Świetna platformówka. Poziomy są krótkie, ale trudne - trzeba wykonywać naprawdę precyzyjne manewry, często metodą prób i błędów - wszystko jest jednak bardzo dobrze pomyślane i jeszcze lepiej wykonane. Jak w każdej przygodzie w duchu Indiany Jonesa, można spodziewać się mnóstwa pułapek. Niektórych "niespodzianek" rzeczywiście nie sposób przewidzieć, ale nie jest to wcale problem - liczba śmierci "z zaskoczenia" to tylko kropla w morzu, poza tym po jakimś czasie można dostrzec pewną prawidłowośc w ułożeniu pułapek (zazwyczaj są w najbardziej niedogodnych miejscach :D) Zresztą, nie bez powodu na całą grę dostajemy 1001 żyć, a ruiny Ukampy są owiane złą sławą właśnie dlatego, że są niebezpieczne.

Rozgrywka bardzo dobrze pomyślana, oprawa graficzna i muzyczna w starym stylu, dodatkowe tryby po przejściu głównej gry, klimat przygody. Serdecznie polecam.

There is probably some joke or pun to be made about the 1001 spikes but I'm coming up empty. So I'll just say that it looks like the spike maker counted up the order wrong and ...

Ok I have nothing. Luckily Nicalis have something quite special in this platformer from the affectionately named "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ troll ass game" genre.

The gameplay is simple enough (with one oddity, which I will get to). You enter a level, you avoid traps and make some jumps while also shooting knives at the occasional enemy. You find the key and perhaps the hidden mask object and make your way to the exit. You then repeat this process through longer and more difficult stages until you run out of things to do. Along the way expect plenty of water, fire, snakes, scorpions, crushing blocks, spikes and even more spikey spikes. There isn't anything particularly original here if you have played similar games in the past (stretching a long way back) but what is here has been proven to work.

The controls are a little strange in that you have two jump buttons, one "high" and one "low". This saves you having to judge how hard to press a button (high enough to clear a spike, but low enough to avoid the fire above?) but it can get a bit fiddly at times. Personally I always found myself using the high jump unless a situation specifically seemed to call for it. In these cases, such as jumping on a block without triggering an arrow trap it was handy, but I'm still not sold on the concept. Still, everything works and you can aim your jumps properly and it doesn't feel floaty. If anything, jumping and shooting fails a bit more often than it should, when trying to line up a small object like an arrow (when you are standing shots line up perfectly). This isn't a big deal though, so in this regard the controls get a solid pass.

To complement the tight controls, the level design is all important in a game like this and 1001 Spikes doesn't let you down. The levels all seem lengthy but not "too long" and there is a good variety in the challenges. For example, one level will have you carefully negotiating spiked passages, waiting for just the right moment to advance forward. The next level will require you to make a series of fast paced jumps as everything falls down around you. Levels feel unique, despite reusing a lot of assets and the effort required to pass them should make them memorable long after.

That is, if you don't give up on it. The magic of "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ troll ass game" is in how much they troll you and how much of it you can take. Think you have finished the level? Well you forgot about that block, right at the end which will drop on your head without warning. This will kill you, forcing you to restart the level (no checkpoints here!) in an increasingly infuriating manner. So where does it sit on the troll meter? Above Super Meat Boy, some obstacles you just can't avoid. But it is also well below something like I want to Be The Boshy. Most traps give you a split second of warning, such as the tips of spikes showing before they impale you. Because of this, most deaths (but not all) feel like they are a result of you not paying close enough attention. The game does a good job of training you too. Chance are if you find a good place to rest while you evaluate the next section of a level? There are spikes on that block.

So you'll die, but you'll learn and progress always feels achievable (or you can skip levels, so it isn't a big drama). Note that you do technically have a life limit (x1000) but 1ups are easily farmable by redoing short stages and finding the bonus pick up. So 1001 Spikes is tough but just fair enough (think 1-5 deaths on an easy stage, 20-30 on a hard one), which will hopefully not put off too many people.

Having said that, one of the most difficult challenges the game offers is getting through the story parts without hitting "skip". They are long, stretching on forever and the text forwards far too slowly. I kind of enjoy the ironic tone to the writing, but little of importance is said and there doesn't seem to be any need for a story at all. Rest assured you can safely skip it and get back to the spikes.

To round out the package, the game offers other arcade style modes which can be played in 4 player local coop (sorry online fans). These include challenges such as climbing a high tower and competitive modes like holding an urn the longest, which remind me strongly of old NES or even C64 titles and other treats like an extra difficult tribute to a past game. Rest assured too that the coins you collect in those modes are not completely going to waste.

Now I'm not a big coop gamer (people who are will love playing through the main game with a friend), so these extras are not necessarily for me, but they do make an easy purchase decision even easier. Further the game provides a wide variety of unlockable characters, each with their own abilities (longer jumps, double jumps etc). This lets you tackles the levels again with different approaches and helps alleviate any concerns about the number of available levels (although there are enough anyway, without spoiling anything, probably a lot more than you think!).

