066 · SPELUNKER
A fabulous fortune, believed to be that of legendary King Tut's richer brother, Tut-Tut, lies within a pyramid, buried in the deepest part of the deepest cave in the world. The treasure is guarded by the ghosts of dead spelunkers who descended, never to return. It is said that the mere sight of the glittering treasure drove them first to blindness, then madness, and ultimately death. FOR MORE NESTALGIA as well as show notes and links check out www.NEStalgiacast.com
- 1983 game developed by Tomothy G. Martin and MicroGraphic Image
- First on the Atari 8-bit family, then C64, then NES finally in September of 87
- Published by Broderbund
- Broderbund and Self-Created Designers
- Tim Martin - Spelunker
- Will Wright - Raid on Bungeling Bay
- Douglas Smith - Lode Runner
- And then don’t forget Deadly Towers
- Explore a cave on a finite amount of air that you need to replenish
- Remember Jumpman in Donkey Kong, well this guy dies even easier
- Few enemies
- Is there enough to explore?
- Song loops way too often
- Similar more successful games:
- Dig Dug (more arcade less exploration)
- Spelunky (Roguelike version)
- SteamWorld Dig (Metroidvania version)
- A sequel was released for Famicom on September 18, 1987 called Spelunker II: Yūsha e no Chōsen by Irem, in Japan only.
- Spelunker HD on PS3 (remake with HD graphics and 100 levels)
- AND in Japan only Spelunker Black which adds a new character and makes some parts of the level completely dark.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Spelunker, let's face it, you're in deep, deep trouble.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Joe. I'm Sam. I'm Sean. Full house tonight, guys. That's right, we're here. We're all here. Everybody's here. It's been a while. Everyone is here. Yeah. Everyone is back. Not to be confused with the Smash Bros. game that came out a while ago, in which everyone was here, but you weren't in that game, I noticed. You were not a selectable character.
If you look at the Mii's, you'll see that I am in fact there. Huh. Is the idea of everyone being here just like copyrighted by Smash Bros.? Yes. I've never heard of that before Smash. Yeah. In fact, if I see that in future things going forward, I'm going to think like, wow, they ripped that right right at Smash Bros. I actually, even past things. Yeah. I actually had a party, a house party a while ago, and I said like, oh, everyone's here. And then I got a cease and desist for Nintendo.
And I had to check it out. Knowing how often they like, issue take down notices and things like that, that doesn't surprise me. Yeah. I'm pretty sure, yeah, that was probably like handwritten from Sakurai. Oh yeah. You know? Okay, cool. Not a Smash podcast. We're exploring every NES game released in North America, as I'm sure most of you know by now. But if this is your first time listening, just wanted to make that clear. Because today, we're talking about Spelunker.
Yeah. It's another sports title. Did anyone, yeah, I guess you could think of it that way. Did you think of it that way at all? Okay, good. I'm glad. But did anyone know what a Spelunker was before this? Yes. Like, did you have a good idea of the game you were going to play?
I mean, I didn't know how it was going to, like, I had a feeling it was going to be a side-scrolling, like, puzzle game, but I knew it was going to be about going down into the earth. Okay. Yeah. I had some thoughts that I think will make sense. We'll be a better fit for later. Sure, yeah, we'll get to that. And, Joe, I'm sure you're just like, you just know everything, so you're fine. I knew, yeah, same thing, I knew you had to dig or explore on the ground. Yeah, I figured there'd be caves involved. Oh, there's a cave involved. And so, this is Spelunker.
1983, this game first came out. It was developed by Timothy G. Martin. What a name. What? Yeah, what a, the G is, like, included on the Wikipedia page, so I didn't want to be rude and just call him Timothy Martin. I don't think it's on the splash screen, though. I think it's just Timothy Martin, honestly. Okay, so maybe he doesn't want the G. Yeah. Well, that was very insensitive of me. But the company that he guises the whole thing under is called Micrographic, with a capital G on graphic. Oh! So, like, capital G there. Spicy. With a capital G in his initial, just throwing it out there.
And so, Micrographic Images, I guess, like, his little thing. And this was on the Atari 8-bit line. This wasn't in the arcades in 1983. So, the Atari 8-bit line is, like, their computers, too, that counsel all that stuff. And then, eventually, it gets on to the Commodore 64. And then, finally, the NES in September of 87.
So, it was quite a journey from 83 to 87. But we've seen this a few times now, right, guys? Where it's like... That's true. Like, kind of, like, self-created, like, self-made guys who, like, designed these video games by themselves. They were popular back in the day. And then Broderbun was like, oh, this is cool. Like, we'll publish your game on this new console in America all at the same time. So, you have Tim Martin for Spelunker.
