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[Cymon]

- In lieu of a shortcut man between areas 3 and 4, I'd like to submit that the main character hacks out a passage to the main menu. It would take something like 30 hacks, and each time he passed by he'd do # hacks equal to his health.
- Every hundred player deaths, some art gets added to the main menu, like a canopy/fireplace/hammock. If the main character's going to die so many times, he'd better make himself comfortable, right?

I endorse the two ideas presented in the quoted text.

Also, jumping on an enemy kills them, but having them hit your feet while you're standing, like on a ladder or ledge, doesn't kill them. I'd like to see it work either way. I guess I'm trained by years of Mario.

[Caio]

- Every hundred player deaths, some art gets added to the main menu, like a canopy/fireplace/hammock. If the main character's going to die so many times, he'd better make himself comfortable, right?

This is a ridiculously cool idea. :D I'd suggest making it so that the items are added every time the player wins the game from the beginning, so that suicidal maniacs won't be rewarded.

[Anarkex]

As a frequent player of both roguelikes and platformers I absolutely love this game. I only played it for one night, but I played a good 60 rounds and am currently raging at the sudden difficulty spike at level 5.

I'm actually surprised people are complaining about the ghost, plenty of games before have employed similar gimmicks and I always felt they do a good job at keeping the player moving. I've only gotten killed by the ghost once, and it was on purpose.

One time, I picked up a girl in a kissing parlor, and when I put her back down she ran out the door and I got killed for stealing...

Also after playing La Mulana for so long I was a little put out that the whip doesn't have an over-your-head hitbox when it's winding up. It's no big deal tho.

My only suggestions are as follows: that (and this may be only a personal thing) since cash was basically the only commodity the game felt a little off-kilter compared to others that rate your hunger, thirst, tiredness and that maybe adding a couple more mechanics (like say, an inventory screen, multiple hands, or a method to send items back to a storeroom) would help alleviate that. Most of the challenge in the game as it is is just not getting raped by giant spiders and bats.

A way to identify what different items do would also be really helpful, but the whole "find out for yourself" is a pretty big aspect of these sorts of games and it's better to not do it at all than to overdo it.

I still haven't nearly beaten this game yet, and I'm having a ton of fun with it. Nothing in it really bothers me, so consider these suggestions just things to think about in the case of a sequel or for some hapless reader to think about if they were to make a similar game. This game does an excellent job of melding aspects of different kinds of games into something new and interesting without making it horribly intimidating...I just hope this style of game doesn't end here.

[post edited slightly for format]

[Vinnnt]

Gotten worse at the game overnight. Mental note: never sleep, ever again.


On another note, bomb/rope-required passages piss me off, but we get four of each at the start of the game, so I've just got my bombs-away habits to blame.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Ever since the first update I haven't had any real problems with the ghost. I would still appreciate the ability to stun it though, or maybe just throw the girl to it as a temporary sacrifice...  I like the urgency it creates, but sometimes it feels a bit cheap.  Oh, and it's annoying when it kills you immediately from the side of the area you're on - some broader area visual effect might be appreciated?

[Navineous]

Gotten worse at the game overnight. Mental note: never sleep, ever again.


On another note, bomb/rope-required passages piss me off, but we get four of each at the start of the game, so I've just got my bombs-away habits to blame.

That's happened to me before.

[Hyouko]

Having great fun with Spelunky, though the fourth area is giving me trouble.  I've run into three bugs so far - one show-stopper, two annoyances.  Probably the first, at the least, has already been mentioned, so apologies in advance.

- The game crashes with an "unable to find surface" error (I think) following restoration from screensaver, at least on Vista.  This is mostly only a problem when playing with gamepad controls, since gamepad key presses don't register in delaying the screensaver.
- In the fourth area, once got caught sliding very slowly across the thin platforms at the top of the ladders; I got control back once Indy hit the far edge of the platform.
- (Spoilers!) Using a rope to nail a UFO-baddy above me caused this glitch.  The rope was still partially usable.  When I tried to duplicate the glitch later, the anchor-point for the rope was bumped out of place (up and to the right), but there was no graphical glitch.

[lecarl]

Has anyone else found the Black Market?  I really don't know what it is because I was an idiot and died.  My experience with it was that I was on the jungle levels and I bombed a random spot in the ground and I uncovered a hidden exit.  After going through the door, I went to a level called "The Black Market".  I could see four shops on the screen but also several enemies.  The enemies chased me into one of the shops and I tried to whip it but then the shopkeeper blew me away.  I was only on the level for about 5 seconds.  Is it just a place with lots of shops or are the shops cheaper?  I don't know.  Interesting though.

