Let's Play Spelunky
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My memory slipping away from me,
I dismounted my camel,
and felt the Gods smiling upon me.
So! Last time, we run through the tutorial, got a feel for how the game works.
Time to hit up the dungeon for real!
This is a fairly typical dungeon entrance. The dungeon is randomly generated every time, but usually doesn't look too different from this. Most of the stuff visible here was covered in the tutorial, but there are two new objects:
-Pot: To my left. can be used as a thrown weapon, but breaks upon impact. Frequeuntly has stuff inside it - sometimes a little treasure, but sometimes a snake or a spider.
-Bones: To my right. The skull can be picked up and used as a one-shot thrown weapon. Sometimes, when you get close, bone piles rise into hostile skeletons, so you have to keep your guard up.
Anyway, the objective is to go down, but I'm gonna go poke around a bit first. To the right, nothing. To the left:
See that little face embedded in the wall? That's an arrow trap. If anything moves in front of it, it fires an arrow that does 2 damage to whatever it hits. Considering I have four health at the moment, this is something I want to avoid.
However, with a ladder right there, I can take advantage of the fact that they're slightly oversensitive by creeping up to it until it fires prematurely.
Success! Once the trap has fired once, it's completely harmless.
My reward for my ingenuity: $2000 once I count in the gold bar behind that snake, and a rock, which is good because it's a powerful, reusable throwing weapon. Also, a quick new dungeon feature intro: Webs. When in the web, you move at half speed and don't fall or jump properly, leaving you more or less stuck in place. Jumping repeateldy weakens them, destroying the web after about 12 jumps while stuck in it.
This one, fortunately, can be ignored.
Rock in hand, I descend, and find something worthy of concern! Right below me and to the right: GIANT SPIDER. Those things wait on the ceiling until something goes under them, before they start jumping around and slinging webs. Definitely something I want to avoid, especially considering that they take a ton of whippings to kill. I'll tackle that issue when I get down another layer.
Bats hang around on the ceiling until you get to close, after which they start slowly flying straight towards you. Easy enough to deal with, although I accidentally threw a bomb in taking this screencap. Alas, but I might as well take advantage of the hole I made!
A couple stupid mistakes off-camera cost me both my rock (dropped off the right side of this island) and a point of health (lost to a bat). This leaves me in a bit of a situation. I can't approach the spider without setting off the arrow trap to my left, and I can't throw a bomb at this angle without hitting it directly, which would likely provoke its wrath.
For now, I'll just keep heading down, but I DO want to kill that thing.
I didn't need to use a rope to descend this far, but I do need it if I want to climb back up. And I do want to do this - why? Because I need my rock back. Arrow traps, after all...
...can be set off by ANYTHING that moves.
Now for the task of killing it without stepping into the space below it, which would cause it to swoop down to attack me. Fortunately, I have a plan. See those webs directly under it? They're probably there to trap prey, but they can also trap other things. Like, I dunno,
Bombs.
As I said before, bombs can destroy nearly any enemy with a single hit. That white thing flying off is my reward and reason for killing the spider - bomb powder. Once acquired, my bombs gain the very nice property of sticking to the first surface - or enemy - they touch.
Also, it drops a ruby, giving me some bonus cash. I could head left, but I'm gonna head to the right instead, because that's where the exit to the next floor is.
Now, this leaves me with a bit of a conundrum. Through the wall to the left is a supply crate, which could hold any number of things. Most common would be three ropes or three bombs. However, getting through would require a bomb blast, and I'd be caught in the blast too, unless I used a rope to climb out of this hole. It could technically still be worth it, but it might upset my balance of items, and it might have something useless, like a teleporter or a pitcher's glove...
This time, I decide not to risk it.
Here's a more properly populated post-level screen! Where there are two numbers, the leftmost one is how much time/money I spent/gained on that floor, and the right is my total so far. Money's not bad, kills are decent, time is bad, but that's because I'm going extra slow due to screencapping. This may be a problem, as bad things happen if I spend much more time than that on a dungeon floor.