Then you have Will Wright, who's going to go on. Yeah. We talked about him. He's going to go on to do SimCity and everything else that goes with that. He did Raid on Bungeling Bay, which was a mixed episode. And I didn't really understand how we felt at the end of that. I was like... I was very positive. Yeah, I thought it was cool. And then... Like, I thought it was just cool. And then Douglas Smith, who did Lode Runner. Doug. Lode Runner, obviously, being a big deal for that whole thing. But don't forget, Broderbun also gave us already Deadly Towers.
That's true. A lot of people want to forget that. It took me a second to remember what Deadly Towers. You had already blacked out. You had to go through all the therapy lessons. Yeah, exactly. Coming back to me. I know Sam had just finished therapy with that. So, I mean, Broderbun's up to a weird start, right guys? Like, I think it's neat that they're doing this. Like, I like this connection of like, this one guy made this game for like computers and now it's on the NES. But at the same time, it's like, some of these games are...
It's a mixed bag. Just okay? Yeah. This is like almost indie though, right? In a sense? It's sort of like an... Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It's sort of like that whole like, oh no, now it's an Indies thing with the Switch. Um, this isn't quite that because it is third party and it's not really, uh, all quality across the board. But, I mean, it's still, it's still good for the industry. I would say. I think, I think, this might sound weird because they're not indie games, but these games definitely give off a different feel than the other NES games you've been playing. They almost feel indie in that sense of like, they feel like they're doing their own thing that other NES games weren't doing.
Yeah. If this is, this might be skipping ahead a little bit to initial impressions. But, when I first started it, I got the feeling, I was thinking like, oh, you know what? Some people really like this game. And, like, you know, like how you can tell that it's like a really big hit with like a core group. Right, right. And, I mean, obviously that's why it became an NES game from an arcade game.
But, I don't know. That's, that's... Yeah, no, I think I get that feeling too sometimes where like, I've heard the name of a game before. But, and then I play it and I'm like, well, this isn't that great. But, it's like, clearly it had a following. Yeah. I mean, the fact that, because I do, before we record these, I'll get, I'll get a lay of the land of what the modern critical reception of this game is.
But, you know, just going on YouTube or going on to any website that does retro reviews. And, the fact that there are so many for all of these games is pretty interesting. Because, a lot of them will still give them very high scores. Because, I feel like they have this, there's a lot of... Nostalgia. Yeah, nostalgia, but also just like, it's like an obligation. Like, oh, this is, you know, it's from 85. So, obviously it's classic. So, yeah, I like your impression first off.
No, I know what you mean. Like, forgiving it because of the time. And, it's like, that's something that I definitely don't agree with. I don't think that, like, anything should get a pass. Like, just like old movies should still be good. It depends on what your context is. If you're saying, how was this for the time, then sure. But, you're not always saying that. We're definitely not saying that. Yeah. We have no nostalgia and that's why we have Nestalgia. It's expensive. I also just find it odd that, like, a lot of these are... A lot of games that I feel don't need to see the light of day anymore get virtual console releases. And, I think Spelunker also got a virtual console release. As well as just getting new games.
But, I guess we'll get into that. Yeah, and another thing that's interesting, too, about Spelunker and Lode Runner is that those two games came to the Famicom, like, very early on. I'm talking, like, 84 or 85. So, like, even long before... And, you know, remember, they're mostly, like, Western-made games that, like, the East got first. And, I think that's just interesting, but... At least on the platform. Yeah, on the platform. Right, right, right. They always... Yeah, that is true, Sean. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about Spelunker. You know, you're... You are a Spelunker who is exploring a cave. You have a finite amount of air that you constantly need to replenish.
And, you're just... It's kind of like a collectibles game where you're just exploring the cave, trying to get items, but you're also trying to, like, make progress through the cave. And, it's all... It's all kind of interesting because it's not screens. It's one giant cave that you're exploring through.
Yeah. What did we... Can I get, like, first impressions on just that concept? Maybe we start with Joe. Yeah, I actually... That was... That was the... When I started, I had two major thoughts. One was that the fact that it's one giant level that you're exploring through. I thought that was kind of cool. It gave it some... Some feeling like you're actually exploring a cave. But, my other thought, which is not about what you asked, it was that this game got immediately pretty frustrating for me. Which kind of... Deluded the whole, like, fun of, like, the exploring. Frustrating how? Frustrating in the way that it handles and controls.
It's very, very sensitive, especially to, like, fall damage. Where sometimes I wouldn't even think I was falling. I feel like I'm stepping off of a platform and it's like one step and I would die. I mean, if you jump too far as well. Yeah, right. If you jump too far, and sometimes if you hit your head on something, you just die. Well, I mean, you shouldn't hit your head on anything in a cave. Yeah, it's dangerous. Right, that's true.
This is a life simulator. But, in terms of my first impression of just the concept, I would say that... Because I think we will have to get back to how this game controls. Oh, totally. These are just first impressions. That was just itching to get out. Yeah, I know, I know. I need everybody to know that I was frustrated.