In terms of presentation, 1001 is more functional than impressive, but everything does the job. The music is suitably excellent and the sound effects inoffensive. If anything the menu systems and cutscenes could use an extra coat of polish, but as mentioned before they are best skipped anyway, so perhaps skimping on them was the best approach after all.

I really like 1001 Spikes. I realise it will not be for everybody, given the brutal style. But it is just accessible enough that everybody should give it a go, just in case they get the right level of sadistic fun out of it.

Just keep an eye out for that 1001'th spike. That'll be the one that gets you or ... yeah still nothing.

Wymagająca, trudna, irytująca, trochę wk*rwiająca ale tylko trochę. Polecam. ;)

Jak ktoś lubi "I Wanna Be The Guy" to z pewnością spodoba mu się też ta gra. Taka troche wariacja gry "Memory" dla masochistów

1001 Spikes has the misfortune of coming at a time when we feel like we've had enough of its ilk. We've played Indiana Jones-themed platformers (La Mulana and Spelunky), short-level-many-lives platformers (Super Meat Boy, I Wanna Be The Guy), and technologically accurate retro homages (Shovel Knight). It's unfortunate because 1001 Spikes is all these things, but it's also something more.
It tosses out the fiddly analog jumping of Super Meat Boy in favor of digital two-button jumping. You know where your jumps are going to take you, even if you play blindfolded. The challenge is picking the right place and time to jump. There are no leaps of faith. The limited pallet of hazards allows you to grow muscle memory. Far from being an exercise in trial and error, 1001 Spikes is a game you can get good at. My second playthrough took 10% as long as my first.
Instead of the single-screen levels of Super Meat Boy, you have levels that you can't finish while holding your breath. There are parts where you really have to think hard about how you can pass an obstacle. There are shortcuts. If Super Meat Boy is a triceps dip, 1001 Spikes is a push-up.
If you've played IWTBTG, you'll know that that game can kill you in ways that are funny. 1001 Spikes has jokes too, but they are funnier.
1001 Spikes has a story, and a damn good one. It's told in Ninja Gaiden style cutscenes which are long but don't overstay their welcome. It's about a love-hate relationship. The protagonist goes on an adventure to prove something to himself -- when you play this game it will be to prove something to yourself. 1001 Spikes is a Japanese indie game, and when it comes to story it seems like Japanese indie developers can do something that Americans can't. They can set their games in worlds that seem real. They can be sentimental without being sappy.

I would only honestly recommend this game on a sale if you aren't super interested, but if you are a huge fan of the retro platformer style as well as difficult games, it may be worth the full price.

Be prepared to die. A lot. No matter how good you are at these types of games because there are MANY cheap mostly unavoidable deaths unless you know they are coming. Trial and error is key here, unless you watch a guide. The game is also highly centered around 'cycles' where if you miss just 1 jump or snag yourself on 1 block, everything you remember about the level will be different when you reach it, and will likely kill you. If that doesn't turn you away too much it is for sure worth playing. It's very well made and comes with 60+ levels as well as some side-mission style content. Several unlockable characters with unique abilities exist as well as alternate costumes for certain characters. For a platformer it really offers a lot.

One thing I think the game has a problem with is one-off mechanics. A certain level will have a very difficult mechanic that you've not learned or been introduced to somewhere else and then it will be gone forever following that. It would have been better if each zone had revolved around a certain theme of level with one or a few mechanics being focused completely on for each zone.

As far as completion time, I 100%'d the game with all achievements at my 16.2 hours played. 8-9 of those were spent beating the main campaign, and nearly all the rest were spent on an annoying grind achievement. If you chose not to look up videos for the collectable locations, as well as some of the harder levels, it may take much longer to finish. Especially because the collectibles are annoyingly just hidden in breakable blocks or behind walk-through walls. I wish they had made the collectibles an extra challenge in the level like an inconvenient or difficult route rather than hiding them in ridiculous places.

I would say you definitely get a good amount of content especially for a platformer, and would definitely recommend playing it.

If you're the type that likes "rage platformers", this is a very well-crafted specimen. Every detail of every level oozes polish and careful consideration on the author's part. And while the traps do surprise you sometimes, they ultimately are all beatable if you're good enough.

That said, the unlockable characters feel extremely tacked on when compared to, say, Super Meat Boy. The ones that do more than look different are all straight upgrades to the main character, but you have to advance through every level separately for each one (no thanks) and they can't collect golden heads for you. Otherwise you can only use them in the game's extra modes; those which I've unlocked so far are comparatively short.

Still, for the right person the core game is worth the admission price. And you probably already know if you're that person.

Szczerze, potrzeba w tej grze tylko i wyłącznie zapamiętywania gdzie są rozmieszczone poszczególne pułapki. Elementów zręcznościowych jest tutaj wyjątkowo mało. Jeżeli początkowe poziomy wymagają kilkudziesięciu śmierci by ogarnąć co, gdzie i jak, to nie mam zamiaru sprawdzać co jest dalej. Słabo.

