to be able to touch) or normally seeded games.  It's fun to type in your own name and know that you're playing a level that was generated based on you. 

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Hmmmmm...

Not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, awesome to be able to play with seeds and share awesome discoveries. On the other, it takes some of the faith out of the community that any future amazing runs/seeds weren't generated using a tool like this.

As someone with the GOG DRM free version of Spelunky, which does not have the daily challenges, it's about time something like this showed up. Pretty sure I can live with some other folks having a less than honest score on the old leaderboards.

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I haven't ever seen what Spelunky Classic looks like, Tegan. After doing some Game Maker tutorials and then playing my daily, I watched that. I am saying things to myself like, "Oh, every sprite has an object." and "Does the shotgun have the shooting event as part of it's attributes, or does the character (if shotgun == True)?" How impressive that game is. I bet there is a lot to say about how Game Maker affected it's design.

Your links don't work :(

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 On the other, it takes some of the faith out of the community that any future amazing runs/seeds weren't generated using a tool like this.

 

Pretty much this is my problem with it.  That seed of doubt is in my brain now.

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Pretty much this is my problem with it.  That seed of doubt is in my brain now.

 

After thinking about it, I don't think it's going to affect much.  If you want recognition for a great run, the whole thing has to be recorded.  Having the video, the community will know if someone is claiming to have pulled off a world record on a random map.  If they are just being too prescient (making unoptimal decisions early because they know there are better options later), that will be obvious.  If someone seems to know where the exit is for every level without a compass.

 

I think the upside to it is much better than the downsides.

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