Spelunky Catch-all (Spelunky HD now on Steam!)

danopian wrote:
psoplayer wrote:

What do you know about eggplants? Not much? Well, prepare to learn a lot. (Article by the creator of JS Joust)

http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/23/5227726/anatomy-of-a-spelunky-miracle-or-how-the-internet-finally-beat

That is a must-read article (and video).

Watch the video first. BRex also has some amazing speed runs.

S0LIDARITY wrote:
danopian wrote:
psoplayer wrote:

What do you know about eggplants? Not much? Well, prepare to learn a lot. (Article by the creator of JS Joust)

http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/23/5227726/anatomy-of-a-spelunky-miracle-or-how-the-internet-finally-beat

That is a must-read article (and video).

Watch the video first. BRex also has some amazing speed runs.

I personally watched the video for the first time alongside the commentary in the article, and benefited from the explanations of what was going on. Some of the glitches he was exploiting didn't make sense to me without the article. But I do think it's good to watch the video first until you need help from the article, because the drama is intense and great to experience in one rush.

Very good article, I had no idea Rex had killed the Ghost! That guy is Superman.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

There was not much that Doug Wilson explains that's new to me. I forget that not everyone has my unrequited devotion for the game.

FTFY

There was not much that Doug Wilson explains that's new to me. I forget that not everyone has my feel for the game.

EDIT: Further proof that BRex is Superman. His personal bests in Spelunky

mr_n00b wrote:
S0LIDARITY wrote:

There was not much that Doug Wilson explains that's new to me. I forget that not everyone has my unrequited devotion for the game.

FTFY

I have but one regret. I'm not playing Spelunky at work. I'm only talking about it.

psoplayer wrote:

What do you know about eggplants? Not much? Well, prepare to learn a lot. (Article by the creator of JS Joust)

http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/23/5227726/anatomy-of-a-spelunky-miracle-or-how-the-internet-finally-beat

Good article!

S0LIDARITY wrote:
mr_n00b wrote:
S0LIDARITY wrote:

There was not much that Doug Wilson explains that's new to me. I forget that not everyone has my unrequited devotion for the game.

FTFY

I have but one regret. I'm not playing Spelunky at work. I'm only talking about it.

This should be some sort of banner slogan over everything Spelunky on GWJ.

Things I didn't know before the best run of Spelunky known to man.
1. The Ghost's hit-box does not include the tail. From when BRex ran under the ghost in the Kissing Booth.
2. How fragile the eggplant is. It can even be broken by the gold specs that pop out of torches.
3. The Mothership will always have the robot in it the first time you visit. (Most of my runs have been on XBLA without the extra character DLC).
4. Turrets that fall only explode with damage. I thought they acted like mines/explosive boxes.
5. It's possible to have an AI helper not instantly kill you with the Staff.
6. The edge teetering to dupe an Olmec stomp.

Things I didn't utilize before the best run of Spelunky known to man.
1. Ledge-hanging over a gap to manipulate the ghost to jump over her.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

Things I didn't know before the best run of Spelunky known to man.
1. The Ghost's hit-box does not include the tail. From when BRex ran under the ghost in the Kissing Booth.
2. How fragile the eggplant is. It can even be broken by the gold specs that pop out of torches.
3. The Mothership will always have the robot in it the first time you visit. (Most of my runs have been on XBLA without the extra character DLC).
4. Turrets that fall only explode with damage. I thought they acted like mines/explosive boxes.
5. It's possible to have an AI helper not instantly kill you with the Staff.
6. The edge teetering to dupe an Olmec stomp.

Things I didn't utilize before the best run of Spelunky known to man.
1. Ledge-hanging over a gap to manipulate the ghost to jump over her.

Alongside these;

Jumping so that you can throw bombs downward when you have the sticky bombs.

Simply didn't dawn on me to do that

DanB wrote:

Jumping so that you can throw bombs downward when you have the sticky bombs.

