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[Hempuli‽]

I have some ideas for a few little new items, but as I've said before, feel free to suggest anything; it'd be really good to hear what could be changed.

[Hempuli‽]

Double-post alert

I updated the game, it has now new things (not many though).

Let's put a log here:
-You can attack while holding the umbrella
-New 'secret' item added
-Bugfixes
-Stalactites added

[The North]

It'd be nice if you could stand on top of a ladder.

[Hempuli‽]

It'd be nice if you could stand on top of a ladder.

I'll do that tomorrow!

[sergiocornaga]

Jumping is pretty inaccurate sometimes, horizontal movement seems to work differently when in the air as opposed to when walking. Perhaps that could be fine-tuned a little? To explain what I mean a little better, I would have difficulty jumping to either the left or the right in the diagram below:







Also, I would like to be able to sell some of those secret items...

[TheDustin]

I played it a half-dozen times and I think it's pretty interesting. Spelunky is a new genre unto itself and I like your spin on it. I'll have to play it more to get a better feel for it, but I hope you keep on refining it. Once I get my thoughts down in a coherent fashion I'll give it a write-up. 

[bee sting]

I have achieved the first-place high score. After many, many playthroughs.

Jumping is pretty inaccurate sometimes, horizontal movement seems to work differently when in the air as opposed to when walking. Perhaps that could be fine-tuned a little? To explain what I mean a little better, I would have difficulty jumping to either the left or the right in the diagram below:







Also, I would like to be able to sell some of those secret items...

In one sense, what you're describing is one of the most frustrating parts of the game. Yet the difficulty in landing those jumps can also be considered a big part of the strategy of the game. You have to dig down in such a way that you don't have to make those jumps. I think it works for the player to be responsible for avoiding tight crevices and other similar dangers.

Some suggestions:

The hand of midas should be more valuable. Trying to kill monsters while holding the hand is just not worth it. Maybe it could cause gold to drop from regular digging blocks occasionally.

Trying to bring the cursed idol back to the top is more fun than trying to bring the actual idol to the top; the lightning is more challenging to avoid than the lava. There should be a timer on the cursed idol as you approach getting struck, though. Maybe the idol blinks when you hold it, and the blinking gets more rapid until you get struck by the lightning. The blinking could be associated with a beeping noise like the udjat eye in spelunky. Also, maybe the cursed idol should be out in the open, not hidden like the other items.

Question: how often do the awesome bosses occur? It should be pretty frequently, considering most plays end in death before they're even reached.

[Hempuli‽]

sergiocornaga: Yes. This is the worst thing in the game, and it sucks hard, but I'm finding it also very hard to find a cure to it. I'm trying all the time, though!

the secret items were meant more as useful than good-to-be-sold, so I don't currently like the idea that they'd give money. On the other hand, the idol gives money already, so uh. I'm thinking about that.

bee sting: This far it has been thought to be worthy enough as it is. It also encourages the player to approach the enemies! I don't personally think it should be buffed.

You're right about the idol; I find the lightning rather amusing, too. But I don't think there should be any clearer marks showing when the lightnings going to strike; it strikes the position you were on when it started blinking, anyway, so you can quite easily escape.
But could you think of any ways to make the lava part more interesting? The idol could indeed at least be hidden differently, and perhaps a bit deeper down, too.

The possibility for the bigger boss to appear is 1/20, and for the smaller it's 2/20. I think of adding more 'bosses' in, though, so that may change!

TheNorth: Standing on a ladder has proven out to be a hard thing to code! I'm trying this, though.

[The North]

Yeah, being a programmer myself, I understand how hard it is to add features to a platformer that you weren't planning for.  Depending on how you coded it, it could even take a total rewrite or a whole new class of objects.

Regarding the jumping into a one high block, I don't think it's that big of a problem.  I even agree with bee sting that it's part of the challenge to make sure you don't get yourself into those situations.  I wouldn't even mind if it was changed from "really hard to get into" to "impossible to get into", because at least then there'd be some consistency to plan for.

That being said, there are generally two solutions to the problem:
-Make jumping height variable, thus you don't move quite as fast and can get into the hole.
-Make your collision box smaller, so you never fall more pixels in a single frame than the difference between your height and the dirt tile's height.

