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It all started when I had that giant spider right where I wanted him. He had chased me down a tiny tunnel but I had managed to climb up a ladder to safety.
I could hear him bounce around, making that terrifying noise. I felt utter joy as I primed my bombs and threw the down the tunnel. Two explosions later the monster was dead. I then heard somebody scream "Terrorist!".
Turned out the tunnel had been situated directly over one of those subterranean shops and the shopkeeper was not happy. He had dashed out of the shop with his shotgun to hunt down the source of the explosions so I, not being one to pass up an opportunity used another bomb to create an entrance to the now empty store and helped myself to his wares.
Little did I know, I was now a wanted man. My poster was hanging in every store and every doorway had a shotgun armed shopkeeper waiting for me. I actually did pretty well, evading them for a time. The items I had helped myself to certainly helped, especially a pair of climbing mitts.
Well, there was one particular tunnel, that lead to a doorway. My plan was just to fall through and enter the door before the shopkeeper could blow me away.
Well, I stuck to the wall half way down and was brutally murdered by the shopkeeper. Kids, crime doesn't pay.
Spelunky is a truly amazing game. It's a random experience every time so you might spend one game barely surviving and eventually dieing on level three to some inconveniently placed death spikes.
Other times you'll have adventures like the one I described above. What makes it so good is the variety of items and character behaviours in the game. This is excellent game design and it really works. You'll find yourself developing ways of approaching threats and navigating the cave networks. Does the way open before you look too dangerous? Well, you can use bombs to make your own pathway.
And the bombs, to me, are the real star of the show. They can kill anything in one go, including you and you really respect them. Priming a bomb is no joke in this game. In fact, everything is no joke. You get a certain amount of hits and once they're gone your game is over.
This is some of the best fun I've had in a long time and I recommend everybody give it a go. It takes some time to get into but it is immensely satisfying when things work out and what's more it is legitimately satisfying. You have one chance to make things work, quick save and checkpoint culture has destroyed these sorts of experiences in gaming. I want to see more like this, a lot more.
The game can be downloaded here.
As unique as it is, I will not try to give it a rating. Just play it.