Simply didn't dawn on me to do that

The inability to throw bombs downward with paste had been the death of me several times in the past few weeks, so I only just picked that technique up last week. Seems important.

psoplayer wrote:
DanB wrote:

Jumping so that you can throw bombs downward when you have the sticky bombs.

Simply didn't dawn on me to do that

The inability to throw bombs downward with paste had been the death of me several times in the past few weeks, so I only just picked that technique up last week. Seems important.

I know! Kinda amazing that I completed the game without working that one out. Although I usually find I need to throw bombs downwards when I'm standing above an exit guarded by a shopkeeper and I didn't agro the shopkeepers in my completion run.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

Things I didn't utilize before the best run of Spelunky known to man.
1. Ledge-hanging over a gap to manipulate the ghost to jump over her.

Can you tell me more about this? I didn't notice it in the video.

Watching those Bananasaurus_Rex videos made me decide to learn how to use the Teleporter. I started looking around for guides, and I found this post by B-Rex on the Steam forum thread "Useful and Cool Tricks Discussion," thought I'd share it:

Bananasaurus_Rex wrote:

Well, there's not a whole lot to say, but I guess I could point out a few things.

1) The teleporter always teleports you between 4 and 8 blocks away from your current position. It does not take any other factors into account. It's entirely random.

2) You can teleport downward by jumping up first.

3) If you're teleporting laterally, use it to get past enemies and try to stick to open spaces as much as possible. If you're speed running, don't teleport laterally near the area where you suspect the shopkeeper to be if you can avoid it, unless you know that you'll be above him. Otherwise, you'll probably get some shotgun bullets to the face.

4) The shopkeepers WILL get mad at you if you telefrag them, regardless of how many shopkeepers are on the current level. The idea that they won't get mad is a myth.

5) If you're not speed running, take the time to calculate the range that each teleport can send you to, and always look down to make sure you won't end up on spikes, in front of an arrow trap, etc. If you're speed running, just try to only teleport through things 1-3 blocks thick whenever possible, and do your best to teleport into the most open space that you can. The odds will probably get you eventually, though.

6) If you have teleporter + jetpack on the ice caves, but not the compass, when you get to the bottom of the map, if you're on the wrong side you can go under the terrain in the open pit and teleport several times very quickly to the other side of the map, then teleport up to the door. The shopkeeper usually kindly moves out of the way. If he doesn't you'll probably land on his head anyway (but not always.)

7) If you're speedrunning the Olmec fight, you can save a lot of time by teleporting once toward him at the beginning, then up twice and toward the door twice at the end.

8) If the shopkeepers are after you, you can usually safely teleport downward into the 2-wide, 4-high exit door sections (the ones where the shopkeepers tend to get stuck and jump around like mad.) You'll usually either telefrag them or land on their head and fall to the door.

Honestly, if you're not using it for a speed run, I would just avoid the teleporter entirely.

I can't think of any other little things at the moment, but if there was something specific that you were wondering about, let me know.

Something else that he didn't mention is that when teleporting laterally, if moving 4-8 blocks laterally places you inside a block, it will automatically move you one or two spaces up if the game finds an empty space there. If there are blocks there too, you're still screwed, but it gives you a small margin of error.

danopian wrote:
S0LIDARITY wrote:

Things I didn't utilize before the best run of Spelunky known to man.
1. Ledge-hanging over a gap to manipulate the ghost to jump over her.

Can you tell me more about this? I didn't notice it in the video.

There were a few times BRex would dangle from a ledge to get the ghost even with the plane he was hanging from. Then BRex would jump over the ghost without spring shoes, hulk hands, or a rope.

I don't like the teleporter. Speedrunning is a lot harder for me but I've gotten the achievement on XBLA and PSN without using the teleporter.