On to floor 2!
Fairly harmless start to the floor. Note my rock, carried over from before - you can hold one object at a time, so you can carry one held thing between dungeon floors. I chose the rock.
To the left, we encounter something most exciting: A shop! Specifically, an armory, which stocks weapons. Let's go over what they've got, from left to right:
Shotgun ($15,000)
One of the best weapons in the game. Unlimited ammo, shoots six bullets in a tight spread that each do 2 damage. Unfortunately, I can't afford this.
Bag of Bombs ($2,500)
Three more bombs. Bombs and ropes are easy enough to find in the dungeon, so I'm not gonna spend money on this.
Web Cannon ($2,000)
This shoots out webs. Useful in a few specific circumstances, but not worth paying money for.
Pistol ($5,000)
A solid mid-range weapon. 2 damage, unlimited ammo. I think I'll buy it!
As a side note, since paying for items is done after picking them up, you CAN steal from shops - but it's not recommended 99% of the time. Shopkeepers don't take kindly to it, and they pack shotguns. Also, they hold a grudge, and will appear on the next dungeon floor, too, guarding the exit.
A couple new things here! Left of me is another spider, although the more common variety - it has the same attack pattern as its giant cousin, but it can be killed with a single whip hit - or bullet, in my case.
Lower down and left of the spider is one of the most deadly obstacles in the game - spikes. One can walk by them without any trouble, but falling down onto them from any even slightly reasonable distance is instantly fatal. One must always keep their wits about them near spikes. For now, being careful means not going near them at all, as I'm heading to the right.
Useful trick on bats: They don't start attacking unless you drop to below their elevation. If you can keep level with their ceiling roost, you can sneak up on them flawlessly.
The rest of this floor, as some exploration proves, is divided into two areas: One filled with unguarded treasure, and one filled with paltry rewards and tons of arrow traps. I look the former and ignore the latter.
Another good treasure haul! I'm a little concerned, though, about the lack of good items. Pistol aside.
Two floors down, fourteen to go!
<< | ^^ | >>
My memory slipping away from me,
I dismounted my camel,
and felt the Gods smiling upon me.
So! Last time, we run through the tutorial, got a feel for how the game works.
Time to hit up the dungeon for real!
This is a fairly typical dungeon entrance. The dungeon is randomly generated every time, but usually doesn't look too different from this. Most of the stuff visible here was covered in the tutorial, but there are two new objects:
-Pot: To my left. can be used as a thrown weapon, but breaks upon impact. Frequeuntly has stuff inside it - sometimes a little treasure, but sometimes a snake or a spider.
-Bones: To my right. The skull can be picked up and used as a one-shot thrown weapon. Sometimes, when you get close, bone piles rise into hostile skeletons, so you have to keep your guard up.
Anyway, the objective is to go down, but I'm gonna go poke around a bit first. To the right, nothing. To the left:
See that little face embedded in the wall? That's an arrow trap. If anything moves in front of it, it fires an arrow that does 2 damage to whatever it hits. Considering I have four health at the moment, this is something I want to avoid.
However, with a ladder right there, I can take advantage of the fact that they're slightly oversensitive by creeping up to it until it fires prematurely.
Success! Once the trap has fired once, it's completely harmless.
My reward for my ingenuity: $2000 once I count in the gold bar behind that snake, and a rock, which is good because it's a powerful, reusable throwing weapon. Also, a quick new dungeon feature intro: Webs. When in the web, you move at half speed and don't fall or jump properly, leaving you more or less stuck in place. Jumping repeateldy weakens them, destroying the web after about 12 jumps while stuck in it.
This one, fortunately, can be ignored.
Rock in hand, I descend, and find something worthy of concern! Right below me and to the right: GIANT SPIDER. Those things wait on the ceiling until something goes under them, before they start jumping around and slinging webs. Definitely something I want to avoid, especially considering that they take a ton of whippings to kill. I'll tackle that issue when I get down another layer.
