Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on 2D indie platformer-ish things with our final episode on Spelunky. Tim talks a little bit about Derek Yu's book, the rigor and how the game just plays different, as well as Brett dipping into spoiler territory for Tim's benefit, before we turn to takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
To Ice Mines (Tim)
Podcast breakdown:
00:00:47 Game discussion
59:05 Break
59:45 Takeaways
Issues covered: the opening song, music in later levels and its fitness, applying movement mechanics to different challenges, procedural metrics, fall distances, hanging vs standing in one state, getting into the mental state of what your equipment is, not panicking, playing with a heart monitor, living in present vs future, the specialness of the daily challenge, reps and exercise, fighting games and muscle memory, consistency of the rules, using ropes to drop from your height, always be carrying, getting right up to the edge and dropping your carry, getting into the book, making all objects consistent, sacrifice spoiler talk, golden path spoiler talk, turkeys, going beyond your genre, what's a roguelike/lite, personality coming through, unleashing creativity, pursuing consistency throughout, games that say yes/and or yes/but, embracing a roguelite's purity, trusting the game and not minding failure, getting to depth, choosing the right run length, the risk of dilution.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Nintendo, Indiana Jones, Prince of Persia, Final Fantasy (series), Dark Souls (series), Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven, KyleAndError, Hollow Knight, Calamity Nolan, Quake, Artimage, Boss Fight Books, Nick Suttner, Shadow of the Colossus, Sebastian Deken, Aquaria, Dwarf Fortress, The Evil Dead, PlayStation Vita, Fez, Cave Story, Daisuke Amaya, Earthbound, Pokemon, Derek Yu, mossmouth, Super Mario Bros, Outer Wilds, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Next time:
TBA