AranPrime
Octorok
- Pronouns
- He
So for the past 5 years, I have been hopelessly addicted to Spelunky. Is it as perfect as its most devoted worshippers say it is? Well, no but fuck if it doesn't come close to being it.
There's this quote by Sid Meier's about how games are a series of interesting questions (interesting meaning the player, if repeatedly asked the same question with obvious outcomes, would give different responses) and I don't think there's a game that exemplifies this ethos better than Spelunky as there are very few correct answers in this game.
Wanna make your bombs sticky? Alright, but now you can't bounce them on surfaces.
Want a golden idol? Well that will trigger a rolling rock that might kill you or upset a shopkeeper. Unless of course you manage to quickly sell that idol before the trap triggers.
Want to explore each level to get as much cash? Go ahead but you're likely to stay too long and the ghost will start chasing you.
Want to rob the shopkeeper and get everything for free? Beware, because now they'll be hunting you on every floor.
Are you stuck in a dark floor? Well use the torch the game gives you. Or if have a shotgun, start firing that thing willy-nilly to get brief glimpses of your surrounding. Just make sure you don't hit anything you don't want to.
These are some of the more obvious examples and I'd be remiss to not mention all the ways everything interacts with each other, from weapons, to traps, to enemies and even the elements such as fire, water and ice. And of course what brings this all together is game's procedural level design which I swear manages to produce areas that get more out of the mechanics than most handcrafted levels in other games.
Point being, this is a game of individually simple objects colliding to form nearly endless possibilities of engaging situations. A single 30-40 minute run of Spelunky has more depth/interesting questions than most games in their entirety. And I've tried searching for any other sub 2 hour game that approaches it in this regard. Other Roguelikes, even its own sequel, IMO don't match up to it. So I've tried more commonly arcadey games such as a few shmups, rail shooters, beat em ups and action games and although there's been some great ones, still nothing matches it (of note I didn't mention Fighting Games as those I feel require getting into a community to get the most out of and thats just not my style). Nothing feels quite as unsolvable as Spelunky, where every decision can be reduced to obvious yes/no questions. I'm by no means getting tired of it as I doubt I'll ever be but it sure would be nice to have some other games that I can play in small condensed bursts that don't just make me go "this is fine but I can just be playing Spelunky".
There's this quote by Sid Meier's about how games are a series of interesting questions (interesting meaning the player, if repeatedly asked the same question with obvious outcomes, would give different responses) and I don't think there's a game that exemplifies this ethos better than Spelunky as there are very few correct answers in this game.
Wanna make your bombs sticky? Alright, but now you can't bounce them on surfaces.
Want a golden idol? Well that will trigger a rolling rock that might kill you or upset a shopkeeper. Unless of course you manage to quickly sell that idol before the trap triggers.
Want to explore each level to get as much cash? Go ahead but you're likely to stay too long and the ghost will start chasing you.
Want to rob the shopkeeper and get everything for free? Beware, because now they'll be hunting you on every floor.
Are you stuck in a dark floor? Well use the torch the game gives you. Or if have a shotgun, start firing that thing willy-nilly to get brief glimpses of your surrounding. Just make sure you don't hit anything you don't want to.
These are some of the more obvious examples and I'd be remiss to not mention all the ways everything interacts with each other, from weapons, to traps, to enemies and even the elements such as fire, water and ice. And of course what brings this all together is game's procedural level design which I swear manages to produce areas that get more out of the mechanics than most handcrafted levels in other games.
Point being, this is a game of individually simple objects colliding to form nearly endless possibilities of engaging situations. A single 30-40 minute run of Spelunky has more depth/interesting questions than most games in their entirety. And I've tried searching for any other sub 2 hour game that approaches it in this regard. Other Roguelikes, even its own sequel, IMO don't match up to it. So I've tried more commonly arcadey games such as a few shmups, rail shooters, beat em ups and action games and although there's been some great ones, still nothing matches it (of note I didn't mention Fighting Games as those I feel require getting into a community to get the most out of and thats just not my style). Nothing feels quite as unsolvable as Spelunky, where every decision can be reduced to obvious yes/no questions. I'm by no means getting tired of it as I doubt I'll ever be but it sure would be nice to have some other games that I can play in small condensed bursts that don't just make me go "this is fine but I can just be playing Spelunky".
