#derek yu

[fictionz]

That good friction.

[mendelpalace]

Cave Story fanart by Derek Yu, circa 2005

[emilicorail]

The Cathedral of Mithalas

This room belonged to a young prince of Mithalas.

Were these people my ancestors?

Or did I merely wish – desperately – to be one of them.

The princess of Mithalas had lived here.

I wondered, if I'd been her once upon a time.

I fancied myself ruling here in ages past with a faithful prince at my side.

[tinysamm]

While the player has access to standard jumping, climbing, and whipping as a set of unlimited interactions in Spelunky, three major abilities limited by either inventory or objects on hand are also available to them that can aid their advancement through levels as well. These are 1) using Bombs, which can both damage enemies and break apart multiple stone blocks in a single blast, 2) using Ropes, which let players climb straight up without need for a ladder or foothold, and 3) throwing Objects, which can set off traps, damage enemies, or in the case of certain treasures, make traversing the levels all the easier when not on hand.

[arconinternet]

Booger Bungee (Windows 3.1, Derek Yu/Blackeye Software, 1998)

Yes, Derek "Spelunky" Yu. This year marks this game's 25th anniversary! You can play it in your browser here. The instructions are here. Read the fifth bullet point in this post from Derek to learn a possible reason for making an entire game out of a single Earthworm Jim level.

Tip: after emulation starts, be patient, then click the emulated desktop to gain focus and drag the windows into proper view and change their layering order as needed.

[nuclearlala]

some doodles i did for spelunky 2! Spelunky HD was one of my favorite games that i never really talked about, hell I don’t think i ever drew anything for it either? But with the sequel imma change that!

[everygame]

Spelunky (PlayStation Vita) 

Developed/Published by: Mossmouth Released: 27/08/2013 Completed: 18/09/2020 Completion: Ironman, baby! Trophies / Achievements: 38%

So obviously with Spelunky 2 coming out I felt it was slightly ridiculous that I’d never beat Spelunky and I decided to go for it as hard as possible. And I definitely did, playing about 150 runs across a week with a break of a couple of days because it turns out that gripping the R button on the Vita started to fuck my wrist up pretty badly.

Playing Spelunky is… well, it’s interesting, right? It’s probably the closest I’ve got in a long time to that classic experience of playing a hard game and just slowly… slowly… getting better and better at it even though you things repeatedly happen that you are 100% sure are completely unfair and shite. I mean honestly, I’m never going to be arsed to tough it through Ninja Gaiden or Battletoads or whatever without cheesing it, and at least partially it’s because it’s so boring to me to do the exact same things over and over. Now, I know for some people that’s the pleasure--getting something down to an exact science--but, you know, life’s too short. With Spelunky, at the very least I’m dealing with a different layout every time. Sure, you start to see the patterns, and absolutely sometimes it fucks you (love to have shopkeepers aggro’d by arrow traps pointing into their shops, etc. etc) but you’re always dealing with a new puzzle you have to use your hours of experience to solve. It was definitely something to feel myself start to pick up all the skills I needed, and expanding my vision, speeding my analysis, until I was able to make every run take some time even if I’d always, in the end, somehow manage to kill myself in the stupidest way possible.

(Interesting, too, that when I had to take that break when I returned I was immediately almost as shit I was at the beginning of the week.)

Is Spelunky good? Well, I’ve got hunners of stuff I’d quibble with: I don’t love the controls. I’m not crazy about the feel in general. I don’t honestly know if the balance is… balanced, or if we’ve just all come to terms with it. As above, the level generation can be absolutely wank.

And yet… like many of these iconic games, it seems absolutely absurd if I was to go “look, the arrow traps hitting you for 2 damage is bollocks” or “stun lock kills are fucking stupid.”

I mean, it’s all a matter of personal taste. I was reminded of Below when I returned to this, which has the same issue that *I* really hate one-hit kills when you’ve got… more hit points than that. Shit happens, I guess, but those are definitely the points where I’m like “fuck this.”

Speaking of that, I appreciate that they added a new mode to Below that was more of an action adventure. I wonder how much the Spelunky purists would be horrified to hear me say that I honestly think I’d enjoy playing Spelunky in a similar mode where you don’t feel the pressure to survive? To just experience the dungeon’s quirky emergences. (At the very least, get rid of the bloody ghost.) I think it’s fair to say “I’d just like to see all the content” but of course, I also think it might be fair to say “the content is the challenge” maybe.

I suppose the weirdest thing as well is that I assumed that after my struggles to beat it, the misery of dying over and over, I’d basically feel like I’d jizzed my pants when I ironmanned Spelunky, and yet when I beat it I felt… good? Maybe I’d simply overhyped it. I guess it was more about the journey.

Will I ever play it again? So obviously, there’s Hell to beat, and I got so used to playing this that I’m almost unclear what to do with myself. However, despite getting as far as getting everything to get to the city of gold (once, and not managing it) it’s simply too wank a task for me to ever want to do it.

(I say that, of course, but for some reason I’m researching how to consistently kill shopkeepers… man, this habit is hard to kick…)

Final Thought: Spelunky 2 looks wonderful, and I’m sure I’ll play it eventually (week before Spelunky 3 comes out, probably) but I’d play it faster, and probably like it more, if it did have a tourist mode. It is more about the journey!

[fancypantsrecords]

Eirik Suhrke - Spelunky Original Soundtrack | Fangamer | 2018 | Black & Gold Starburst