I started going for this right after I posted my last screen cap.
IMAGE(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3671/11866768065_e49f023ff3.jpg)
2014-01-09-195928 by liquidarity, on Flickr' alt='IMAGE(IMAGE(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3671/11866768065_e49f023ff3.jpg)
2014-01-09-195928 by liquidarity, on Flickr)' />

danopian wrote:
S0LIDARITY wrote:

Things I didn't utilize before the best run of Spelunky known to man.
1. Ledge-hanging over a gap to manipulate the ghost to jump over her.

Can you tell me more about this? I didn't notice it in the video.

There were a few times BRex would dangle from a ledge to get the ghost even with the plane he was hanging from. Then BRex would jump over the ghost without spring shoes, hulk hands, or a rope.

I don't like the teleporter. Speedrunning is a lot harder for me but I've gotten the achievement on XBLA and PSN without using the teleporter.

I started going for this right after I posted my last screen cap.
IMAGE(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3671/11866768065_e49f023ff3.jpg)

S0LIDARITY wrote:
danopian wrote:
S0LIDARITY wrote:

Things I didn't utilize before the best run of Spelunky known to man.
1. Ledge-hanging over a gap to manipulate the ghost to jump over her.

Can you tell me more about this? I didn't notice it in the video.

There were a few times BRex would dangle from a ledge to get the ghost even with the plane he was hanging from. Then BRex would jump over the ghost without spring shoes, hulk hands, or a rope.

Huh! I'll have to go back and look for how he did that, anything to help navigate around that thing would be great.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

I don't like the teleporter. Speedrunning is a lot harder for me but I've gotten the achievement on XBLA and PSN without using the teleporter.

I started going for this right after I posted my last screen cap.
IMAGE(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3671/11866768065_e49f023ff3.jpg)

Yeah, I don't think it will help me at all, I just think it will be fun to become proficient enough with it to use it for a couple of levels here and there.

I take it that the 6:57:072 time is what the picture is featuring? Congrats!! You're on a roll, man.

G monkey

Spoiler:

I found a gold monkey that poops gold by placing a gold head on a sacrifice table. Other monkeys poop chocolate.

@danopian,

Yeah, the sub 7 minute time was what I was indicating. I also meant to show that it took me about 100 tries for a successful speed-run.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

G monkey

Spoiler:

I found a gold monkey that poops gold by placing a gold head on a sacrifice table. Other monkeys poop chocolate.

Spoiler:

There's another, better monkey with valuable poops.

I came up with a new strategy for breaking $2 million. I think it's only possible on a PC but I'll test it on PS3 or Vita tonight.

Man, I thought I was super smart squishing a shopkeeper with one of the pushable blocks. Then, I realized I had squished all the bombs that I wanted too.

Finally got Speedlunky. I'm walking on air right now, so happy and relieved.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/jxwM19U.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/ExxxP3z.jpg)

I surprised myself by pulling off an aggressive-shopkeeper speedrun, robbed a bomb shop in <5 seconds in the Ice Caves, and made it to 4-4 at 6 minutes, which left me in a position to skip the speed method I've been having so much trouble with and just bomb a big (6-wide?) hole for Olmec.

Finally my kids got tired of watching me playing and wanted some "hands on" experience. Coop is great, the three of us exploring the caves, I just have to wait from time to time and if they die you can rescue them in the next level.

The best of all, I am now leaving the two of them, ages close to 6 and 3. It has been fantastic hearing them play together at something for a long time without cries or fighting. The eldest says, "come with me, I will protect you..." then "wath out a snake, I will kill it"...

Apart from some driving games for the eldest I had a hard time finding out games to play with them, and I wasn't expecting Spelunky to be IT. If you have kids try it and let me know of other games that can generate this kind of coop experience with kids this young.

FYI, you can link up with a Vita as a second controller and PS3 so that each player gets their own view of the game and everyone's not all stuck on the view following the player with the white flag. It's totally worth $200.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

FYI, you can link up with a Vita as a second controller and PS3 so that each player gets their own view of the game and everyone's not all stuck on the view following the player with the white flag. It's totally worth $200.

