Too many of today's videogames are roller-coaster rides, designed to create a sense of thrilling danger while in reality keeping you perfectly safe. Spelunky is designed to destroy you. It tells you all of its rules, does everything to make sure that you understand what can kill you, and then it beats you down until you get good enough to get one step further.
It would be maddening, if it weren't such a refreshing escape from the usual cocoon of safety.
Spelunky, originally released for free on PC in 2008, has been thoroughly refreshed and polished up for its Xbox Live Arcade debut this week. Its gameplay mechanics are the product of roguelike design principles applied to a fast-moving side-scrolling platformer visually reminiscent of the classic Broderbund game Spelunker.
Its levels are randomly generated, and the difficulty level is sky high, made even higher by the fact that there are no continues. It doesn't matter if you've played through 75 percent of the game and amassed a fortune in coins; one death strips you of everything.
And there will be many deaths. The game's moment-to-moment action feels like a more vertical version of the old-school Castlevania games – especially since your default weapon is a short whip. You've got a limited number of bombs that can be used to blast through any part of the environment, and ropes that can be placed anywhere to make scaling large surfaces easier. Most any object in the world can be picked up and thrown, even the people and dogs that you can escort to the level exit for a health bonus.
Part of the brilliance of Spelunky's design is that the level's traps don't distinguish between you and other inhabitants. That motion-activated spiked tiki pole can be set off by leading an enemy into its range. Stunned cavemen can be hurled into spike traps. Every item, trap or living creature in a single Spelunky level is a part of a completely unique ecosystem that can either kill you or work for you.
It feels amazing to make it one step further. But that only introduces you to more punishment.Mostly, they tend to kill you. The pots that often contain useful gold or gems may hold an angry spider or spitting viper. Even completely neutral objects like rocks can be dangerous to wield, given their tendency to bounce off of walls and land on your head (death). And while the dangerous nature of the game world encourages you to proceed with caution, each level gives you a limited time to complete it before a deadly ghost emerges and takes you out.
It feels amazing to make it one step further. But that only introduces you to more punishment. Entering a new world is the scariest thing that can happen to you in Spelunky, because if you aren't totally aware of every single element of your environment, the odds are good that you're only going to survive for seconds.
That's what happened to me the first time that I made it to the game's second zone, the Jungle level. I was armed with a compass, which showed me where the level's exit was, and a jetpack, which allowed limited flight. I had five hearts and plenty of gold. I was as well prepared as I could possibly have been. I held down the sprint button and leaped to the first platform I saw, when suddenly a boomerang thwacked me and I was launched backward into a pit of spikes. Game over.
In less than five seconds I had lost everything. But in truth I had gained something.
Every new thing you encounter in Spelunky gets added to a journal that survives even after you die. This reference material, along with the hands-on experience you gain from facing new threats, makes you better at the game. Spelunky refuses to stoop down and make itself easier for you to conquer, but every time you play, it forces you to rise up and get a little better. Every death teaches you something, and eventually you'll become skilled enough to progress.
The one concession that the game makes in the difficulty department comes in the form of "Tunnel Man," who will build shortcuts to the game's various worlds in exchange for gold. Building those shortcuts is not an easy task, although it does make the game a bit more accessible.
It's a rare feat for a contemporary videogame to achieve this level of mechanical cohesion. Older games like Pac-Man or Tetris did it perfectly, in no small part due to the simplicity of their rules and elements. Spelunky ratchets up the complexity of the game mechanics while maintaining that level of purity.
Spelunky is designed to be played repeatedly, a randomly generated battle of human versus machine. Its goal is to challenge the player in a way that is seemingly impossible, but ultimately surmountable given the proper amount of training and skill.
I can't recall another game that achieves that delicate balance as well as Spelunky. Its randomly generated nature and ecosystem of interactive elements challenges your decision-making abilities in a way that's nothing short of awe-inspiring.
WIRED Perfectly balanced design with true staying power, all wrapped in a package that is much improved over its freeware predecessor.
TIRED Unremarkable cooperative and deathmatch modes.
Rating: 
$15, Mossmouth