Everybody knows that 1001 Spikes is a masterpiece of mechanics and the pinnacle of level design as an art form, but, for as much as I have relished every agonizing, brilliant moment, my favorite thing about it is the respite stages at the end of each area. You simply move through the level, free from danger, and ironically these are the moments in which I truly feel like I am on an adventure.

It's not that I use this time to reflect on the challenges that I've surmounted. It's not that transition in which I am saying goodbye to one area with its distinctive tileset before moving on to another. The romance of these stages is simpler than that: It's just a pleasure to move through an exotic space! By suddenly stripping away all semblance of difficulty, 1001 Spikes startles you into noticing that one of the basic strengths of videogames is the experience of place.

When all of the scorpions and dart-shooting busts and crushing effigies and flamethrowers fall away, there's just you and a decaying ruin, adorned by idols carved from bricks of gold and lit by columns of blue flame, housed within the red dirt of the jungle and deep purple caverns, overgrown with vines that sway as you brush by, curtained by waterfalls and the slowly flooding drip of leaking ceilings, and eroded by lakes of fire barely contained with thick stone dams. Corridors narrow to a crawlspace and balloon outward into large pedestal chambers. They wind from side to side, rising and falling, or provide a shambling staircase out of darkness.

The fundamental lines of these spatial compositions are as beautiful as the pixel art with which they are drawn, and these little journeys are yet further characterized by situational events. Rope bridges collapse behind you, imposing doors are opened with the depression of multiple switches or the assembly of several ritual keys, and gates crumble away with the terrain, dropping you into the abyss. These surprises somehow manage to evoke a sense of mystery even though there are no puzzles to solve and a sense of adventure even though your path is a straight line. I could play an entire game comprised of these completely safe yet intriguing and enchanting stages.

Ukampa lies behind me in ruins, its golden skulls all safely ensconced within my loot sack, but I am not finished with 1001 Spikes. Not by a long sight. More adventures await. Regardless, I am more than ready to say that I don't just enjoy this game; I love it.



Update: After completing the game, I was so enamored with it that I felt compelled to make a critical video describing how deftly it uses space in its level design:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5AtwovL_yQ

1001 Spikes is a great platforming experience that takes problem solving, good reflexes, and patience.

1001 Spikes is not on the easy side of platformers, but the learning curve is very fair. Your controls and goal are simple and the "easy to learn, hard to master" philosophy is in full effect here. 1001 Spikes avoids one of the big sins of platforming (lack of precision) very well. Your characters have a high and low jump, and some type of attack. The gameplay feels satisfying. With a little trial and error, you will find yourself knocking projectiles out of the sky, dodging pressure sensitive spikes and juggling between high and low jumps. It feels very inutitve traversing the levels and the range and weight of your characters actions begin to feel like second nature. The boss fights are also refreshing.

The various characters you can unlock (most being cameos) are all very neat and have their own quirks, however you cannot enjoy them interchangeably. It was such a let down for me to unlock a new character after some hard runs only to find out that I have to restart from level 1 with that character rather than being able pick up where I left off. This can give you an opportunity to play around with all your characters and really get to know them, but the game is kind of forcing you to take character tryouts seriously by pushing you back to square one. With that complaint aside, I found trying out all the characters very enjoyable. Curly Braces from Cave Story is probably the easiest to play with her jet booster, but my favorite is President Thompson with his double jump and machine gun.

The alternate modes (or hint hint, there is a whole separate campaign if you know where to look) are fun and add plenty of replay and longevity. The co-op modes were extremely enjoyable and I was actually able to beat some levels with people who were new or rusty to platformers. Still, I would say playing through one of the co-op campaigns of 1001 Spikes with a friend was one of my favorite serious, short, co-op experiences.

I think some relative comparisons are in order to be more helpful.I enjoyed Super Meat Boy and Spelunky to an extent: I am not a fan of slippery or floaty characters in platformers (SMB) and I found it was way more fun to just kill all my friends in local co-op than actually try to work together and beat Spelunky (I also preferred the original art style).

However, I definitely really like all 3 games, so here are some relevant details:SMB has a faster restart than 1001 and unlimited lives (though 1001 offers plenty of lives and you can always go back and earn more), 1001 Spikes has set levels you choose rather than randomized ones that string together like Spelunky, 1001 Spikes has significantly more unlocks than the other 2, 1001 Spikes has set aside co-op campaigns while Spelunky offers some competition and only the main campaign with enabled co-op, 1001 Spikes has some action in the form of shooting, while SMB has none and Spelunky has more depth with in game shop and variance of weapons, The boss levels in 1001 are a good mix of action and platforming, SMB was strictly speed based platforming, Spelunky feels more like a Mario boss fight.

1001 Spikes has a lot of replay value, great controls, and satisfying gameplay. The co-op, large cast of characters, alternate modes and long campaign are equally challenging and fun.
(I happened to play it without internet last summer, so please ignore the short amount of hours as it is definitely not accurate).