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Spelunky!

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I don't think anyone pointed it out, so I will. The reason he was whipping the money out of his way is because he was farming via the ghost (ghosting, colloquially). Whenever the ghost passes over a gem (emerald, sapphire, ruby) the gem is converted to a diamond which is worth $5000. So, he invests bombs and ropes to craft a path up through the level, he whips away gems to have a clear path around them, and then when the ghost arrives he leads the ghost over the gems and collects the diamonds afterwards. Ghosting the mines is the easiest way to get >$50000 for the ankh (preferably >$100000, so you can afford a couple bomb bags and the jetpack as well) by the black market, not to mention extra spending money per level to buy back bombs and ropes.

 

Ghosting is nearly essential to a reliably successful hell run, because you are essentially beating the odds by way of money. Normally, you'd have to rely on luck to get really good items or take big risks like fighting the big alien in the Ice Caves to get an essential item like a jetpack. By frontloading all the risk in the mines by playing around the ghost and getting all kinds of money, you can simply buy all the items you need and any excess of bombs/ropes to handle whatever comes your way.

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It's hard for me to fathom being good enough at Spelunky to reliably be able to Ghost the mines. 

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The day I realized I was no longer really scared of the ghost was a good milestone. I normally don't ghost mine unless I can bomb open one of those vaults, because the chests the guy guards hold about 6 to 7 gems each, which means that getting a ghost to go over them equals a sweet 70K on average.

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I don't think anyone pointed it out, so I will. The reason he was whipping the money out of his way is because he was farming via the ghost (ghosting, colloquially). Whenever the ghost passes over a gem (emerald, sapphire, ruby) the gem is converted to a diamond which is worth $5000. So, he invests bombs and ropes to craft a path up through the level, he whips away gems to have a clear path around them, and then when the ghost arrives he leads the ghost over the gems and collects the diamonds afterwards. Ghosting the mines is the easiest way to get >$50000 for the ankh (preferably >$100000, so you can afford a couple bomb bags and the jetpack as well) by the black market, not to mention extra spending money per level to buy back bombs and ropes.

 

Ghosting is nearly essential to a reliably successful hell run, because you are essentially beating the odds by way of money. Normally, you'd have to rely on luck to get really good items or take big risks like fighting the big alien in the Ice Caves to get an essential item like a jetpack. By frontloading all the risk in the mines by playing around the ghost and getting all kinds of money, you can simply buy all the items you need and any excess of bombs/ropes to handle whatever comes your way.

 

WHAT!?  I didn't even know Ghosting was a thing!  This game is amazing!

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Noyb actually alluded to ghosting in the spoiler above

/pedantry

 

Ah, I should have seen that but I normally breeze over spoiler boxes.

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Okay, so I actually am good enough to use the ghost to farm diamonds in the mines, but it doesn't do me much good, as I'm not really skilled enough to capitalize on it yet.  But I'm not afraid of the ghost anymore!  I ain't afraid of no ghost!

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Okay, so I actually am good enough to use the ghost to farm diamonds in the mines, but it doesn't do me much good, as I'm not really skilled enough to capitalize on it yet.  But I'm not afraid of the ghost anymore!  I ain't afraid of no ghost!

Ya, i think it is all moot when spikes are still the real enemy.

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Dang it, I can't believe I missed that explosive at the start three times when everyone else seems to have gotten it on shot one.

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Thanks to a very generous person who will remain anonymous *cough*Teg*cough* I now own Spelunky.  First thing I tried was the daily challenge, where upon I immediately ran into a spider and was killed by an arrow trap.  Good start.

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Welcome to Spelunky.  That will happen a lot.

 

On a positive note I finally beat the HD version straight through (which strangely enough is easier than using shortcuts).

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Welcome to Spelunky.  That will happen a lot.

 

On a positive note I finally beat the HD version straight through (which strangely enough is easier than using shortcuts).

 

Thanks!  Although I played the original for a while, I wasn't very good and never made it past the jungle.  Glad to see those same skills (or lack thereof) transfer to the new version.

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Thanks to a very generous person who will remain anonymous *cough*Teg*cough* I now own Spelunky.  First thing I tried was the daily challenge, where upon I immediately ran into a spider and was killed by an arrow trap.  Good start.

An epic and appropriate start to spelunking if ever there was one!  Welcome to the fold.

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Have fun getting acquainted with the spike traps!