I thought that this game, once you take away the theme of going into a cave and the way that they frame your air supply, this is a pretty basic concept. Like, if you took away the theme of a rocky cave and then you changed your air gauge to what it essentially is, is just like a timer. Right. This is a pretty... It's just go collect the keys, open the doors, and you're there. Right. And collect whatever you can along the way. I didn't... It seems like a fresh coat of paint on a very bland object to me. I agree with that. Sam?
Mine was kind of similar. It's like, oh, this is cute and clunky, you know? It's got, you know, it's got music, it's got different... It's got... Different obstacles. That music that just continues to loop, though, like very fast. Yeah, I... That one other song. What was that other song? The death song? The scary song. Ooh. When the ghosts come. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's right, yeah. And this was another thing that was a first impression that was, oh, now I get where Spelunky came from. Right, right, right. It came from this game. And they even have the ghost in Spelunky that you can't touch.
And this one, you can shoot him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, what are you shooting him with? I don't know. It was in the manual. I forget what it was. You're just like, you're distracting him with air or something. Like, you're just releasing air. I think it is air, yeah. I think that's what it is. And we'll talk about those concepts later.
I just really fast, I'll get through my first impressions, because I think they're similar to your guys. But I just want to say, this is another game where like the graphics, and I know it's weird to talk about NES graphics games, but like, when the graphics are bad in an NES game, that's a bad thing. Like, you know? Like, you know, because there's like an acceptance level for graphics in those older games. And then there's like, you know, this I put in the same basket as like, you know, like a Popeye, you know? It's not quite Popeye.
Yes, Popeye is definitely the worst thing we've ever looked at on NES. But it's like, it's down. It's like Lode Runner, I think. Yeah, it's like... Yeah, Lode Runner. Okay, that's another good example. And another thing to mention Lode Runner is that, on my first impressions, this is kind of what I was trying to tell you guys about like, Lode Runner, where it's like, again, it's a game where I wish that like, you would see the vastness of the cave from the very start. They do a better job than Lode Runner in terms of like, how much they show on the screen at one time. But I would have liked to see even like, even more of the cave and less of you. Well, I think that in Lode Runner, it was a utilitarian thing that we needed to see more.
It's hard to play that game just seeing as much of the screen as you can. Whereas, I think you have enough information with the, I guess, resolution of the cave that you're given. I mean, it would look a little cooler. I guess that's what I'm saying. I think it would look cooler. I think it would like, it would make you feel like you're part of a bigger thing if it had that. And yes, to Sean's point, like the original Lode Runner was designed to have everything on one screen. That was not, I'm not trying to frame that as the case for like, that, well, Spelunker has, Spelunker, right?
This is called Spelunker. Yeah. Sorry. Sam confused me with Spelunky, but that's a game that comes out much later, which we might get to. But Spelunker, it was not designed for that like, all on one experience. But I thought the big, you know, maybe not the whole cave, but as much as you, maybe you feel like a little more just to feel like, wow, I'm this little tiny guy. Or, or, or even like, like Legend of Zelda has that map that makes you realize like, oh my God, I'm that tiny dot. And that big square is like the whole.
Yeah. Even something like that. It's effective, I guess, in, you know, kind of engrossing you in, in the world of the game at like at the limitations of the console. And I think overall the, the idea of this, you being like in this one world that level doesn't change in this big world. I think like there was a time literally talking about from when, since when we started this podcast, there was a time where that would have impressed me a lot more.
But now we've played other, we've played games that have done, well, at least one game that's done that better. And we just played other games that have like introduced so many new things, NES games that I didn't really know were going to come. Right. Not too long ago. Isn't that impressive? Yeah. Not too long ago. We played a game that simulated an entire industrialized planet.
So I think my, my scope thing, like, I'm sorry, the bar for scope on an NES game is set pretty high right now. Yeah. Like if we had played this, those are the fourth game we played, I probably would have been like, Oh my God, I didn't know NES games could do that. I mean, obviously I did. Cause I knew what Legend of Zelda was. Yeah. But we have Legend of Zelda. We have Metroid. We have, to Sean's point, Raid on Bungeling Bay. We have Castlevania. Castlevania.
Rygar. You know, like these games had much bigger worlds than this pathetic little cave. But, um, so I know that we're all dying to talk about the death thing in this game and game over screens and stuff, but can we forget that for a second and pretend like you could play this game and talk about like the exploration part of it and like the platforming obstacles and the enemies and stuff like that. I think that's like a, I'd rather give the overview of that first before we talk about the second beat. Right. Okay, cool. I thought that it was interesting that there are a lot of different kind of ways to interact with the world, but I also think it was frustrating.
