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#16. Spelunky (2012)
Total Points: 13
List Appearances: 5
First Place Votes: 0
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Writeup provided by sergiocornaga
I have several hundred hours and thousands of deaths across the original freeware Spelunky "Classic", Spelunky 2, and Spelunky "HD", the last of which is the specific iteration I'm talking about here. It's my favourite of the Spelunky "trilogy", and one of my most respected games of all time.

By now this game has virtually no surprises left to me, but I'm amazed by how long it took to reach that point. Spelunky is fundamentally a game about different objects and systems interacting with each other in unpredictable ways. I'll never forget the feeling of discovering many of these interactions for the first time, like how fire burns ropes, because of course it does. The use of procedurally-generated levels essentially renders the game endlessly replayable, and while I've slipped off, my mother is a more hardcore gamer than me and continues to do the daily challenge to this day. The daily challenge, incidentally, was introduced in this version (on Steam, anyway) and did a surprising amount to elevate it above the original XBLA release.

My fondness for this iteration of Spelunky is enhanced by having followed the three main developers over the internet for many years prior. I was addicted to Derek Yu's blisteringly hard metroidvania Eternal Daughter (co-created by Jon Perry) in the early 2000s, and became a regular reader of his art blog. Andy "astrospoon" Hull also hovered around the Klik game development community, teasing great-looking projects like Nun n' Gun (as far as I'm aware it was never released). Eirik "Phlogiston" Suhrke I was already a huge fan of musically, having avidly followed the PAUSE netlabel he co-founded with Disasterpeace (Nectar is an especially good release of his) and loved his soundtracks to games like Super Crate Box and I Was in the War. Seeing Derek Yu become a fan of Eirik's music too in realtime via TIGSource news posts was a treat, but even I didn't expect it would culminate in so many collaborations (the most recent being UFO 50). I personally think Spelunky's approach to music is exceptional and heavily entwined with its gameplay. You get to know these short loops, bracing yourself for the exact moment in the melody things will slow down and the ghost will appear. Eirik's range and tastes as a composer are on full display here, with mixed-meter chiptune, live instruments, and bizarre synthesis all making an appearance.

Years later (just outside the scope of this list) Spelunky 2 would be unleashed upon the world. It's much harder, to the point where I haven't been able to explore its depths to remotely the same degree. But I've played enough to know that there's still a place for the tighter, more focused experience that Spelunky HD provides.