Spelunky is a ridiculously difficult roguelike platformer. You can (and will) die over and over, in a matter of seconds. If that doesn't sound like your kind of thing, you're not going to like this game.
When you start an Adventure in Spelunky, you're given the following: Four hit points, four bombs, four ropes, a whip, and an odd sense of fear. That is all you have to survive the sixteen torturous levels ahead of you. Only sixteen? Trust me, that's plenty.
The sixteen levels, you see, are randomly generated. This isn't Super Meat Boy. You can't memorize the level layouts and perfect your runs. All you can do is memorize the engine, and learn the rules of it. To refresh my memory, I did a quick run:
I choose my humanized Super Meat Boy, and venture into the caves. I immediately pick up a nearby clay pot, just in-case there are any arrow traps lying in wait. A bat flies down towards me. I throw the clay pot. This plan of attack was successful, sort of. The pot broke, and the spider inside fell on me for -1 hit point. Three to go.
I'm much more careful now. I've made it three levels deeper, to the jungle. This is where it starts to get a bit more difficult. Halfway through the first level, I see a damsel. Damsels will give you +1 HP if you can take them to the exit. I make it to the bottom of the current level, damsel in hand, and see a bit of a problem. Two bats, three spiders, and quite a few spike traps. Having been in this situation before, I do what any logical person would: I whip the damsel at everything. The "damsel" (it's a dog.) crashes through every enemy in my path, and lands fairly close to the exit. The damsel then proceeds to walk off the nearest ledge and onto a spike trap.
The next level has a shopkeeper. I buy a Compass and Climbing Gloves. The compass will show me which direction the exit is in, and the climbing gloves will allow me to scale any vertical wall. This is turning out to be a pretty good run. I'm getting a little cocky. I mis-judge a jump, and take some fall damage. No big deal, it's only -1 HP. While I'm stunned from the fall, a spider lands on me. I now only have one HP standing between me and the dreaded re-rolling of the dungeon. Time to be careful again. I pick up another clay pot, just in case.
Near the bottom of the level, there's a pool of water in my way, with a piranha in it. I toss my weaponized pottery at the piranha, and everything seems like it's working out. The spider that was inside of the clay pot then proceeds to jump out of the water and murder me. I'm now back at square one, in the caves. Imagine if someone hit the Reset button on your NES. That's about the same amount of progress you get to carry over for your next play-through. (Read: Not a god damn thing.)
Despite having an achievement for beating the game in eight minutes, there's a lot of depth to this game. That shopkeeper that I mentioned before? I dropped a bomb in his store once, just to see what would happen. He killed me with a shotgun before the bomb even hit the ground.
Technically this game has multi-player, but it's not really what you'll be doing most of the time. The deathmatch is awkward at best, and the "co-op" is anything but. It's kind of fun to jump around levels with some friends, but nigh-impossible to legitimately co-operate. Even if you do manage it, the game doesn't save any progress you made. (You can unlock shortcuts to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th worlds by meeting certain conditions. Certain bullshit conditions. Fuck you, Tunnel Man.)
I'm not sure if it's Stockholm Syndrome, but I love this game. The randomly generated levels keep everything fresh, and it's fun to learn the rules of the engine. There's a certain amount of comfort knowing that the asshole Tiki-Men fall just as easily to the spikes as I do. That the arrow-traps don't hate me, they just want to shoot the closest thing available to them.
This sound like fun to you? Try the demo, on Xbox Live Marketplace. Or, better yet: Just play the original PC version, for free.