Both these solutions address the problem directly, because the problem is that you're moving too many pixels in a single frame, so there's no one frame where you could fit into the hole.

[Hempuli‽]

Good suggestions! I already did some fix to it, and now you'd be able to fit to the hole at least while falling. I don't think I can fix it totally with the engine as it is now, so your suggestions are really welcomed, thanks!

As a nice update, I made up a Blog in order for people to see more easily where the game is going; hopefully I can use it for other stuff as well, though! :D Anyhoo, I'll be updating the game quite rapidly with new features and bugfixes, so I suggest that you check the blog sometimes (hopefully I remember to update it too ).

[bee sting]

Springboards are wacky, but they don't serve any practical gameplay purpose (so far as I can tell). Maybe replace them with a ranged weapon that is very limited in quantity, like a dart that can be thrown left or right?

The lava could move faster, maybe speed up as it goes along, to pose more of an endgame challenge.

[Hempuli‽]

They can be used to get away from shafts, but yeah, they have more a comical purpose. I don't think that I'll take them away, though, but that dart idea is quite nice!

I agree that the lava is kinda slow, even after I speeded it up. I'll look into that.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Whoo, congratulations on bringing this together!! I need to find a windows machine and get in on this action! :D

edit: I played it this morning, I love it! I've played a few games like this before so I'm familiar with the 'genre' but I think you did a great job of it. The music is cool too, and you really nailed the aesthetic.

It would be nice if the high score boards grouped scores with unique named (or unique machine IDs) so that more people could get into the top ten.

[Hempuli‽]

Whoo, congratulations on bringing this together!! I need to find a windows machine and get in on this action! :D

edit: I played it this morning, I love it! I've played a few games like this before so I'm familiar with the 'genre' but I think you did a great job of it. The music is cool too, and you really nailed the aesthetic.

It would be nice if the high score boards grouped scores with unique named (or unique machine IDs) so that more people could get into the top ten.

Thanks! But what do you mean by 'grouped scores with unique named (or unique machine IDs)'? The scores now go in order from biggest to smallest, and I don't know how that could be changed. :O

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Oh, well it would probably be best if it ignored additional scores from the same person.

[Hempuli‽]

I'd need someone to code that for me! 
I suck at PHP. The scoreboard was created using a tutorial.

[Hempuli‽]

There's a new version out, 1.14. I think I'll make one more new version after this one, for there isn't much to add anymore. After the final version I'll of course fix all the bugs reported, but I don't think I'll add anymore content. Some of the changes in the last version will be quite radical, though!

Changelog (when compared to the first version):
You can attack while holding the umbrella
-New ’secret’ item added
-You accelerate now a tad bit faster
-Stalactites added
-The way lava works is changed
-the enemies shouldn’t keep moving when they’re flattened now
-There’s one new enemy
-A bug regarding digging upwards/downwards fixed
-The lava raises a bit faster now! Hee hee
-The cursed idol is a bit easier to be noticed
-Fixed an energy-related bug!
-Press Control + M to mute/unmute music
-Press Control + N to mute/unmute sound effects
-bugfix on the stalactites. They still sometimes seem to get stuck in a weird manner, I have no idea what causes that. :/
-Added one secret item! It’s kinda hard to find, but it sure is useful!
-Fixed the bug about red dragon duplicating itself
-Added a new enemy!

Get the new version from here!

[Hempuli‽]

Triple post, I'm sorry.
Just finished the (hopefully) final version of the game, v. 1.2.
I suggest you try it out in case you didn't enjoy the way you had to move back and forth in the earlier versions. There's also a whole new secret thing added, along with the other secrets.

Changelog:
-Shop system changed
-New item in the shop
-New enemy
-Stalactites should now work without flaws
-Some order-related issues fixed
-New *secret*
-It's now easier to see where the hidden objects are, though just a bit.

BOINGA!

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Boinga in my pants!

Going to try it out now! :D

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Whoo, I hit 25k!  24th in the scoreboard! I love this game, and I'm really fond of the mono graphic aesthetic.