Spelunky 2

It’s About the Journey

Imagine a brick wall exists and now imagine you have the goal to push that brick wall past some unknown finish line. Between you and that brick wall exists an increasingly, deadly obstacle course that must be navigated in a limited amount of time. From experience I can say pushing the brick wall is a lot of fun, you get to see and do new things and you get closer to that finish line! BUT, I can also say that fixating on moving that brick wall is a sure-fire way to never see it again. You see, that deadly obstacle course is no joke and needs to be respected.

Just like in life, Spelunky 2 is about the journey, not the destination. That brick wall can be thought of as the player’s “progression”. And when you’re too concerned with progressing, Spelunky 2 will end you, simple as that. You might hear the life advise to focus on honing your skills and the success will follow. This couldn’t be truer in Spelunky 2. Respect that deadly obstacle course for what it is, don’t rush, master navigating it, and you will become familiar with that brick wall, and it will move.

I use the lackluster brick wall analogy because for the first 60ish hours playing Spelunky 2 I was hitting it. I couldn’t get to any of the later stages and the first two biomes were frequently ending my runs. The game was getting repetitious because I was constantly seeing those first couple biomes and I wasn’t getting any better because I was in a rush to “get back to where I was”. Which in hindsight makes a lot of sense, I was getting back to going nowhere…

So, what changed? I gave myself a one run per day limit and I started tracking every death and giving a reason why. My goal was to try and force myself to make each run count and then dwell on my failures. Below is an excerpt from my “death tracker”. You might think those first 10ish runs are sad attempts but believe me they were improvements. This methodology worked remarkably well and soon I wasn’t dying in the Dwelling at all. Eventually my goals elevated to not even taking any damage in the Dwelling.

Outside of this methodology, my biggest takeaway was to slow down, stop sprinting, and observe my surroundings. For each level you get 3 minutes before the ghost (an invincible enemy that ignores the level’s layout) pursues you through the level. Again, in my experience, that is plenty of time to do what you need to do in the majority of scenarios. What is far more important than reaching the end of the level by 2 minutes, is taking the time to observe the level layout and plot a safe course.

I think the game really feels great and thrives when in an hour-long play session, you die twice, once from an alien ricocheting into you and blowing up your jetpack because you whipped a landmine onto a jump-pad and another time because you forgot to pick up the four-leaf clover before taking on Vlad in his castle and the ghost chases you down in the caves. Not when, in an hour, you never make it out of the dwelling, dying twice to a random mole, three times to complications involving lizards, and once to a justifiably angry shopkeeper.

The Definitive Roguelike Platformer

I love roguelikes. FTL, Slay the Spire, and The Binding of Isaac make up some of my all-time favorite games. Spelunky 2 is now firmly in that echelon of roguelikes although being very different. Mechanically, it’s very much a platformer, a genre I’m quite unfamiliar with. I never played the classic platformers and haven’t gotten into any of the indies of late. Spelunky 2, however, had me falling in love with the format and the marriage with the roguelike genre made a whole lot of sense.

The 2D platforming elements are the bedrock of your survival in Spelunky 2. Knowing what jumps are possible, how far you can fall, when to use a rope, how to crawl safely over a ledge, etc… all have to become 2nd nature for a hardcore spelunker. The controls feel crisp and responsive, so when mistakes are made you only have yourself to blame. The platforming evolves as you delve deeper into the game. New options are opened by acquiring items that can either enhance your mobility or alter the level’s structure. Death can be very sobering when you not only have to start back on the first level, but also can no longer double jump, climb walls, or bomb your way through a level.

The roguelike elements are what make Spelunky 2 so compelling in my eyes.

No Meta-Progression

Death in Spelunky 2 feels very brutal because it forces you to start from zero every time. Spelunky 2 has no meta-progression, meaning no in-game progression transfers between runs. There’s this cut and dry fact that honing your skills and improving your game knowledge are the only ways to get better at Spelunky. This is a commonality I’ve noticed in the roguelikes I enjoy the most, little to no meta-progression. One other tidbit of note is that unlike FTL and Slay the Spire, Spelunky 2 doesn’t even offer what I call a “palate cleanser”. An example of a palate cleanser would be, you’ve lost a few Ironclad runs back-to-back, so you switch to the Silent to change things up for a bit. In FTL you can switch ships, you get the idea. In the Spelunky 2, your 1st and 100th run start the same, in the Dwelling with 4 hearts, 4 bombs, and 4 ropes.

Permadeath

Death in Spelunky 2 also feels very abrupt because no matter how well-equipped and experienced you are there are an abundance of one-shot kill opportunities throughout every level. You could have a jetpack, 45 bombs, the Kapala, and 67 hearts but if you take one wrong step under a descending elevator, it’s all over in a split second. Again, with the comparisons to FTL/STS, in those games death often trickles towards you and feel this sense of impending doom, your fuel supply begins to dwindle, you begin losing more and more health with each fight, until it’s over. In Spelunky 2 you never feel invincible or even strong per se. You might have all the right tools, but spike traps never lose their lethality.

