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Derek Yu Loves/Hates You: Spelunky

Written by Joe Bernardi

About a month and a half ago, the independent gaming community went ape over Spelunky, a game that elegantly combines the gallivanting of a platformer with the randomness and infuriating difficulty of a roguelike. It looks simple enough. A little Indiana Jones-looking guy wanders around an Indiana Jones-looking setting populated with a thousand different things that can kill him in a million different ways. Saves girl, steals priceless treasure, escapes deadly cave. It seems pretty boilerplate. Then you realize you’ve been playing it for six hours, swearing at the top of your lungs at the tiny, pixelated shopkeeper who just murdered you with a shotgun for trying to steal a pair of climbing gloves from his store.

Aquaria Is Cheap. Buy It, You Bums.

I'll admit that I used to have a few gaming prejudices that now fill me with a deep shame. For instance, until I bit the bullet and plunked down fifteen bucks for Jonathan Blow's Braid, paying more than ten bones for any game available exclusively as a digital download felt wrong somehow. This is exactly why I missed out on Bit Blot's underwater adventure, Aquaria, back when it was released late last year; I'd played and loved the demo, but the full game's price of thirty dollars was just a little too rich for my blood. The sad thing is, I probably would have forgotten about Aquaria forever if the game hadn't just come out on Steam for the low, low price of sixteen dollars. Now I can make amends for my former transgressions by purchasing my own copy, and getting all of you loyal 61FPS readers to grab one as well. Here's the game's trailer, if you need some convincing:

Unfortunately, the sale on Aquaria only lasts until the end of 2008, so you'd better scrape together some spare change while you can. Protip: you know those dudes in the Santa suits, ringing bells on street corners? They're literally rolling in quarters.

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about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.