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Spelunky

Weekend Gaming, circa 2008

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Did you hear that the video game weblog, buttonmashing.com, is now on Twitter? So, in honor of finally getting involved in some Serious Social Media (follow us, why don’t ya!), this weekend’s gaming is a throwback.

While the Twitter account represents the site as a whole, our Managing Editor Nick has been running the Twitter account to great effect. Earlier this week, he tweeted about a minor issue I had with my PC — the power supply went kaput:

So I made the pilgrimage to Nerd Mecca, Micro Center. I picked up a new power supply (an EVGA 650 GQ) and started tinkering under the hood. Prior to the power supply failure, I had been dealing with issues with a hard drive I installed when I first built the PC. Might as well try to solve that problem while working on the power supply.

I think some cabling was loose, so after the power supply was installed and I got everything buttoned up, I booted the machine up and lo and behold the issues with the hard drive were gone. My precious gigs, which I thought were lost to the ages, were suddenly there. (They were empty gigs, but I have plans for them!). To test out the hard drive and make sure everything was copacetic, I picked a title out of my steam library that I knew wouldn’t need the speed and horsepower of the SSD that I could install to the old-school hard drive. I settled on reinstalling Recettear: An Item Shop Tale

recettear

I won’t bore you with the details of Recettear, only to say it’s a mashup of a simple hack-and-slash RPG and a Shopkeeper simulator. It’s very Japanese Cutesy and that’s all I’m going to say about that. I’m addicted and I’m not ashamed to say so. I think a good portion of this weekend’s gaming will be going towards making my Item Shop the Best Item Shop.

With all systems GO!, I decided to reinstall Spelunky on the newly fixed hard drive as well, inspired by one of Nick’s recent streams. I don’t quite rage like Nick can, but Spelunky is still a never ending stream of rage-inducing moments.

So welcome to 2008 this weekend! I’ll be your host, introducing you to such wonders as Indie Darlings Spelunky and Recettear, and give you an introduction to this new fangled social media site, Twitter dot com. Why won’t you join us on this trip down recent memory lane!

What will you be playing this weekend (2008 or not)?

In My Digital Hands

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This has been in my digital hands since Nat turned me on to this game almost three years ago, but the love has been reborn on the Xbox and I’m having a blast with this one, too.

If I was ambitious, I’d also list all the games I’ve been grabbing in the Steam Sale, but I’ve only added a few this time around. I am still holding out on buying The Walking Dead, but my willpower is running out.

My backlog, however, is not…

This Game You Should Play: Spelunky

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I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

Spelunky is spunky. Get ready for some rambling…Collect gold. Throw objects. Rescue women. Steal idols. Jump. Run. Fall. Throw women. Blow up caves. Buy items. Sacrifice women. Steal items. Die. Die. Die…and die again.

This is only the tip of what can be done with Derek Yu’s wonderful Windows masterpiece. If you think it, you can probably do it. Of course all of this is wrapped up in 8-bit graphics, sound, and music. Nostalgia wins big time here.

Death is something that happens frequently in this game. In many cases, it’s one hit one kill. Taking its cue form rogue-like games every gameplay session is random–and difficult. The fact that it’s different every time possibly is what makes this game so much fun. Frustrating at times, but fun.

The catch? Letting yourself go. Enjoy the experience. This is not a game you play to beat. It’s a game you play to play. Although it doesn’t have much of a narrative, there are little bits of humor in the various enemies, worlds, weapons, and items our hero can carry. Need some awesome swag and the store owner is selling to high. Kill him and take it all. Good luck though. It’s one of the more difficult things to do in the game.

Rescuing damsels in distress can net you one coveted health point via a simple kiss. However, sacrificing her to a god can get you a valuable item that makes gameplay easier. Of course, you can use her to spring traps as well. Let her absorb the arrow.

The point of the game is to descend deeper and deeper into a cave netting gold, gems, and idols along the way. Stealing an idol sets off an Indiana Jones boulder run. Getting to the next level with it nets major money.

There’s gold in them thar hills!

This game is difficult and brutal but it can be beaten. There are even a few challenges and secrets along the way. Just keep playing. The desire to won’t be hard after you’ve given it a spin.

It’s available right now on Windows for FREE and has become somewhat of an internet sensation. Derek is hoping to ride that success over to the consoles as he plans to release an XBLA version sometime this year.

He already has my gold.