Delving into the differences between Spelunker and Spelunky
Welcome to Living in the Past, a weekly column about what's new in old games. Now get off our lawn.
I'm a fan of the genre of game that I can best encapsulate as "people dying in caves." For whatever reason, there's a subset of sidescrolling platformers that puts players in the role of an archaeologist or other explorer, navigating subterranean tunnels full of deadly creatures, traps of unknown origin, and always, always spikes.
Examples of this genre include Cave Story, La-Mulana, and Aban Hawkins & The 1000/1001 Spikes, all published (or almost published) by cave game fans at Nicalis. Other examples include the two games I want to talk about, which share a lot of DNA but diverge in interesting ways: Mossmouth's brilliant Spelunky, and one of the progenitors of the genre, Spelunker (and its modern-ish sequel Spelunker HD). Spelunker was first released way back in 1983 as an Atari computer game; it later found success and infamy in arcades and on the NES.
Mossmouth's XBLA game has been a critical success since its release in July, and was beloved as a freeware PC game before that. Conversely, most people don't have anything nice to say about Spelunker, and I think my appreciation of the PS3 sequel puts me in a fairly elite club. However, that club most assuredly includes Spelunky creator Derek Yu.
I'm a fan of the genre of game that I can best encapsulate as "people dying in caves." For whatever reason, there's a subset of sidescrolling platformers that puts players in the role of an archaeologist or other explorer, navigating subterranean tunnels full of deadly creatures, traps of unknown origin, and always, always spikes.
Examples of this genre include Cave Story, La-Mulana, and Aban Hawkins & The 1000/1001 Spikes, all published (or almost published) by cave game fans at Nicalis. Other examples include the two games I want to talk about, which share a lot of DNA but diverge in interesting ways: Mossmouth's brilliant Spelunky, and one of the progenitors of the genre, Spelunker (and its modern-ish sequel Spelunker HD). Spelunker was first released way back in 1983 as an Atari computer game; it later found success and infamy in arcades and on the NES.
Mossmouth's XBLA game has been a critical success since its release in July, and was beloved as a freeware PC game before that. Conversely, most people don't have anything nice to say about Spelunker, and I think my appreciation of the PS3 sequel puts me in a fairly elite club. However, that club most assuredly includes Spelunky creator Derek Yu.
