I've been playing a lot of Spelunky recently.
For those who may not be familiar with Spelunky, I'll just give a quick explanation.
Spelunky is a sidescrolling action-platformer-roguelike. You play as an explorer / spelunker with a whip, who explores the mines, jungles, caves and temples of a hostile underground complex, filled with traps and deadly obstacles. The terrain is randomly-generated and the monsters, items and treasures are randomly placed throughout the game. There are bats, snakes, mummies, and all sorts of other various mythology-based monsters and environments.
The goal of the game is to reach the exit at the bottom of of each stage until you get to the last floor, where the giant Olmec head at the bottom of the caverns acts as the end boss.
You start the game with four ropes, four bombs and four hit points.
Ropes can be used to add a climbable surface to the environment, allowing you to reach high places or to safely descend downwards.
Throw a rope, get up there!
I don't trust myself to get over this without dying, so let's blast a path down!
Hit points are hit points. They decrease when you get hit. So don't get hit too much!
You can find more ropes and bombs in wooden crates, and you can get more hit points by rescuing the stranded damsel-in-distress that usually appears on each level. One damsel is one extra HP!
You can find various items and upgrades inside the levels if you're lucky - There are upgrade items that improve your abilities in some way, such as springy shoes that let you jump a bit higher. There are also things such as weapons that are held in the spelunker's hands, of which only one can be held at a time.
Anyway, that's the gist of what one needs to know about the game right now.
So what makes Spelunky feel so satisfying to play? It's all about risk vs reward, gaining knowledge of game mechanics, and putting this knowledge to use.
The game is quite difficult. When you die, your playthrough is truly over. Your character is dead, and you must start a new randomly-generated game from the beginning keeping none of the items or loot collected previously.
This doesn't exactly sound like a point in Spelunky's favour, but it isn't just for the purposes of making the game 'hardcore'- this permadeath element is actually a vitally important feature for the kind of game Spelunky is.
Spelunky is a game where you need to pay close attention to your surroundings at all times in order to do well. If you charge headfirst into it without a care, you will most certainly die to something pretty soon.
This playthrough of Spelunky lasted less than four seconds.
You need to form good habits and muscle memory, and need to memorise how each different enemy and trap behaves in order to do well.
Spelunky is a game in which you are constantly in danger, yet against all odds, it should always be possible to survive.
It's a game about reacting to the unpredictable situations, and creating ad-hoc solutions on the fly.
Without good knowledge of the game's mechanics, you're going to die, die and die again. But it's important to note that each failure is a valuable learning experience. Once you see how a certain enemy or trap works, you can take precautions to avoid it next time. You can learn from your mistakes. You will eventually develop good habits without even thinking about it.
A good example is with the arrow traps. A new player will undoubtedly get hit by one pretty much immediately after beginning a new game. It does two damage to your already low four hit points, which really drives home the point that these are traps to be avoided.
Arrow traps can be deadly to the hasty spelunker
The player will learn through observation that arrow traps will only fire once. They may also see monsters and falling items trigger the trap. The player will soon realise that they need to set off each arrow trap they come to before it hits them. And this is an example of the player learning how to survive in the game.
You might at first decide to always find a rock or something to throw in front of the trap, but with more experience, depending on the situation, you might want to lure an enemy into the trap, or use a bomb or rope to create a way around it.
There are other ways to avoid this trap that require maybe a bit more intricate knowledge of the game's mechanics - for example, if you go around holding one of the small rats that roam the mines, the arrow trap will kill it instead of you. Or if there's some nicely-positioned gold or items that you would usually collect when you move into it, you can actually whip it down to set off the trap before grabbing it. Finally, there's the option of actually just whipping the arrow out of the air mid-flight. This is a more advanced move as it requires good timing and is prone to failure.
Some skill needed, but perfectly possible
And this is all just regarding this one element, the arrow trap. There are all sorts of other enemies, traps and environmental obstacles that have their own quirks and mechanics which can create cool situations and force the invention of creative strategies.
This is the reason the game is so satisfying - you get to put all your accumulated knowledge and experience to use, and can use your gained skill to overcome the sometimes ridiculous challenges presented to you.
But the other thing about Spelunky is that it's not good enough to simply be careful or skillful. You have to be careful and skillful QUICKLY. Because after 2 minutes and 30 seconds spent inside a level, the music will slow and the environment becomes misty, and the Ghost will start heading towards you, instantly killing you if it touches you.
spoooooky
The Ghost can be dodged with some skill, but this is quite challenging if you haven't specifically planned your resource management around avoiding the Ghost.
One might think this is a harsh time limit, but in practice, the time is actually fairly generous, and when the Ghost arrives, it doesn't outright kill you, it just heavily incentivises you to hurry up.
This soft time limit turns Spelunky into a game that requires careful thought and planning, yet is also fairly fast-paced ...and that's exciting. It's exciting to play and fail, but it's especially exciting when you actually put your knowledge and quick reflexes to good use and actually manage to succeed.
While playing, there are a lot of interesting choices you have to make when it comes to managing resources. If you see a crate, is it worth it to spend a bomb to reach it?
Sweet deal, I spent one bomb to get a box of three!
What if something is in a very hard to reach spot? Do you have the skill to make it?
I could, for instance, use my knowledge of the bomb's timer and the possible throwing angles to perfectly get up to a tricky spot.
This is not a beginner maneuvre!
Since resources are usually scarce, using your accumulated skills to gain an advantage despite the sometimes very disadvantageous situations the game puts you in can be a very satisfying thing to accomplish.
So that's why Spelunky is so satisfying to learn and play.
But from what I say, it sounds rather inaccessible to newcomers, doesn't it? Well, despite how hard the game might seem from my above description, Spelunky actually does a really nice job in allowing the unskilled player some leeway in learning the game.
