awesome wonderful

Saw Spelunky! over on metafilter, but didn’t give it a try until a week later, when everyone else I knew on IRC had already tried it, and I finally said to myself, hey, why not. Spelunky! is a rogue-like platformer, where you play the role of the brave and dashing archaeologist (presumably), and run around saving fair maidens from traps and monsters of all sorts, while collecting gold and gems to presumably fund future excavations and exploration. There are a lot of neat and interesting events and items in the game, such as the gold idol, where, as a nod to ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ if you pick the idol up, as expected, a boulder drops and rolls after you. Would be a lot more fun to explore if everything didn’t try to kill you though. :(

Voting opened up a couple of days ago for TIGSource’s Commonplace Book Competition and downloads for the games (and voting) are available now. Embedded below is a video that includes some footage from quite a few of the entries, so you’ll have some idea of what to expect from them. Have fun!

(subliminal message: vote for Eversion!)

I know the guy who wrote this game, so I’m gonna plug it. :D

Eversion is this random little platformer made by Zaratustra (who has a bunch of other indie games to his name already) made for TIGSource’s Commonplace Book Competition. The concept behind Eversion is that to get past certain obstacles you have to press the ‘everse’ button at certain spots in the game causing the entire game to change with everything getting progressively darker, initially starting from a happy cheerful platformer to ending up eventually at oh-god-why-is-everything-trying-to-kill-me. The entire game transforms as you go, with enemies (and the scenery!) getting replaced with more dangerous versions, entire levels taking on gloomier feels, including the nice touch of the cheerful music from world 1 (gleefully ripped from Cocoron) just turning downright grim as you go through the game.

The first couple levels mostly ease you into the various ways the game expects you to solve puzzles and navigate obstacles with the eversion mechanic, with the game getting harder as it goes on (along with a near-pixel-perfect jump in world 4 that people have complained about). The last couple levels are great platforming action though and going through the game again to collect all the gems for the real ending (which is great, btw) gives it an extra bit of replayability.

The TIGForums post for the game is here, if you want to leave feedback for Zara.