Procedural Level Generation

Procedural level generation keeps levels feeling fresh while allowing for some amount of familiarity. The conventional level is a 4x4 grid of handmade tiles that are randomly chosen and orientated. There are certain rules applied to most levels that force certain tiles to appear at certain times, but the manner in which they appear is usually unique. This method promotes learning the many variations of tiles so you can develop consistent strategies while keeping you honest and on your toes by always piecing them together differently. Sometimes what you need will be handed to you on a golden platter while other times what you’ll need will be tucked away in a near inaccessible corner of the cave.

Emergent Gameplay

Lastly, we get to what may be my favorite part of the game and arguably what Spelunky 2 excels most at, emergent gameplay. Previously, I have harped on my love of Slay the Spire by discussing the constant stream of consequential decisions that game throws at you. STS, at nearly every click, has something important for you to ponder and gives you all the time in the world to make that decision. Spelunky 2 puts these important decisions in a pressure cooker by having a soft time limit to each level and then carrying out your decision often relies on your manual dexterity. Upon entering each level you’ll find yourself making a mental checklist of all the important things you must accomplish to meet both short- and long-term goals. Then as you progress through the level, that checklist must be fluid as opportunities or hazards arise.

A classic example for this fluid target setting in action would be the appearance of a Kali alter when exploring a level. For the uninitiated, The Kali altar grants the powerful Kapala, a cup that restores HP when filled with blood, after a certain amount of favor is gained through sacrifice. When spotted, the Kali altar often trumps all of your prior priorities. Instead of collecting gold and saving the damsel, you now scour the level for anything living to sacrifice to the goddess Kali.

I think to demonstrate this on-the-fly decision-making process we should quickly run through a level. Using the level layout below, I’ll walk through my thought process.

1. Coming into a new level, I typically take stock of where we’re at. For simplicity's sake, we’ll assume we start the level with 4 hearts, 4 bombs, 4 ropes, and 10,000 gold. The level is 1-3 meaning we’re looking for the Udjat eye and per usual we’re keeping an eye out for a Kali altar and a good shop. Collecting gold, finding the damsel, and safely getting the ghost pot are also nice side objectives.
2. Let’s start with a fairly basic decision, to go across or down? Something that must be commonly considered in Spelunky 2 is your resource pool. Bombs, ropes, and money should only be spent when what’s coming in return is worth it. Often early in a run, dropping down a floor means you cannot go back up without using one of your climbing ropes. Therefore, clearing across the entire floor you are already on is advisable before dropping down. So, at point 2, we will move right, jumping over the gap. Before proceeding on, it is good practice to check your surroundings. So here we’ll check the floor below by crouching down. Here we see a shop which is exciting, but the placement means that half of that floor is cutoff, something to keep in mind.
3. At this point, any Spelunkers eyes are lighting up at the sight of 2 crates and a Kali altar! Crates are almost always worth spending a resource to see what’s inside, even better when they’re free. So here we’ll spend a rope to reach the first crate and then open the free one. This yielded us two bomb bags, bringing our bomb total to a healthy 10.
4. Next, we’ll spend a rope to explore the area right of the Kali altar. At this point we know it is of utmost importance to find the damsel. Therefore, all corners must be checked, plus we know the shop cuts-off the floor below, so this will give us an opportunity to check that out.
5. Now at the Kali altar, we spot a mole for sacrificing and another free crate! We sacrifice the mole and get a parachute from the crate. Looking to the floor below, we see nothing of interest, looks like the shop didn’t cut much off. So we cleared the top floor, we’ll now run back, grab the ghost pot, and drop down, although we’re likely to return due to that Kali altar.
6. At the shop we don’t see much of interest, so we pick up the bomb bag and get on our way. The other items don’t help us with our long-term goals and we’re a little short on cash.
7. So, we drop down to the next floor and move right to point 7. At this point we start to get a little nervous. Here we spot the entrance to the Udjat eye cave, which is all well and good, but we have yet to see the damsel, the golden key, plus there’s 4 block thick wall blocking our way. (The Udjat eye is critical progression piece needed for later) However, thanks to our diligent exploration we can deduce that both the damsel and key are on the last floor. So, let’s scope out the bottom floor. Looking down, we spot the damsel and notice the far bottom right section is again blocked off. This means we must bomb through the wall and the key should be in the bottom right.
8. Wow, we’re lucky we came across so many bombs! It took a total of 3 bombs and 1 rope to access the key and take it to the Udjat eye chest. Now we’re short on time and need to get to that damsel!
9. Now, we race back left, drop down to the bottom floor, and bomb the damsel out of captivity. We turn around and toss a rope up to make our way back to the altar and then oh shit… We have 2 more levels to climb but only one remaining rope.
10. With 2:45 on the clock, we resort to leaving the level feeling a bit deflated thanks to missing out on that Kali altar and somewhere we forgot the ghost pot. On the plus side, we have plenty of bombs, the Udjat eye, and the damsel survives, giving us a consolation prize of 1 heart.