Bats hang around on the ceiling until you get to close, after which they start slowly flying straight towards you. Easy enough to deal with, although I accidentally threw a bomb in taking this screencap. Alas, but I might as well take advantage of the hole I made!
A couple stupid mistakes off-camera cost me both my rock (dropped off the right side of this island) and a point of health (lost to a bat). This leaves me in a bit of a situation. I can't approach the spider without setting off the arrow trap to my left, and I can't throw a bomb at this angle without hitting it directly, which would likely provoke its wrath.
For now, I'll just keep heading down, but I DO want to kill that thing.
I didn't need to use a rope to descend this far, but I do need it if I want to climb back up. And I do want to do this - why? Because I need my rock back. Arrow traps, after all...
...can be set off by ANYTHING that moves.
Now for the task of killing it without stepping into the space below it, which would cause it to swoop down to attack me. Fortunately, I have a plan. See those webs directly under it? They're probably there to trap prey, but they can also trap other things. Like, I dunno,
Bombs.
As I said before, bombs can destroy nearly any enemy with a single hit. That white thing flying off is my reward and reason for killing the spider - bomb powder. Once acquired, my bombs gain the very nice property of sticking to the first surface - or enemy - they touch.
Also, it drops a ruby, giving me some bonus cash. I could head left, but I'm gonna head to the right instead, because that's where the exit to the next floor is.
Now, this leaves me with a bit of a conundrum. Through the wall to the left is a supply crate, which could hold any number of things. Most common would be three ropes or three bombs. However, getting through would require a bomb blast, and I'd be caught in the blast too, unless I used a rope to climb out of this hole. It could technically still be worth it, but it might upset my balance of items, and it might have something useless, like a teleporter or a pitcher's glove...
This time, I decide not to risk it.
Here's a more properly populated post-level screen! Where there are two numbers, the leftmost one is how much time/money I spent/gained on that floor, and the right is my total so far. Money's not bad, kills are decent, time is bad, but that's because I'm going extra slow due to screencapping. This may be a problem, as bad things happen if I spend much more time than that on a dungeon floor.
On to floor 2!
Fairly harmless start to the floor. Note my rock, carried over from before - you can hold one object at a time, so you can carry one held thing between dungeon floors. I chose the rock.
To the left, we encounter something most exciting: A shop! Specifically, an armory, which stocks weapons. Let's go over what they've got, from left to right:
Shotgun ($15,000)
One of the best weapons in the game. Unlimited ammo, shoots six bullets in a tight spread that each do 2 damage. Unfortunately, I can't afford this.
Bag of Bombs ($2,500)
Three more bombs. Bombs and ropes are easy enough to find in the dungeon, so I'm not gonna spend money on this.
Web Cannon ($2,000)
This shoots out webs. Useful in a few specific circumstances, but not worth paying money for.
Pistol ($5,000)
A solid mid-range weapon. 2 damage, unlimited ammo. I think I'll buy it!
As a side note, since paying for items is done after picking them up, you CAN steal from shops - but it's not recommended 99% of the time. Shopkeepers don't take kindly to it, and they pack shotguns. Also, they hold a grudge, and will appear on the next dungeon floor, too, guarding the exit.
A couple new things here! Left of me is another spider, although the more common variety - it has the same attack pattern as its giant cousin, but it can be killed with a single whip hit - or bullet, in my case.
Lower down and left of the spider is one of the most deadly obstacles in the game - spikes. One can walk by them without any trouble, but falling down onto them from any even slightly reasonable distance is instantly fatal. One must always keep their wits about them near spikes. For now, being careful means not going near them at all, as I'm heading to the right.
Useful trick on bats: They don't start attacking unless you drop to below their elevation. If you can keep level with their ceiling roost, you can sneak up on them flawlessly.
The rest of this floor, as some exploration proves, is divided into two areas: One filled with unguarded treasure, and one filled with paltry rewards and tons of arrow traps. I look the former and ignore the latter.
Another good treasure haul! I'm a little concerned, though, about the lack of good items. Pistol aside.
Two floors down, fourteen to go!
<< | ^^ | >>