Rom Mojica's review of Spelunky (Boss Fight Books, #11) (original) (raw)

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Rom Mojica's Reviews > Spelunky

Spelunky by Derek Yu

Spelunky (Boss Fight Books, #11)
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A perfectly cromulent book. Kind of comes off like a GDC talk that got turned into a book - a good but somewhat surface dive into the development of Spelunky that also serves as a sort of personal manifesto for Derek Yu's own design philosophy. It's fun to read because Spelunky is just such a fun game to think about, so having the creator guide you through aspects of it and how it came to be is a nice little treat. Definitely made me want to stop reading at several points just to fire up the game again and check out something he'd been discussing.

IMO the games he discusses as the influence on not only Spelunky but his design philosophy in general aren't really that surprising - your _Legend of Zelda_s. your Hack, and of course Rogue, games heavy on discovery and unique-feeling interactions that come about from the systems working together. While stories about how these games included like, punishments for overeating are fun to read about, it's definitely Derek's story about the time he saved a troll from a pit just to see what would happen that had me nodding my head. That's the good shit, man. As much as I do enjoy games with more limited interactions and less like, system discoverability, reading about things like this, about pushing against a game and seeing how it responds and how it can surprise you, really gets into what the strength of this medium can be. I remember on an early episode of Remap Radio, they were talking about a game and one of the hosts, Ren, said something like "so this is how you tell stories about this game" and it really stuck with me. Not every game works like that, but the ones that do really feel special in some way. While I'm not really here to review the hit video game Spelunky I think you can see how he managed to capture a good deal of that in the game he made.

There's also something interesting in the way the influence evolves too. When he was making the first Zelda game, Shigeru Miyamoto was basing it off of how, as a kid, he would explore the countryside near his home and the vivid memory he has of the time he found a cave and the curiosity he had about what was in it. He talks about wanting to instill that feeling the players of the game. Derek talk about playin the original Zelda in a similar way - that it was an after school activity he enjoyed doing, that sense of discovery he got from it, and it made a huge impression on him. And now here he is later, making a game in part based on the feeling he got from a game about exploring a fictional world based on exploring the real world. No real point here to put a cap on this thought, just curious how the influence evolved over time!

Probably my favorite part was Derek talking about "the chain," the hidden difficulty path that he put in the game, and his general philosophy around difficulty in games. There's a kind of "it's difficult but it's very fair to you, since the entire world follows the same rules you do" thing to Spelunky that certainly takes some getting used to, but once you do, well, the game becomes something you can have fun telling stories about, mostly about the hilarious deaths you're suffering. So you find the fun, but then, the game's got its own other secret level of difficulty that you can add to it optionally. The fact that he added it in and didn't hint anything about it is a lot of fun too, and while I'm sad I wasn't there to be part of the like initial community that discovered it, even knowing what the chain is and how to do it, it's still a level of difficulty that I'm not capable of achieving. But every time I get that Udjat Eye.... I wonder if, maybe...

The story he told about the initial playtester who left a (rude) message about how the game was too difficult, but then would continue to leave (rude) messages where he'd mention that he was still playing it and getting better and further, was really interesting too. And while the player kept asking for an easy mode, Derek didn't want to add one and felt vindicated as the guy kept coming back and improving. Which I think also says a lot about the difficulty he worked to create and how well he managed to walk a pretty thin line between "too difficult, makes me want to quit" and "too easy, so the repetition isn't that fun." Lord knows I haven't completed a run, but I still keep feeling the draw to return!

Anyways yeah it's a fine book and it's a super breeze to get through. It's probably not that surprising that the creator of the game manages to walk through what he thinks is so good about it, but he does it in such a compelling way. It seems like it would be fun to just ask him questions about various things and he'd have some fun answers for how it all came together. I probably am gonna go check out and see if there's a GDC talk now actually. I just _Spelunky_-pilled myself and only have myself to blame.

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Reading Progress

August 27, 2024 –Started Reading

September 4, 2024 –Finished Reading

September 5, 2024 – Shelved

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