The first level of any run through the game is guaranteed to have no 'special' features that sometimes randomly appear in all other levels, and instead just consists of standard terrain, traps and enemies, which is very useful for becoming acclimatised to the base game mechanics.
But other than that, there's actually a great system in place that can allow a new player the chance to feel like they are making good progress - the Tunnel Man and his shortcuts.
Entrances to the shortcuts
The game is divided up into four areas - the Mines, the Jungle, the Ice Caves and the Temple. Each area has four levels, which means that the game is 16 levels long from start to finish (though visiting certain hidden areas can change this).
A new player may find it hard at first to even leave the Mines and reach the Jungle without dying each time - but after some practice and learning, if the player manages to clear Mines 1-4, they will meet the Tunnel Man just before entering Jungle 2-1, who tells the player he is digging tunnels, but needs a few resources to help him out. He asks the player for a few bombs. If you give them to him, he says thanks and goes on his merry way.
This is quite the excellent system at making this game accessible - it gives the struggling player a goal that is actually attainable within their skill level. It is very unlikely that a player will be able to stay alive for very long when they first start out, so setting the goal of JUST needing to complete the Mines means that they can feel like they're making significant progress even though they will ultimately end up dying anyway.
The Jungle is also home to many different enemies and traps that are not found in the Mines - so the resulting shortcut is also extremely useful for allowing the player to practice surviving in this new environment without needing to pass through four levels of Mines every time just to see it.
After unlocking the Jungle shortcut, the Tunnel Man will appear in the same way at the end of Jungle 2-4, right before the Ice Caves, asking for bombs and ropes like before. But for the third item, he asks for a shotgun.
Asking for a shotgun instead of money gives the player an interesting challenge that very subtly invites the player to explore different aspects of the game they may not have attempted before. The shotgun is sometimes found randomly if you're lucky, but it usually is only found in possession of the Shopkeepers. In this game, shops will appear, and you can use the loot you find to purchase the items they sell.
If for any reason you anger the Shopkeeper - for example you try to steal an item, or you try to attack him - he will immediately retalliate by shooting you dead with his shotgun. It is of course possible to outsmart the Shopkeepers, by luring them into deadly spike pits, or by throwing bombs from a safe distance, for example. And once they're dead, you're free to steal their stuff and take their shotgun.
Shoplifting AND murder!
By asking for a shotgun to complete the Ice Caves shortcut, the Tunnel Man is inviting the player to explore this interaction. Usually this won't end well for the unprepared adventurer, but learning how the shopkeepers behave is a very important part of the game nonetheless. (especially since they can occasionally become angry through no fault of the player)
Enraged shopkeepers have a remarkable ability to dodge bullets and kill you.
Messing with them is not for the faint-hearted!
Of course, if dealing with angry shopkeepers is too troublesome, the game has other ways of allowing the player to pass this challenge - shotguns can be found for sale in shops sometimes, and a shotgun is guaranteed to appear in any Jungle level where "the dead are restless" (a randomly-appearing type of level full of undead monsters), allowing the player to complete the Tunnel Man's task in a less difficult way if they want to. Regardless of how this task was completed, however, the player has still acquired some useful knowledge and experience from it.
The Ice Caves area itself is actually remarkably different compared to the Mines and Jungle - it's a lot more open, with much less contiguous floor, and it has a bottomless pit stretching across the bottom. The shortcut to this area can give the player the chance to learn how to navigate this very different environment. However, with the small amount of starting resources you get when beginning a new game, starting from the Ice Caves may prove to be quite the challenge.
The Tunnel Man appears again three times at the end of Ice Caves 3-4, asking the player for bombs, ropes and lastly, a key.
The only key in this game is the golden key found in the Mines, which opens the locked chest that appears elsewhere in the same level.
The Tunnel Man is asking the player to, instead of using it to unlock the chest, bring the key all the way from the Mines to the end of the Ice Caves. This is the Tunnel Man's final challenge, and it's considered the most difficult one. The player at this point needs to be good enough to get through the three areas carefully without dying or losing the key. The player also can't carry other items or weapons through the door at the end of each level, since their hands are occupied with the key. It can be quite tricky to many players, and it may take many attempts, but once they manage it, they are rewarded with the shortcut to the Temple, the fourth and final area of the game.
The Temple is by far the most dangerous of the four main areas, so having the shortcut available is a great way to learn all of its deadly traps and hazards without the need to come from the Ice Caves each time.
If the player wants nothing more than to beat the game, all they really need to do is to start at the Temple, clear three Temple levels and beat Olmec on 4-4. But by using the shortcut, you're starting right at the end-game with only four bombs, four ropes, four HP, and no upgrades at all, which is for the most part a death wish. These low resources are okay at the beginning within the relatively straightforward Mines - but the Temple is just too full of traps to reliably survive without having obtained some useful items already... unless you're exceptionally skilled.
So this means the shortcut is, on the whole, not exactly practical if the player wants to actually win for once.
Despite the shortcuts not being too useful for attaining victory, the player's ability to unlock each shortcut demonstrates significant progress in what the player is capable of doing, even if they have yet to actually finish a game without dying. The Jungle shortcut demonstrates the player's ability to make progress in the world of Spelunky without dying for multiple levels in a row. The Ice Caves shortcut demonstrates the ability for the player to recognise the practical use for the various items and weapons they can find. The Temple shortcut demonstrates the player's ability to start from the beginning and reach fairly far into the game, making use of their knowledge of the traps and enemies to stay alive.
The player's next goal after finishing the last shortcut is likely to beat Olmec on Temple 4-4 and win. While this is in itself a difficult and monumental task, it's not even close to the end of the line when it comes to becoming more skilled at Spelunky.
...But that's all I feel like talking about today.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete