Spelunky 2

DanB wrote:

Quillback has 10 hit points for what it's worth

Hah! Figures that Spelunky would be the game to eschew long standing convention (bosses have 3 hit points!) and add enough extra so you're not sure whether the 8 rocks you've just thrown at the dude actually did anything or not.

I'll spoiler this in case you don't actually want any tips but this is how I do Quillback:

Spoiler:

I get him to roll by throwing something at him from the platform at the bottom of the middle two ladders. He will roll toward whichever side of his body you hit. So, hit him on the left side if you want to go Jungle and the right side if you want Volcana.

As soon as he rolls past you, drop down and do a running bomb throw after him. The bomb should end up right where his is and kill him. Make sure you don't keep running because you don't want to ago him again or he could roll away from the bomb before it blows up. Don't do this is you have paste, just follow him, stick him with a bomb and retreat to the ladders until he blows up.

If you don't have any bombs but you have spike shoes, wait for him to come back to the middle area and bounce on top of him three times. Sometimes he will roll away while you're doing this, you just need to wait for him to come back again.

If you don't have bombs or spike shoes, you just need to throw 10 things at him (rocks, skulls, pots, cavemen). Sometimes he will take damage when he rolls through a skull wall which helps you out. But, realistically, if I got to this point without anymore bombs or spike shoes I probably would have reset.

If you have a shotgun, you can shot him once to get him rolling then aim for just under the ceiling for a second shot. Hopefully, that second shot will only clip his head and kill him. If one of the pellets hits the bomb bag, it will blow up and destroy itself and the cooked turkey.

You can also just get him to clear out the path you want, wait for him to come back toward the middle, jump down and book it for the exit ladder without killing him. But, then you're giving up three bombs and one health.

With regards the Quillback fight

Spoiler:

As best I can tell if Quillback hits something solid (the outside edge of the level for instance) he also takes a point of damage, so you mostly don't have to deal all 10 points of damage.

I almost always just throw 10 objects at him, have never bothered learning the bomb throw (bombs are precious!). It is worth bringing a torch, you can relight it in quillbacks area and it's base damage is 2 but because of the way it bounces when thrown from the ladder it often does 4 points of damage. Sometimes you only need 2 torch throws to kill him. The only drawback with a burning torch is about 20% of the time it'll destroy his bag of bombs

I've largely given up buying the shotgun, if you're going for the secres endings you have to give it up too often, to carry other items through the levels, so it's not worth the cash. So I very rarely have a shotgun for the Quillback fight.

If Quillback opened the "wrong" path for you then go to the bottom of the level (where the exits are) and it only takes 1 bomb to open the other exit. In Quillback's arena it takes at least 2 bombs to open the other path

In other news I'm finally started to be able to get to:

Spoiler:

Sunken City

In a way that feels repeatable and I got to

Spoiler:

Hundun

on my 2nd visit, so I feel ending 2 is finally within my grasp.

Three handy tips:

If get a powered backpack (jetpack, hoverpack etc...) in the first world then don't go to Volcana. The backpacks will explode on contact with flame so the Jungle is a safer path. And volcana is guaranteed to give you a jet-pack-equivalent item.

If you look careful the skulls that reanimate are different to the skulls that do not

If you have 4 bombs you can always "safely" get the ankh

I think this has finally got its hooks in me, I'm starting to see the game a little different and I'm playing a little bit most days!

I'm getting to the second area with a lot more consistency. Sometimes it's the jungle, which I can traverse a few more floors into, othertimes it's a lava mine that completely destroys my run.

It's fun. So much fun.

Currently trying to learn all the ins and outs of the first world while practicing stealing from the shopkeeper. I'm good with most things, but those damn skeletons always pop up and get me!

I actually find that I rarely steal. In HD, I always stole from shops. I basically didn't even think of money as a resource. In 2, money is easier to come by because of the ghost pots. I usually reset if I can't easily get the ghost pot on 1-1 so I almost alway have around $15k going into 1-2. With that start I need just a couple gold piles/gems to afford a jetpack. For the most part, money doesn't seem like an issue for any shops past 1-2

The only times I'll steal is if it's a shop with multiple bomb boxes plus another item or jetpack and bomb box. In those cases, I never kill the shopkeeper anymore so that I can be forgiven by 1-4. Just stand over the shopkeeper, throw a rope and run out of the shop. If there's a jetpack, pick it up first, walk back over the shopkeeper, throw rope, run. The jetpack will instantly equip once you leave the shop.

