Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
Report this post
Second, the ghost mechanic serves as a soft timer, since Spelunky has always been a more arcade-y game. The chaos of "The shopkeeper is waiting at the exit, but I cannot wait anymore, or the ghost will come!" is what makes the game give you this adrenaline rush. I don't see why would you want to disable it.
The ghost mechanic has been argued time and time again over the years. I personally love it as it makes me feel there is looming danger in the air. It's just a wonderful mechanic imo and brings tension and adrenaline to the table. I can also see though why some players could dislike it. Perhaps this type game was never intended for them though as it's meant to be played as the developer originally envisioned.
1- You have plenty of time, it may not seem like it at first but you really do once you get a bit better.
2- The Ghost might be terrifying but it's really not that hard to dance around it with a bit of forethought when you know what you are doing so investing a little time in learning how to deal with it helps a lot, kinda like one needs to do for shopkeepers. You rarely hear people have a gripe against that even though the Shopkeepers are very fast and erratic while the ghost is slow and predictable.
3- The sense of urgency makes it so that you have to prioritize what you can get, it's all about balancing risk and reward.
4- The mechanics around Ghosting gems is another layer of risk/reward that makes the ghost potentially pretty useful.
There was a ''game breaking'' exploit in a old game called gunz where players could kinda frame skip walljump everywhere by quick equiping/slashing/unequiping the sword that was almost cut until they realized how much more fun playtestes were having using it so it became a main featurre; Subnautica ended up implementing a spaceship, walking and jumping on dry land and more tools to deal with predators thanks to feedback from playtestes. I feel like spelunky didnt gave the same kind of attention to any feedback saying otherwise.
Its as if minecraft creator intended to do an hardcore survival in a world of voxel crafting, and in 3 days/nights lava would rise and engulf everything so players needed to have crafted a hard to get boat to survive to the next level. That btw could be a fun hardcore mode for minecraft, but it would completely sabotage whats most fun in minecraft. Were that case of a designer sticking so firmly to his original vision despite what the game can offer and feedback we would never have saw players recreating the earth, disney castle, etc, etc in minecraft. Heck minecraft wouldnt have been the phenomenon it still is.
Still using minecraft as an example we do have some kind of pressure and loop there too like the creepers. In many ways its a similar design pattern as both are avoidable and a danger that comes later; But the creepers, even being more sneaky and sometimes numerous have many more ways of being dealt with, the time until they come takes longer and if they blow on your building they break one part of it- a part you can fix when day comes. The ''walhacking'' ghost however comes too quickly on every level and make you restart everything.
Even if the creator wanted to stick to his guns, and perhaps no ghost would be too extreme, there were many more ways to tune it; Different difficulties or modes could have different timers; Perhaps the ghost only came after some levels, or instead of a timer per level we had a ''ghost aproaching'' tracker, so much so that if the ghost gets to you you would need to rush the ghost the next level from the start until you got some advantage again....
anway my point is the game wouldnt be hurt from having more modes and even the ghost could be tweaked and experimented with keeping its idea.
..................
I love platformers, metroidvanias, dungeon crawlers, retro games, hard games... heck theyre my main thing. But i also like to take my time. Im the kind of player that stops to smell the flowers, take screenshots and try to find all secrets and unintentional places i can get to. Im the kind of player that checks every room and alternate path before hiting a level exit, and i know im not alone.
I just believe, im convinced actually, that theres two sides of the game that go against one another- and that doesnt mean a bad thing, many games became famous because of that- but spelunky overly favors one over the other. It brings me levels full of cool stuff and paths and asks me to ignore a bigger part of it (until i get really gud), and even the best players need to rush everything if they want to explore it all.
It reminds me of some snippets from a making off of Dont Starve; At one point their alpha had quests and objectives, and while that helped guide players, motivate and even add urgency they noticed playtesters were ignoring the joy of exploring the map, experimenting etc, so they cut all of that even their very well made tutorial so players would actually go everywhere and see it all. Spelunky is like the extreme oposite... and i wouldnt mind if it were a less interesting game, with boring samey levels but it isnt.
''Heres a cake, its delicious and have a dozen flavours! But you have to eat just some slices fast, i will take it off in 3 minutes!''.
Its as if marios, donkey kongs or metroidvanias were 100% ''that rising lava level'' of the 90s. It wouldve been challenging sure, would it have made then better? Not even some competitive multiplayer games i play make me feel as ansious and rushed as spelunky
Oh i am.
Mostly angry at him. But scared sure.
Unlike real ghosts that are just imaginary that ghost can really kill- my fun. It sucks all the life of it
Removing the Ghost from Spelunky would be liking removing enemy respawn after death in Dark Souls.
idk
maybe it's not the game for you??
Obviously some people loved it, but I hate that it made you sink so much time meandering about every level to get a good score. There was some planning and skill to use it, but it was too boring of a mechanic to me.
The Bubble Bobble ghost was definitely scarier =P
That said, if they added an easy mode without it, I wouldn't mind. May not take a lot to implement and I'd just ignore it, so no harm done.
Plus, how fun is it to bait the ghost while it chases you around turning gems into diamonds? Why would you want to remove that bit?
come on it already spawned! Why can't I grab the ghost jar without spawning another one???"