Spelunky (Boss Fight Books Book 11)

by Derek Yu

Beating Spelunky from beginning to end takes, on average, about 30 minutes to an hour, that perfect arcade length, and there’s pressure to move quickly. Lingering too long in a level will induce a scary message (“A chill runs up your spine!”), followed by a steep drop in the music’s pitch. The source of this nightmarish transformation is revealed soon enough as the ghost floats onscreen from somewhere outside the level, its mouth gaping open, and begins to slowly give chase. The warning that precedes its entrance is clear enough: instant death if it touches you! Timers are a popular carry-over from arcade games that depended on the patronage of easily distracted crowds and were designed to prevent any one player from hogging the machine. Anyone who’s spent time in arcades during the 80s and 90s is probably familiar with the sight of a frantic arrow or cartoon finger pointing to one side of the screen, emblazoned with the word “GO!”—the games say it so that the people waiting to play don’t have to. When timers in video games run down, they typically kill the player immediately like in Super Mario Bros. (i.e. a “hard timer”) or make life more difficult for them (i.e. a “soft timer”). In Taito’s Bubble Bobble, the command “Hurry Up!” is displayed on the screen in suitably bubbly letters before the frightening “Baron von Blubba” appears onscreen and begins pursuing the players. Does a timer make sense for someone playing Spelunky in the comfort of their own home, though? Why n...

not let them take their time if they want to? I think it depends on what type of experience you want to give your audience. While the arcade business model may have shaped the design of the games, in many ways it shaped them well—maximizing a player’s time was a trait of successful arcade titles. Ultimately, I never intended Spelunky players to collect every piece of treasure, get every item, or explore every room each time they play. Instead, I wanted to force them to make difficult decisions and experience both the satisfaction of choosing correctly and the regret of choosing poorly. Collecting treasure and acquiring items without limitation is joyless, but add some time pressure and it becomes an exciting dilemma that makes skillful play more meaningful. Good players can make better decisions within the time constraints and are rewarded with better results. In Spelunky, they can even use the ghost to their advantage: Leading the apparition over large emeralds, sapphires, and rubies will cause them to change into more valuable diamonds.