This game is amazing because of its storyline and secrets.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

I actually find that I rarely steal. In HD, I always stole from shops. I basically didn't even think of money as a resource. In 2, money is easier to come by because of the ghost pots. I usually reset if I can't easily get the ghost pot on 1-1 so I almost alway have around $15k going into 1-2. With that start I need just a couple gold piles/gems to afford a jetpack. For the most part, money doesn't seem like an issue for any shops past 1-2

The only times I'll steal is if it's a shop with multiple bomb boxes plus another item or jetpack and bomb box. In those cases, I never kill the shopkeeper anymore so that I can be forgiven by 1-4. Just stand over the shopkeeper, throw a rope and run out of the shop. If there's a jetpack, pick it up first, walk back over the shopkeeper, throw rope, run. The jetpack will instantly equip once you leave the shop.

yup to all this. There's so many more options to find/earn money that it's not, in the main, worth stealing.

The very first time I went to the Temple, I got through the City of Gold and Duat. Every time that I've gotten back trying to get the alien compass, I've died before getting the compass...which is in the first Temple level. Also, getting the Crocman journal entry is surprisingly difficult.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

The very first time I went to the Temple, I got through the City of Gold and Duat. Every time that I've gotten back trying to get the alien compass, I've died before getting the compass...which is in the first Temple level. Also, getting the Crocman journal entry is surprisingly difficult.

All thruths. I've done Duat a handful of times but I stopped taking that route to focus getting completions and secrets and further in to the game

It seems like most of the progress I make in this game is accidental.

I spent a couple hours this afternoon pounding my head against a wall trying to get to the mothership with the alien compass. Got to the ice caves a couple of times but died before getting to the mothership entrance because I'm an idiot. On one of the runs I somehow managed to keep a hired hand alive through the temple so I only had the golden key shortcut mission left. I decided to switch to gold key runs after a brake so that I could stop going to the temple.

After multiple decent runs where I got the key to tide pool with a jet pack but died, I managed to get through and open the shortcut with nothing but paste and a normal cape. I figured I might as well see if I could blind guess the mothership entrance. Luckily, there was a falling platform right over on of the possible locations so I knew it was there when the platform broke below the screen. I got the character unlock and all the journal entries. Took the plasma cannon to Tiamat and shot her in the face for only my second actual win.

On top of all that, I finished in eighteen minutes. I had written off the sub-10 minute achievement but after that run, I'm pretty sure I can do it. I wasted plenty of time getting to and through the mothership, and juggling the key and damsels.

The real big positive is that I almost never have to go back to the temple. The only thing I have left from there is the crocman journal entry. I'll just take the 3-1 shortcut to the temple and walk into the first crocman I find until he kills me. I don't know how I haven't got it anyway since I swear they've killed me over a dozen times but they were probably all indirect kills.

Yeah I've never really though about filling the journal. I'm looking to see all the endings first. I'm right in the edge of getting the 2nd ending. Hopefully in the next week or so and I think the 3rd ending isn't actually much harder.

My only issue now is that a "good" run now takes about 40mins and on death I often can face repeating the same levels so I mostly limit myself to one run per day after work.

I had 8 health and got squished into meat paste by a big golden statue in 1 hit.

PROGRESS

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/7FuyHwA.png)

DanB wrote:

Yeah I've never really though about filling the journal. I'm looking to see all the endings first.

I use it to give me something to focus on while I'm getting better. I'm not good enough to reliably get to Tiamat yet so I may as well have a goal while I'm grinding. It has the added benefit of forcing me into dumb situations so I get better at improvising. Basically, the only things I have left either involve getting cursed or need an eggplant. I'm getting a lot better at not taking damage because of the curses. My recent Temple excursions have definitely made me better at Tide Pool since Temple is an asshole.

A_Unicycle wrote:

I had 8 health and got squished into meat paste by a big golden statue in 1 hit.

PROGRESS

I died probably 30 times to Olmec before I even got through the first floor. It shouldn't have taken me that long but, for some reason, I had a lot of trouble getting used to his movement.

On the plus side I can get to the final hidden level with a resonable degree of consistency. On the downside I have only once got there with a weapon that might kill the final boss. I was not successfull in that kill because I am a dumbass

DanB wrote:

On the plus side I can get to the final hidden level with a resonable degree of consistency. On the downside I have only once got there with a weapon that might kill the final boss. I was not successfull in that kill because I am a dumbass

At last! I have managed the 2nd ending! I think now I'll concentrate on filling the Journal now before I make any final ending runs. Too burnt out on trying for completions to slog away at the 3rd ending now

For whatever reason, I'm really bad at getting to the Sunken City entrance. I'm fine with it when I'm trying to do the Qilin skip because that's hard and I'm bad at the game. But, every time I've gotten there with Qilin, I manage to clip one of the lasers and die.