What! You lucky Sony users!

If they can pull that off, then they can/should put out a PC patch enabling LAN co-op with separate screens.

danopian wrote:
S0LIDARITY wrote:

FYI, you can link up with a Vita as a second controller and PS3 so that each player gets their own view of the game and everyone's not all stuck on the view following the player with the white flag. It's totally worth $200.

What! You lucky Sony users!

If they can pull that off, then they can/should put out a PC patch enabling LAN co-op with separate screens.

I think that functionality was done by Blitworks, the team that ported to PSN. It's probably a lot more work than a typical patch. Also Derek Yu has been working on this game for like 6-7 years, I think it's perfectly reasonable to let him spend time on other projects.

S0LIDARITY wrote:
danopian wrote:
S0LIDARITY wrote:

FYI, you can link up with a Vita as a second controller and PS3 so that each player gets their own view of the game and everyone's not all stuck on the view following the player with the white flag. It's totally worth $200.

What! You lucky Sony users!

If they can pull that off, then they can/should put out a PC patch enabling LAN co-op with separate screens.

I think that functionality was done by Blitworks, the team that ported to PSN. It's probably a lot more work than a typical patch. Also Derek Yu has been working on this game for like 6-7 years, I think it's perfectly reasonable to let him spend time on other projects.

No doubt, I don't begrudge him a good break. I'm reconciled to Spelunky always being in this finished and mostly sublime state without any future patches. Co-op on separate screens would be great, though. Maybe in a few years somebody'll come back and put some work into it, like Terraria coming back from the dead.

danopian: You inspired me.

IMAGE(http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/450658522782881094/7EC6EE921811D342C36F6EBDD26A216D6EA21798/)

I can't believe how close that was.

Hyetal wrote:

danopian: You inspired me.

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/450658522782881094/7EC6EE921811D342C36F6EBDD26A216D6EA21798/

I can't believe how close that was.

Whoooooo! Nice! Congratulations. It's a great feeling, isn't it?

I finally made my first trip Hell, on my Vita! Died on the first level, but I made it that far at least.

Strangely enough I don't think I've actually defeated Olmec yet on my Vita (may have on PC, can't remember), I should probably get that out of the way first before trying any other hell runs. I guess I can just take to Temple shortcut to speed that along.

It's funny, I remember reading about the convoluted steps necessary to get to the City of Gold in the freeware version back before Hell was even a thing, and thinking that I'd never be able to do it. The idea of actually getting from the Mines all the way to Olmec's Lair in one sitting without using shortcuts while also collecting odd items and doing difficult tasks was crazy to me. I guess it just proves that persistence is key in stuff like this!

Redwing wrote:

I finally made my first trip Hell, on my Vita! Died on the first level, but I made it that far at least.

Strangely enough I don't think I've actually defeated Olmec yet on my Vita (may have on PC, can't remember), I should probably get that out of the way first before trying any other hell runs. I guess I can just take to Temple shortcut to speed that along.

It's funny, I remember reading about the convoluted steps necessary to get to the City of Gold in the freeware version back before Hell was even a thing, and thinking that I'd never be able to do it. The idea of actually getting from the Mines all the way to Olmec's Lair in one sitting without using shortcuts while also collecting odd items and doing difficult tasks was crazy to me. I guess it just proves that persistence is key in stuff like this!

Redwing, that's how it's been for me too. I'll be convinced that I'll never be good enough to accomplish ____, and a few hundred deaths awhile later I'll find myself doing it. Also, congrats on getting to Hell!

I just got the Good Teamwork achievement on the first try, which made me laugh after having spent a month and a half getting Speedlunky.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/47Lbdv1.jpg)

I had a good shot at Big Money - ghosted a vault and had > $200K and almost 40 bombs going into 4-2 - but I gave the scepter to player 2 and a shopkeeper tossed him as we were leaving 4-1 and it forced him to drop it. Next time.