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The computer game "Spelunky"
Photo: 2008, 2009 Derek Yu and Mossmouth, LLC / Spelunky
Whip, fedora, adventure in abandoned temples full of traps: Anyone who plays the indie platformer "Spelunky" is a little Indiana Jones, just cute.
Depending on the selection, the game figure is either a decal of the world's most famous archaeologist, an adventurer with a mustache and a pith helmet, an Indian hero with a turban or another figure from a range of cute cartoon characters with oversized heads.
On the other hand, the level of difficulty is not at all cute, because "Spelunky" does not forgive mistakes.
In the classic platform side view, monsters, traps and all sorts of other deadly dangers are just waiting to bring the expedition to an abrupt end.
Then it's back to the beginning.
Yes, right at the beginning.
The next time you try, however, the labyrinth changes: There are different paths, monsters and traps, treasures, helpful objects and secrets have been redistributed.
No attempt is like the other, the caves at the beginning and the following, even meaner worlds are generated from scratch every time.
While in games like "Super Mario" & Co. every detail of a level is developed by game designers, this work is done here by an algorithm that generates infinite supplies.
Experienced players make it to the end of the game in under two hours;
Beginners regularly fail after a few minutes.
Practice is everything, caution beats reflexes.
New life for an ancient idea
With this concept for his free, open source pixel platform "Spelunky", the American game developer Derek Yu achieved a feat in 2008: He linked the aesthetics and game mechanics of classic 2D platform games with the central concepts of an obscure, but underground role-playing niche.
These graphically minimalist, playful but highly complex game fossils that have survived the decades as a vital subculture are called "Rogue-likes", ie games like "Rogue", which appeared in 1980.
However, nothing remains of the turn-based role-playing game of the genre ancestor "Rogue" with the hip grandchildren.
What remains are the game world created by random logic, the "Permadeath", that is, the merciless "back to the start" at death, as well as great variety.
Derek Yu was the first to translate this DNA into the platform genre, and other developers are experimenting with other game types.
The "rogue-like-likes" or, less cumbersome, "rogue-lites" were born.
Today, twelve years later, games in this rapidly growing niche have proven to be cult bestsellers and crowd pullers, especially in the indie sector, from "The Binding of Isaac" to "FTL" to "Hades", "Dead Cells" and "Slay the Spire".
The fans appreciate their almost endless replayability and variety;
"Spelunky" did it.
New perfection
In 2012, Yu relaunched "Spelunky" with a completely new graphics and with commercial success as "Spelunky HD".
The audience and critics unanimously hailed the indie game, expanded to include multiplayer and a "Daily Run", which is identical for all players, as an almost perfect game, a nimbus that reverberates for a surprisingly long time in the otherwise fast-paced games scene.
"Spelunky" was and is a pop phenomenon, a timeless, iconic game that almost represents the mass appeal and rise of the once obscure indie scene to a self-confident parallel world alongside the glossy industry.
How do you go one better?
"Spelunky 2", just released for PS4 and available for PC soon, has a sympathetically modest answer to this.
Instead of shaking up the basic concept, it turns small screws, adds meaningful elements and, all in all, doesn't feel like a sequel, but rather like another, even more perfected new edition of the original.
Instead of the pocket-sized Indiana one controls his daughter at the beginning.
Otherwise, a feeling of déjà vu quickly sets in - in a positive sense.
What is considered uninspired in other games is a source of relief here.
Playing "Spelunky 2" is like going home.
Return to the caves
Nevertheless, there is a lot of new things: new opponents, new objects, new traps and of course new worlds, with their own challenges and largely unexplored secrets.
There are animals to ride on, short cuts and new areas in a kind of "backstage", forked paths and a new fluid simulation that correctly simulates water and - much more dangerous - lava makes its way down when parts of the Bomb destroyed the ground.
But above all: a thousand deaths.
Even "spelunky" veterans must not be too sure, because they are repeatedly confronted with little things that shake their deceptive self-confidence, new ways in which monsters, traps and the world of games interact with each other and punish any carelessness.
But every learning progress, every newly discovered secret outweighs the frustration.
Every death is an opportunity to learn and practice mindfulness next time.
And again;
and again.
It is no exaggeration to say that this game will be played for many, many years to come.
Indeed: Derek Yu made the perfect game again.
The fact that it's "Spelunky" again doesn't bother us - on the contrary.
"Spelunky 2" is currently available for Playstion 4, with a PC version to follow at the end of September. The price is 19.99 euros.
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