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Spelunky!

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For me, Spelunky is largely about seeing something you want, knowing that you can get it, and then saying "nope." I'm pretty sure that it is incredibly rare for a level to be generated where you require a rope or a bomb to get to the exit, but it might tease you with a damsel that requires three bombs after you just got a crate of rope that required two. It's about prioritizing. You don't get to take everything, often I leave the damsel because he is just in too dangerous a spot. I'm only going to get one heart from him, and that's if I get him there alive. I guess what I'm trying to say is "There is no good reason for you to be stuck somewhere where you need a rope or bomb to get to the exit when you have none, you just got greedy."

Well I was talking more generally, the systems can clash in awkward ways, throwing the difficulty curve of the critical path off wildly, which is annoying,  especially when platforming and combat combine, i.e. the bat frequently approaches at an angle that avoids the hitbox of your whip, but can also be awkwardly placed relative to spikes, such that navigation becomes much harder. There's no greed element to it, it's just a pitfall (no pun intended) of inherently less managed system.

 

I've been in situations where the critical path has suddenly required bombs based on my actions (i.e. just today I grabbed a statue and the rolling boulder wrecked the level, leaving me trapped above the exit without any way ahead), which was something I couldn't have foreseen, but is a different thing.

 

JKO you should look into Wineskin: http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?comments_parentId=3711 I had some success using it to play Dota :)

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I've been in situations where the critical path has suddenly required bombs based on my actions (i.e. just today I grabbed a statue and the rolling boulder wrecked the level, leaving me trapped above the exit without any way ahead), which was something I couldn't have foreseen, but is a different thing.

Once, I took the idol and the boulder rolled into a spot where it was blocking the exit. So, like any rational being, I decided to place a bomb at the base of the boulder to move it out of the way. It moved alright. It flew away and soon came rolling back at me. I died. It was awesome.

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Once, I took the idol and the boulder rolled into a spot where it was blocking the exit. So, like any rational being, I decided to place a bomb at the base of the boulder to move it out of the way. It moved alright. It flew away and soon came rolling back at me. I died. It was awesome.

Haha, I had no bombs, so I was trapped til the ghost got me. Some of the mechanics can surprise you in awkward ways, like the time I died cos I threw a rock at a wall and it hit me in the face :P 

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I feel like the degree of dickery in the environment ramps up as the levels progress. In the mines, the one-hit kill dangers are pretty manageable. Really, the spikes are the only threat you have to deal with regularly and the Idol's rolling boulder is totally optional. The jungles have the man-eaters in addition to the spikes. The ice caves have the pit at the bottom in addition to mammoths which replace the man-eaters as one hit killers. And so on.

 

The later levels also add enemies and challenges that do a lot more damage than the typical bat or spider, but since your health has the opportunity to be much higher as time goes on these threats seem more manageable than if they had been presented in the mines.

 

I guess my point is that the major threats only seem to get harder to manage as you should theoretically be acquiring more items and health during your time playing the game. I don't really find the bat + spikes scenario as particularly convincing to the argument against randomness, because you can almost always move away from the spikes to engage the bat. The bats are difficult because their movement is unlike other enemies and requires much better timing than any other enemy. I don't really think they inherently add more randomness, as much as they provide a mechanically different enemy to combat. They're one of the few enemies that attacks from above, but you always have the ability to throw a rope up and kill a problematic bat.

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Oh I wouldn't argue against randomness, I enjoy roguelikes too much, but unmanaged randomness can lead to difficulty spikes. neither bats nor spikes inherently add more randomness, but through their placement can make difficult to traverse environments even more difficult to traverse, but there isn't a sense that that is in any way accounted for within the game (i.e. it doesn't feel like "don't put a bat over a pit of 3 spikes, because it would get in the way of the only survivable trajectory"). Of course one way to answer it is increased skill, or exploiting mechanics like throwing ropes to kill bats (had no idea that worked, not very discoverable), but it seems like an interesting design challenge to make randomness that respects a curve beyond "these enemies and obstacles are just harder, using them as your building blocks", and more toward "These level designs and subsections are harder". Spelunky would, theoretically, be an ideal platform to try this with too, as all the data being collected from the daily challenges could be applied to improve the generation algorithm. 

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Just in case you don't know, you can also throw anything carriable upwards by holding up when you throw. That's my typical bat-killing method. I believe this includes mice, but I moght be wrong on that one. They might eat the mice or something.

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Just in case you don't know, you can also throw anything carriable upwards by holding up when you throw. That's my typical bat-killing method. I believe this includes mice, but I moght be wrong on that one. They might eat the mice or something.

I've hit myself wit ha few arrows that way :P 

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Do the rope throwing physics work better in the XBLA version than the free version? I feel like I always have a 50/50 chance for my rope to actually go where I am trying to get it.

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Just played some hilarious 4 player local multiplayer coop, haven't looked into whether there's online coop yet.

 

Yeah the local co-op is pretty great. If there was online co-op I would definitely pick up the PC version as well.

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I recently got the Vita version and I only played a bit of the original version. 

 

When I first reached the jungle I thought "You're kidding, right? You don't really expect me to survive this!", and then I reached the ice caves, to which I made the same comment, but when I finally reached the temple (Which I only really managed once) it is really ridiculous in a hilarious way. On one side, some mummy spat scarabs at me so I ran the other way, to be kill by some other evil wizard monster thing....

 

You gotta love how even if you die 1000 times, you learn something new every time, although it's usually "What's that? And.... it killed me."

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I actually think the Jungle is worse than the Temple.  In part because if you make it to the temple you usually have some good equipment by then.

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Not if you use the tunnels, but I really hate those Tiki statues. It's also eerie to go to a Jungle level and see that everybody has already been killed by the Tiki statues.

 

PS: As much as I love learning as I go, should I ever bother to sacrifice to Kali? I sometimes get a monkey that never follows me and sacrificing enemies doesn't seem to do much. Also, are hired men useless? 

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I've been popping in to see if any of my Steam friendz are doing it, and no.

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I have been doing them and then watching tom francis on youtube. Its interesting to see other peoples take on the same situation.

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I haven't been keeping up because I still play on XBLA and now also on Vita, but I was thinking about getting back into the swing of it. Problem is I like to be a little warmed up before I do a daily challenge because I don't want to crash and burn in the first couple levels, but if I play a 20 minute game or something I often quit because the peak was too high to start right from the beginning again. So I only ever do the daily challenge if I've played a couple of mediocre games first, which is kinda dumb.

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Been watching Tom Francis as well, entertaining stuff. I recorded myself on yesterday's challenge after being inspired. I'll post it at some stage, I somehow survived an incredible UFO mid air chain reaction ker-splosion and got it on tape. 

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