Derek Yu’s Spelunky Nears Completion

Just before the new year Derek Yu, the indie game developer behind Aquaria and the hilarious and satirical I’m OK, in which you run around killing game developers as requested in Jack Thompson’s “Modest Video Game Proposal”, released the latest version of his new title Spelunky.

Spelunky, which was released on the TIGForums for independant gaming, features procedurally generated levels that are different each time you play. In each level you adventure through a cave collecting treasure and killing creatures as you try to rack up a high score.

According to Yu the game is meant to play like an action-adventure version of old-school roguelike games, mimicking the unpredictability, tension, and difficulty of roguelikes in a real-time format.

And Spelunky is difficult. Like in the roguelike games it is inspired by, you will be killed mercilessly over and over for the slightest mistake, sending you back to the beginning to start your suicidal adventure all over. But call me masochistic, because I find myself addicted to this cute little game already.

I’ve written before about indie games, mainly because I’m a big fan of them; independant developers can fuse different genres, experiment with gameplay, style and art, and make the unique and quirky games that they really want to play. Spelunky is a perfect example of that independant style, bringing an experience that big game developers would often be afraid to risk trying.

Spelunky isn’t quite up to version 1.0 yet, but it still plays fantastically. You can check it out right here.