 

I've been getting kind of fatigued on this game lately. The caves and jungle are so familiar now that I get impatient with them and make too many stupid mistakes, which then means I'm stuck there more frequently and get sick of them even more. I guess I need to focus more and be super careful but uuuggghhhh

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Have fun getting acquainted with the spike traps!

 

I've been getting kind of fatigued on this game lately. The caves and jungle are so familiar now that I get impatient with them and make too many stupid mistakes, which then means I'm stuck there more frequently and get sick of them even more. I guess I need to focus more and be super careful but uuuggghhhh

 

Shortcuts?

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Shortcuts?

 

At least for me, the shortcuts aren't feasible for serious play, because you need the money and momentum of a good run through the mines to do well in the jungle, and so on.

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I seem to do better when I run around and leap without looking.  At least until a disastrous chain of events unfolds.

 

 

At least for me, the shortcuts aren't feasible for serious play, because you need the money and momentum of a good run through the mines to do well in the jungle, and so on.

 

I've been getting the tunnels built as I encounter them so that I can learn the later environments better without having to go through the first few areas.  Once I'm more comfortable with the enemies and hazards I'll do full runs from the start.

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I've been getting the tunnels built as I encounter them so that I can learn the later environments better without having to go through the first few areas.  Once I'm more comfortable with the enemies and hazards I'll do full runs from the start.

 

Yeah, same. But man, the ice caves tunnel is just impossible for me. The moment I get my hands on a shotgun, I start playing so irresponsibly that it's just game over.

 

 

EDIT: Case in point, a golden run, my first to break six digits, was ended when the shotgun kicked me back onto some spikes. Sigh.

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At least for me, the shortcuts aren't feasible for serious play, because you need the money and momentum of a good run through the mines to do well in the jungle, and so on.

They are good for practice though. If you only make it to the jungle one time in ten you will never get to practice it much. If you take the shortcut then you will be more ready when you do a run from the start.

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Super shitty bug, may be exclusive to Windows 8.1 from my light research, Spelunky is crashing any time it is windowed for any reason. So, if I want to change the resolution or make it not-fullscreen, it crashes. Meh.

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The PS3/Vita versions of Spelunky just got daily challenge mode, yay! Add me on PSN if you want to compete, my PSN id is jonac13.

 

I'll be doing both the PC and PSN versions of the daily challenge every day because I learned yesterday that the daily boards are actually different and I have a couple of PC-less friends on PSN who are playing. So don't worry about spoiling one platforms dailies with another.

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The PS3/Vita versions of Spelunky just got daily challenge mode, yay! Add me on PSN if you want to compete, my PSN id is jonac13.

 

I'll be doing both the PC and PSN versions of the daily challenge every day because I learned yesterday that the daily boards are actually different and I have a couple of PC-less friends on PSN who are playing. So don't worry about spoiling one platforms dailies with another.

 

I'll add you, mine is NK3233

 

I haven't done today's challenge yet, but the first two I did went fucking terribly - day one I landed on spikes in 1-2 and day two I landed on spikes in 2-3. otherwise in my adventures recently I've been getting to the ice caves usually and surprisingly often I can get to the temple now, which I had never done until like 3 weeks ago. since I started watching other people play I haven't really used shortcuts, since I learned accumulating gold is a pretty important aspect of the game. I'll play for about 2-3 hours a day probably, even though I still make stupid mistakes constantly. it's a good game to play while listening to podcasts

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Finished the journal for everything that isn't in Hell or the City of Gold.  Every time I get to the city I get too excited and die.  Also, as a note.  The alien blaster is totally not worth the effort.  It hurt me more than it ever helped.

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Man, the metagame for Spelunky is out of control. I haven't kept up with the LPers of Spelunky since the first month of Spelunky PC's release, and it's really evolved to a strange point of obsession. Here's a stream of one of my favorite LPers, Northernlion:

 

 

It seems that he replaced some of the art assets with custom art (the main Spelunker is self-modeled), which is kinda goofy. Also, he's talking about something called Spelunky Bets that seems to be a Twitch-based LiveStream only system of people betting artificial currency on how a LPer will die. The LPer wins if they beat the game, or has to pay out if they die via spikes to one person, or via a tiki trap to a couple people who split the odds. Very weird stuff:

 

http://spelunkyroulette.sparklinlabs.com/

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