Spelunky (2012)

This title is a brilliant blend of roguelike randomness and classic platforming precision. It challenges you to descend through procedurally generated caves filled with traps, treasures, and deadly creatures, all while managing limited resources and quick reflexes. Every run feels unique, with the game’s procedural design ensuring no two adventures ever play out the same way.

Its controls are tight and responsive, making every death feel like your own fault rather than bad luck. While the difficulty can be brutal, it’s also deeply rewarding: you learn by failing, slowly mastering its many hazards and secrets. The pixel art style is charming yet deceptive, hiding a world full of complexity and surprising depth. The soundtrack perfectly complements the sense of exploration and tension as you dig deeper.

What makes this videogame so timeless is how it turns chaos into strategy, teaching you to think ahead, take risks, and adapt on the fly. With endless replay value, hidden levels, and a fair-but-punishing design philosophy, it remains one of the most influential indie games of its era. You can spend a lot of hours playing this, finish it, and it'll leave you wanting more.

Not to mention that there are some fun achievements to unlock if you want 100% to make this more interesting. This game is a tough but beautifully designed roguelike-platformer that rewards persistence and creativity. A true classic in modern indie gaming, and a must-play if you like indie titles to any extent. This is one of the best games that I've played, mostly because I like difficult titles, more than I like the rogue genre.

Steam Curator

After 40 hours I finally 'beat the game', yet there's still so many types of runs and secrets I still need to uncover.

Spelunky is hard. Really hard. I was on and off with this game for years until I finally committed to giving Spelunky an honest effort in these past two weeks.

There's plenty I can say about Spelunky's awesome design and game mechanics, but all I can really think about is how triumphant it made me feel.

Spelunky isn't a game about diving through caves, it's a game about climbing mountains. Go ahead and try climbing it too.

The design of this game is brilliant. I couldn't praise it enough on its execution of the core concepts realised in HD. It's also addicting to play attempting another run after getting just a little further witnessing your skill improving.

My personal complaint is certain mechanics lead to the odd death here and there feeling cheap. For me it's the velocity mechanic, talking damage from an item that's flying at a certain speed. Items I've throw against a wall with bounce back and hurt you, which is fine with me, but occasionally the item is moving slowly and you may take damage. This and a couple other things could have been developed better so as avoid sucking the fun out of the game occasionally.

Don't let that stop you from playing this game though. Spelunky HD is fun and satisfying on the whole.

This game is fairly ugly and the movement feels very clumpsy. Exploring the dungeons is no fun because there is nothing really interesting to discover except for some diamonds as reward. You need to concentrate on the very basic gameplay to not die, but if you actually do it does not feel like you made a cunning move or played well. You just need to not play bad which requires a tiny bit of concetration, but there's nothing to grab your attention or interest.

i have no idea why this has been praised so much. Is it because it introduced the renaissance of roguelike?

The controls feel loose enough that there are a number of deaths where I feel like it was bull, but tight enough that I know in my heart of hearts it was 90% likely my fault.

It starts so quickly that it is an easy game to lose time to, even as you get more and more upset, you still feel like you could do it.

Super fun to laugh at your friends' deaths in multiplayer.