The only cure is more dead snakes - A (latecomer's) look at Spelunky

Spelunky
Developer: Mossmouth
Released: December 21, 2008



Now... I realize that I'm criminally late to the party but let's not waste any more time pussyfooting around this whole longwinded entry: Spelunky is the single greatest adventure game ever made. Don't fucking question me, goddamnit, I'm just getting started. Developed by Mossmouth (Spelunky, Spelunky) and directed by Derek Yu (Eternal Daughter, Aquaria), the game has been in continuous development for well over 2 years. The entire development team was also part of the now defunct development house Blackeye Software, whose previous titles include Trigger Happy (my favorite game on the PC), Mean Cuisine (my favorite game on the PC) and Diabolika II. If that's all you needed to know, close this window and either go back to play the game or go out and download a copy of it for free because you should fucking own it.

If, however, you wanted to know just what a blindingly brilliant game this is, let's run through a few quick points about Spelunky.

Spelunky is an explorer. Spelunky is a sexy explorer. Spelunky is a sexy explorer with a fantastic nose.


PROOF

Having said that incredibly insulting and sexist remark, I think it's only fair to say that Spelunky is, quite possibly, one of the greatest midget characters in video game history. Sure, he's a pixelated, stubby, awkward-jogging bit... I mean, uh, gentleman who taunts his enemies with lines like, "Sounds like snakes!" but, really, you'd be hard-pressed to find a male lead in any game with so much style and shit-your-pants propensity to decimate anything that gets in his way. He's not the eye-candy. The world around him is; he just revels in it.


The last thing you saw before you died

This game doesn't really need a story but, just to prove that they could do it, developer house Mossmouth decided that a damn good story with thematic elements about Kali and golden idols would be a perfect fit for a game in which the main character is always falling on spikes, if not for a magical cape. Spelunky is an midget in a silly hat and he's been asleep for 6 hours. In this world two caveman clans called the Cavemen With Feathers and the Cavemen Without Feathers, each in alliance with Snakes and Spiders respectively (names which you'll recognize were gathered from books about snakes) who were at war with each other and eventually everyone was wiped out leaving all but one midget alive: Spelunky. All he really knows is that his sleep was voluntary, that he is fucking pissed off about being woken up, and that whoever was responsible is probably going to suffer an infinitely painful torture session. So that's exactly what he does: With the support of a whiny chit named Damsel and a dimension-traveling black market weapon shop runner named Spoony, he sets off on a torture rampage to the fictional subterranean land of Colossal Cave. Only his whip, ropes and his set of four bombs named "Scarborough Fair" (The individual bombs are named after herbs: Parsley, ever joyous; Sage, ever strong; Rosemary, ever reminiscent; Thyme, ever courageous), keep him company.


NOT YOURS

"But, Pang", you'll say, "why does he carry four bombs if the sexy midget man is clearly not a deformed freak of nature and has two arms like the rest of us normies?". Yeah... About that... Three of those bomb are strapped to his back. As you start gathering or buying more bombs, you'll be able to attach more of those weapons to his different extremities and, holy shit, does that ever turn out wonderful for style points! Using his bombs in tandem with his whip and guns, there are literally hundreds of attack combos that can be unleashed on the minions of Snakes. You can also activate a time-slowing system called "Pause" that makes these combos slightly easier to pull off and pull off moves called "Bomb Climaxes" which are stylized clusterfucks of flying bombs that will decimate pretty much anything in the immediate diameter. You can stick your heels into your enemies when they're down, you can send them up in the air and juggle them with a barrage of bullets or you can execute them with "Shotgun" finishing moves, which are S&M-inspired sadistic executions in which conjure up anything from rolling boulders to bottomless pits to ditches with spikes on them which you will roll your enemies into to mince them; and that was just in the first few fights I had in the game. As if that wasn't enough, that neat hat on his head can be formed into massive conduit to summon a parachute from the depths of his backpack that can (and will) allow you to fall safely from great heights. Needless to say, this is all pretty fucking intense. Everything about the battle system is sadistically gory, elegantly violent and ridiculously over-the-top and, in case you can't tell from this little rant so far, I really IMMENSELY enjoyed this shit.

The world created in this game is truly eye popping and, even though, Spelunky runs around in a massive and pixelated world that is somewhat devoid of anti-aliasing and low-res that's only slightly reminiscent of the glory days of platforming, there's still a lot of detail to be seen in the very masculine touches added by Spelunky's very presence. If Spelunky jumps, he does so by momentarily lifting his feet off the ground. He does not bleed, he emits massive fountains of blood when he's hit by an enemy and, likewise, when he hits an enemy, the impact emits ridiculous blood sprays. His target reticle doesn't exist because he just shoots whatever is directly in front of him, like a man. Is this what they mean by "power"? Speaking of "power", blogger Anthony Burch wrote a very interesting article about whether the character of Spelunky is a hyperpixelated insult to men everywhere or a sexy and empowering male lead. You can read it here and decide for yourself, if you're up to the challenge.


Pretty~

With towering structures, ancient gargantuan ruins and European-flavored colorful small shops, this is a beautiful world for Spelunky to bumble around in. The enemy characters don't get shunned in this either! In fact, the enemies are some of the most infuriating things to be found in this game and it's very clear that a lot of thought went into designing every inch of them and very carefully arranged so that, as you progress through the game, you will never feel like you've seen them die enough. That's, I think, one of the greatest strengths of the title, really. You will go up against a squad of spiders that will try to pop you with everything that spiders can throw at you. You mercilessly dispatch all of them by throwing bombs from a rope freshly driven into an enemy's skull and firing all weapons in every direction. You will feel immensely satisfied and think to yourself, "That... was fucking... BADASS! There's no WAY they'll top this battle in this game!". Then you find yourself in a temple fighting an Inca-inspired human head sculpture that lays waste to the land by jumping up and down on it. You don't even want me to tell you how you finish this one off, but it's seriously one of the coolest fucking things I've ever seen in a video game. EVER. And the more you play, the bigger, more annoying and infuriatingly cheap the enemy squads become. At the end of each battle you're awarded gold depending on how good your fight performance was. The better the gold, the more gold you rack up and those can be used to purchase weapons and more ropes. However, since all of these things are astronomically expensive, you'll have to play through the game extremely carefully if you want to get everything and, really, you'll actually want to do it in this game; over and over if necessary.

Battle after battle. Gem after gem. Bomb after bomb. The game never lets up pace and is an attack of the visual and hearing senses; it's like sticking your brain in a pencil sharpener and grinding it until it's super sharp.

Spelunky is my new favorite adventure game. It only took 3 months to knock Cave Story out of that spot and it was only fitting that the same people who brought me "Aquaria" rightfully took that designation back. This is a very colorful palette of destruction and sexiness presented by a very empowering male lead that, while leveling everything in his path, somehow finds the time to detonate an entire subterranean civilization. I think that, on that note alone, everyone should at least give it a shot; mainly because I know that once he blows that first sticky bomb, your will to resist this game will be FUCKING BROKEN.

Jam it back in, in the dark.