

Spelunky has proven especially popular among other game developers (don't be surprised if it's your favorite game designer's favorite game). This "HD" version was exclusive to Xbox Live Arcade for a little over one year. Yu, with the help of programmer Andy Hull, released a significantly revamped commercial version of the game in July 2012. Originally created by Derek Yu, Spelunky was first released in 2008 as a freeware game. People will still be playing Spelunky years from now, just you wait. It's endlessly replayable, and its skill ceiling is intimidatingly high. In a sense, the game is kind of like a 21st-century sport. Sure, other video games reward those virtues too, but few games foreground them as clearly as Spelunky. Spelunky rewards patience, practice and discipline. The game is brutal, but you do get better over time, learning from each death. You lose all of your progress and items, and must restart from the beginning.Īnd oh, how easy it is to die! The unrelenting difficulty is the core appeal of Spelunky. Inspired by roguelikes like NetHack, Spelunky doesn't let you save your game. Many players never make it past the game's first two worlds, and only a tiny fraction ever make it to Hell, the game's secret fifth and final world. Like, we're talking infamously difficult. Unlike Mario, however, it's procedurally generated, which means the levels are different every time you play. Spelunky is a platformer game, kind of like Super Mario Bros. If you can't be fussed to watch the entire thing, start at ~35:50 - that's when Bananasaurus Rex ("Rex" for short) gets the Ball and Chain and things start getting crazy.įor those of you who don't know much about Spelunky, or who didn't know about the game's ultra-obscure Eggplant item, let's start with some background context.
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I'll embed some play-by-play highlights below, but the full video is oozing with gripping gameplay drama worth viewing in its own right. If you're already versed in the world of Spelunky, start this journey by watching the run yourself. But as I see it, Bananasaurus Rex's feat is an important, downright historic achievement - not just for Spelunky, but for games at large.Īt its core, the solo Eggplant run is a thrilling story about how livestreaming is changing video games in radical and exciting ways how the internet has finally triumphed over Spelunky's creators, Derek Yu and Andy Hull how mastery can lead to a beautiful kind of performance, showcasing the value of gaming as human culture. If you're not a Spelunky junkie, the words "solo Eggplant run" won't mean very much to you. 10, 2013, a man who goes by Bananasaurus Rex performed a genuine video game miracle.