[Caio]

Has anyone else found the Black Market? [...] Is it just a place with lots of shops or are the shops cheaper?

It's a bunch of regular stores, plus one that sells something special.

[Neddo]

Does anyone know what that "something special" actually does?  I have found the Black Market twice; the first time I did not have enough money for that item, and the other time I accidentally threw it at the shopkeeper instead of buying it (which, in a level filled with shopkeepers, did not end well at all).

[Navineous]

Check this out. Two bad parts in a level in one. A Speared girl and a hard to end exit.
Btw, As you see two windows open. That is because I have a dual screen. (Two screens)
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/3412/omgcw6.png

[Radnom]

Those exits are fine - the moment you press up you're invincible.

[Mr. Yes]

A lot of new members seem to be coming here just because of Spelunky (at least that's how it appears, with all the manbabies posting here). And, damn, 41 pages.

To top it all off, take a look at the "who's online" page. That's a lot of Spelunky.

[Ghegs]

A lot of new members seem to be coming here just because of Spelunky (at least that's how it appears, with all the manbabies posting here).

One more here.

Yes, had to register and voice my adoration for the game. As much as I enjoy roguelikes I'm not very good at them and they're bit slow-paced to my liking, but this game caters more to my platforming tastes. And I even like the NES Spelunker, so it works out nicely. I'm hoping the game will eventually have that "The developer(s) thought of EVERYTHING"-thing going on. With that in mind...

As reading 40 pages is a task I'm just not able to undertake at the moment, these suggestions and bug reports might be duplicates. Apologies.

I think the darts should stick to walls after being fired. Just barely dodging a dart-trap in a crowded space only to have the damn thing bounce off the wall and hit you anyway is rather annoying.

A counter of some sorts that keeps track of how many minutes/hours/days/weeks one has wasted spent with the game in total would be nice. I just always like it when games have statistics.

Some bugs I've discovered:

One time there was one of those sometimes pushable blocks in the space above the exit. I was carrying the girl, but she just wouldn't go to the exit while I was carrying her. When I went there myself (while carrying the girl) she got left behind.

Jumping on a carnivorous plant with the idol in hand killed me, even though the plant did get stunned.

After grabbing the idol and evading the large boulder I followed it, and discovered it had neatly landed on top of the snakepit, effectively blocking the access. As I wanted to go down there, I went to blow up a path next to the boulder, and upon trying to escape the blast found out that jumping on top of the boulder is much, much harder than expected. Basically, I had to tap the jump button like crazy to get anywhere, the character seemed to sink into the boulder. Not sure if that's intentional, but it doesn't seem to make much sense.

Alright, back to playing...

EDIT: Heh, the very next game after typing all that left me with another question. Are the shortcuts supposed to be a one-off thing? The previous time I played I opened up the first shortcut and tried it out...and now it's gone. I thought it'd be a constant thing even between games since the money given to the tunnel guy is.

[TTT]

Excellent game, possibly my new favourite among Derek's games, and yes, it's surprisingly addicting (in your face, World of Warcraft!). So far, I can only think of two major things that could make it even more addicting:

• (I'm not entirely sure that this mechanic isn't already implemented in the game.) I think it might be interesting if the game had another non-arcade element - Knight of Knights style character saving. It works like this: sometimes (approximately once per two hours of playing, for example), you can find a very rare saving thingy (a portal / tunnel would work in Spelunky IMO, Knight of Knights uses a special stone) in the dungeon (usually somewhere deep). When you use it, you are warped back to the main menu, forfeiting the current game and probably losing all your loot, but keeping all your items (compass etc. and current item in hands). From now on, everytime you start the game (in the usual manner - you can't warp back to the underground portal), you begin with this equipment, unless you use another saving thingy and overwrite this "progress".
  I'm not sure how well this would work with only a single character in the game (Knight of Knights has seven) and with the (spoiler).
• Co-op multiplayer! It can hardly make a game worse, after all. I'm not a fan of splitscreen but either way, there would probably be some problems with Spelunky's low resolution. Perhaps add a player controlled pet (similarly to Sonic, Bomberman 64 etc.)? Although I'd love to see a proper co-op archeologist game.