I've been pretty busy here at work which has contributed to a total lack of energy during what little down time I have, which I would much rather be spending watching something on Netflix rather than exerting myself mentally. I do have things I have wanted to talk about, just bear with me. At any rate, a quick little update regarding the game of my last post, Spelunky. During my lengthy sessions with it I thought idly about how awesome an XBLA version of it would be, but I realized that was highly unlikely. It turns out that Spelunky creator Derek Yu is also in the business of granting wishes. Also it appears he's finally released version 1.0 of the game, which I will have to check out as soon as I get home (provided I can pry myself away from Arkham Asylum which is goddamn splendid), and I advise you to do the same.
-K.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Plunging Deeper
Monday, August 17, 2009
Play This Now: Spelunky
I'm about ten months late on this recommendation, which is right about when this was making the rounds on the gaming blogs, but I hadn't really gotten around to playing it until just the other night. Since then I've gone well past the 100-death mark, and that might be the most important distinction to make. If you play Spelunky, you're going to die. A lot. Basically, Spelunky is a side-scrolling platformer take on Rogue: the levels and items are randomly generated and placed, and your victory depends on luck just as much as skill. Maybe it's because I just played a bunch of pinball this weekend as well, but there's something about the way the game is structured that reminds me of it; No matter how sharp your focus one mistake can ruin all of your progress, and even though it's frustrating you know you can do better, and that keeps you coming back. It'll probably take a few deaths just to get the hang of the controls and get an idea of the mechanics, like how to successfully navigate one of the stores without an errant button press resulting in the shopkeeper blasting you with a shotgun, but once you do you've got a surprisingly deep time-waster that's perfect for short pick-up-and-play sessions.
Link, TIGSource Spelunky thread.
Link, Spelunky Wiki.
-K.