Review: Spelunky!
(I’m quite enjoying this whole reviewing thing, so I might try and make it a weekly feature. Who knows! I don’t, that’s for sure!)
Introduction: This week’s game is Spelunky, by Derek Yu. Spelunky is a cute little freeware game that’s almost a perfect cross between a roguelike and platform game. If you don’t understand what I mean by that now, hopefully you will by the time I’m done.
Spelunky was first released December last year, and is currently at version 0.99.9, which means that we’re very close to a full release (Note: By the time you’re reading this, said release might have been released, in which case, various parts of this review might be slightly irrelevant). If you’re smelling Deja Vu, I did once mention it at the old blog.
Graphics: Spelunky uses cool, semi-8-bit sprites for its graphics. What’s different about this, though, is that it encourages youto scale up the resolution of the game so that the sprites are about 3 times their original size, giving them a pixelated look that (strangely) suits the game very well. Animations are fluid and varied. There really isn’t much to criticise graphics-wise, so lets move right along…
Sound: The game sounds just as great as it looks, regardless of the fact that there are only really a handful of tracks. The semi-chiptune style of the music suits the theme of the game well, and several times I’ve had the music stuck in my head well after I’ve finished playing. Sound effects are just as good.
Gameplay: I mentioned before that Spelunky is a mixture between a roguelike and a platformer. What this means is that, at its core, Spelunky is a game where you run, jump, kil enemies and try to reach the next level. It works from a 2D perspective, similar to Super Mario Bros, but with more emphasis on the enemies. However - and this is where the roguelike elements begin to come in - all of the levels in Spelunky are randomly generated. It’s almost impossible to play the same game twice, meaning that while your central goal never changes, the way you go about it is always vastly different. This central goal I referred to: Get as far into the cave as you can, killing monsters and collecting gold. Simple.
Spelunky also inherits its extreme difficulty from the roguelike genre. The game is incredibly punishing in several ways. For example, you start the game with four hearts. Most enemies take off 1 or 2 hearts each. There is only one way to regain hearts (by being kissed by a damsel), which normally means carrying them through most of a level of a game.
However, incredible difficulty doesn’t detract from the game experience, rather, in a way, it adds to it. I’ve never made it very far into the game, but it doesn’t matter, because with Spelunky, the fun comes from the doing, rather than from the end result.
Many of the coolest things Spelunky has to offer are caused by the game’s incredible attention to detail. For example, throughout the game, there are rather dangerous arrow-shooting blocks, capable of taking two hearts off anything that comes into their line of sight. Fortunately, they only have one arrow, and they can’t reload. This would be problematic, until you realise that there are a wealth of ways to disarm the trap safely. You can even throw that damsel you’ve been carrying to safety throw the trap, shooting her but saving yourself. She doesn’t seem to mind - she’ll still give you a kiss at the end of the level.
Another feature which reeks of attention to detail is the system of shops, or, more specifically, stealing from them. I won’t go into the details of how to do this here, as its far more fun if you figure it out for yourself, but rest assured that when you do manage to be successful, you’ll be surprised at the results. Any shopkeepers you see for the rest of the game will chase you on sight (complete with instakill shotgun), and you might even find them camping out at the end of level door, waiting in ambush…
Conclusion: Spelunky is a very thoroughly enjoyable, well made and generally awesome game. I have very little to criticise about it, which is a big step up from last week’s review.
Final Score: 9.5, because I don’t feel like giving it perfect marks.
(Spelunky is a freeware game, meaning that you can download it for free at this site)