I finally got annoyed enough with wasting half hour long runs to get there that I installed Overlunky to practice. Of course, as soon as I do that, I have no problem while practicing. Still really bad at the skip though.

Of course, the next time I try it, I get it no problem. And, I promptly died in the sun challenge.

Alright, got back the next night, beat the sun challenge, had the arrow get squished by a regen tile, got to Hundun and choked hard. Pitcher's mitt is added to my list of items to never pick up along with climbing gloves. Not being able to arc paste bombs onto the heads makes that fight a lot harder.

Yeah pitchers mitt is a liability along with climbing gloves.

I just finished filling my journal. Only the last 2 CO entries left. Got to do a full arrow of light Hundun run now.

I think once I've got that I'll be done with Spelunky 2. Don't think I'll bother with the time challenges. I like the game but I don't love it as I did the 1st game.

DanB wrote:

Got to do a full arrow of light Hundun run now.

Make sure not to shoot the arrow off-screen. I'm pretty sure it's hard-coded to hit a regen tile and get squished before you can get to it.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
DanB wrote:

Got to do a full arrow of light Hundun run now.

Make sure not to shoot the arrow off-screen. I'm pretty sure it's hard-coded to hit a regen tile and get squished before you can get to it.

Good point. I aim to just carry it all the way to the top of 7-4 and (hopefully) use sticky bombs to kill hundun.

I do need to be more consistent in reaching Sunken Temple tbh. Traversing Sunken Temple is fine but I find Neo-Babylon to be punishingly random.

Whooop! I have filled my journal and seen it all. For those of you following along, I did indeed sticky bomb hundun to death

No way I'm going to bother with the 7-99 completion. A handful of those CO levels was enough to see what was up there. I don't need to do another 90 of them

Because of the Binding of Isaac "expansion", I have until the end of the month to get a Hundun kill, a Hundun kill with the bow, and an eggplant run (preferably during the first Hundun kill). This is a problem as I appear to be getting progressively worse. I died to Olmec three times last night.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

Because of the Binding of Isaac "expansion", I have until the end of the month to get a Hundun kill, a Hundun kill with the bow, and an eggplant run (preferably during the first Hundun kill). This is a problem as I appear to be getting progressively worse. I died to Olmec three times last night.

lol. I too was hoping to get my "completion" in before the BoI expansion.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

and an eggplant run (preferably during the first Hundun kill)

I would advise against this. Do them as separate runs. And if you're doing the eggplant run to fill your journal I would also advise finding a decent seed and doing your eggplant run seeded

DanB wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:

and an eggplant run (preferably during the first Hundun kill)

I would advise against this. Do them as separate runs. And if you're doing the eggplant run to fill your journal I would also advise finding a decent seed and doing your eggplant run seeded

The main reason I haven't killed Hundun yet is because I'm an idiot and keep trying to do the Qilin skip. Eggplant runs are actually pretty easy to get if you aren't planning to go to Abzu. All you need is a 4-2 alter spawn. I'm getting much better at the Qilin skip so it's just a matter of time.

I have not bothered to learn any of the many Qilin skips. I mostly did very "vanilla" runs for my completion, did not try and get all fancy

I got my eggplant run in. From a 1-2 eggplant even so I didn't need to Qilin skip. Then I was immediately greeted by a tube with a spear trap on the other end that stun-locked me to death from 99 health in 7-3. f*cking Spelunky.

And Hundun is down. If an orange frog hadn't pissed off Waddler by blowing up outside his door, I probably would have gotten to Cosmic Ocean. It's been so long since I've seen Waddler angry that I forgot what he does so I decided not to take any chances and left the bow. A couple things of note, I'm almost certain this was the first time I've ever played one single run without restarting the whole night and I didn't die on a run with climbing gloves.

The only thing left is to get far enough into Cosmic Ocean to get the jellyfish entry. Then I'll come back to the specialty run achievements after I 100% Isaac again.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

It's been so long since I've seen Waddler angry that I forgot what he does so I decided not to take any chances and left the bow.

A shame but sensible. I think he just runs back and forth like Madame Tusk, and you do get some invulnerability frames as you go through doors you could use to check but that's a high risk

iaintgotnopants wrote:

A couple things of note, I'm almost certain this was the first time I've ever played one single run without restarting the whole night and I didn't die on a run with climbing gloves.

Unpossible!

iaintgotnopants wrote:

The only thing left is to get far enough into Cosmic Ocean to get the jellyfish entry. Then I'll come back to the specialty run achievements after I 100% Isaac again.

As long as you manage 1 level of CO you should get it.