I think this level is a great example of what Spelunky 2 is all about. You ask any veteran of the game to look at this layout and they’ll tell you; you have a time-crunch on your hands. The enticing crates are great, but we spent a rope early on to access one that could’ve been used to sacrifice the damsel later. The Kali altar is also great, but the top floor position plus a severe lack of sacrificial offerings makes this one really awkward to get the most out of. It’s always good to get the Udjat eye, but this one cost a lot of resources and time. The shop had a disappointing selection, but at least we’re set on bombs for a while. Those were my takeaways just from this short 2:45 minute section! I love that there’s this high density of important decisions and tricky maneuvers that feed into the emotional highs and lows of just this one level.

Some Minor Critiques

Spelunky 2 is perfect, well almost…

Level Feelings and The Dwelling

This is a very specific critique, but I miss the snake pit and spider’s lair in Spelunky HD. I should explain first though, level feelings are a modifier that can be added to a level. For instance, in the jungle you could see the flavor text “You hear an incessant buzzing...” and that would mean a bee’s nest is somewhere on the level. Spelunky 2 still has these level feelings but in specifically the Dwelling I miss Spelunky HD’s snake pit and spider’s lair. I think this is because I find the Dwelling a bit monotonous. Every run the Dwelling feels very played out. Here’s the rough strategy most players will employ every run:

1. Find gold, bring ghost pot to exit if possible.
2. Save the damsel.
3. Hope for a good shop on 1-2/1-3, buy useful equipment or supplies.
4. Hope for a Kali altar on 1-2/1-3, sacrifice as much as possible.
5. Get the Udjat eye on 1-2/1-3.
6. Defeat the 1-4 boss.

This is engrained into my brain because in Spelunky 2 you die a lot, shocker, and every time you start from zero in the Dwelling. So, this is where the level feelings issue comes in. To my knowledge only two feelings are possible: darkness and the expanded level. Also, a guess on my part is that 1-1 and 1-4 are off limits to level feelings because 1-1 is the first level and 1-4 is the boss level. This leaves 1-2 and 1-3 available and at that point it feels like level feelings don’t happen much at all. This is a long-winded way of saying I miss the curve ball the snake pit and spider’s lair would throw at you, it was fun variety and very thematic. I will praise the expanded level though, what a great idea. The 6x6 cave layout is incredibly disorienting in the best way possible. If you miss the flavor text and are without the confines of the 4x4 grid, this level feeling can absolutely end a run.

Death Replay

I think a death replay would be awesome in Spelunky 2. On Windows there’s preinstalled software called Xbox Game Bar that has a replay capture feature. I found myself using this for the first time to replay my deaths to try and learn from my mistakes. Often in Spelunky 2, deaths occur in a split second and leave you perplexed as to what just ended your 30-minute run. I really think a replay function would be very educational plus most of the time your deaths are hysterical.

Here's a little taste of what I was able to capture, enjoy!

Verdict

★★★★1/2

Spelunky 2 is the gold standard for roguelike platformers. Despite the light-hearted theme, Spelunky 2 is seriously challenging in all the rights ways. After 140 hours and hundreds of runs, I feel like I’ve been on an expansive and fulfilling journey. Not only an in-game journey, exploring new levels, finding cool items, etc. but also a personal journey in which I had to overcome both mental and physical hurdles to get to where I’m at today. Defeating Hundun has to be one of my favorite accomplishments in gaming and one that will mark the end of a journey that I barely thought possible. But who knows, maybe I’ll come back and reach 7-99 someday. After coming this far, I can’t rule it out.

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Bonus Section: The Soundtrack!

The Spelunky 2 soundtracks perfectly captures the jovial fun of exploration, the mystery of the unknown, and so much more. Here are some of my favorite tracks:

• The thirst

First things first: Capital D lowercase m. But seriously, what better track is there for a vampire’s lair?

• Missing pages

I love this track, for some reason it makes me think of my daughter. It’s playful yet regimented. It has a sense of exploration yet specific purpose all at the same time.

• Flaming arrow

Perfectly captures tiptoeing around in the dark, blind to what’s around the next corner.

• Moon challenge

Derek Yu

• Wet fur II

Pure funk. A great switch up for a unique in-game level.

• Ripple

I’ve never heard this in game… but maybe someday.