Like, my least favorite part are those like the, what is it, the smoke that comes down from the ceiling? Yes. And you have, you're in the mine cart and you have to avoid the smoke and it's cool because it's like a little mini game in the middle of your regular game. Mm-hmm. Um. And it almost feels like it too because the screen is kind of like just contained in that portion. And you, you've kind of mapped out in your head where everything else is going on. But then you, so you get all the way to the right and forget what item it is that you pick up when you're done. I think it's a key.
Yeah. Uh, and then you have to go back and do it again like immediately afterwards. And it's just a little, I don't know, it's stuff like that I thought was a little bit frustrating. The repetition of it or just the like the tediousness? The repetition of it. Both I guess. Okay. But I guess that's the whole point at the same time. There's only, there's only one segment where that is even introduced. But there's other kinds of smoke that you jump over. I don't know. I thought it was, it's like, I thought it was interesting that you could, that, that was like a little mini game in itself, but. Then they immediately made you do it again.
Yeah. But although, um, something kind of fun happened. The ghost appeared once I got to the end for me. Mm-hmm. And so I had to be really, cause I feel like you need patience when you're going through it. But, but, uh, I had to be fast also at the same time cause the ghost was chasing me. So it kind of, it was a little bit different on the way back. So I'm kind of, uh, changing my opinion. Yeah. But. Which is totally fine to do. Uh, yeah. I think I see what you're saying there too though. And, and I kind of like at first playing this game, I thought it was neat how many different
examples of like exploring the cave that give you right off the bat. It, but it kind of fizzles out fast where you start realizing like, and that's what you do. Right. Yeah. That's the game. Yeah. You would want, you would think that like, oh, when you get towards the bottom, there's some crazy like new element and there's like, there's like a cool, you know, landscape feature. There's like a waterfall and things like that, but nothing like that crazy different happens throughout the whole play there.
Yeah. And I think it does do a good job of like tutorializing that part of it. You know, like the very first things you do, it's like. The very first thing you do is walk off the elevator and die. Yeah. Exactly. So that's a good segue. I guess that's tutorializing in a way. Yeah. So you're on an elevator on a cave and you, you control the elevator up and down on the control pad and then you sink it up to a part where there's a hole in the cave. And then what happens, Sean? You walk off the elevator and die.
I almost imagine it like if you live in a city and there's a subway and there's that tiny little space between the subway and the platform. You immediately fall through. You fall into that. You have fallen into the gap. And that also happens to be where the third rail is. And so you get electrocuted on the way down. Yeah. I did get my ankle caught in the gap once. There you go. So you are perfect for this game. Yeah. But, but it's like, it just seems, it just looks on screen. Like he could step that distance, but no, that's like a jump. Yeah. You can't step that distance.
Uh, you also don't want to have the elevator up a little too high. Not even a little. Yeah. A little too high cause then he'll jump and die. Uh, you need to get the elevator to perfectly fit the hole and then perfectly jump just the appropriate amount. Cause if you jump too high and then land, you broke your leg. You've crushed both kneecaps and you're dead. Uh, so there's just like, the, it's a lot of things that can happen at the very first input of the game that will reach a game over.
Like it's upsetting. The fact that the elevator has like such smooth movement, like it doesn't just like click into place. Like, you know, I would rather have this just, you just press down and pop your down in the next spot. You don't have to worry about like lining it up. Or even like Legend of Zelda, you know, had like, it started with a cut scene of like,
you know, like in, sorry, this is for the Nintendo switch version where they like make it this way. You have to like, you don't even get the choice of walking into the, uh, into the cave. It walks into the cave for you. Obviously it doesn't happen in the original NES version. You can go swordless, but like just having something like that, like showing you like, there's what you're going to do. Like you, you have to jump over those. Like you would never know for the very first thing in the game to be like, you're going to die in this game.
Yeah, sure. But it's not supposed to be hard, right? Yeah. Well, I feel like because it's an NES game, that's okay. Cause if you die, then you just do it again. But if I was at an arcade and that happened, I would be pissed. This wasn't an arcade game though, right? It did eventually. It did. Okay. Eventually. The one thing that I find the most bizarre though, is that the rest of the motions of the, of the character aren't that like good.
Older NES games that we've played, they're very like discreet. They're sort of like clunky walking animations. Like even Donkey Kong, when you're Mario, like it feels like a, just a chore to, to move him. Um, but other than the fact that he falls from like two feet and dies, like he, he controls pretty well. Yeah. I think he feels fluid. So it's just so strange when like, if you, if you just fall a little bit, you will die immediately. It's just an odd departure from the rest of the game. It's not even really the way he controls. It's just like how touchy everything around you is.
It's a little temperamental. Yeah. I just can't stress enough to that. I think it's just an odd design choice that like your first inputs in the game could kill you. You know, like no other game does that really. Like I can't think of a, like Super Mario Brothers waits for the goomba to show up for a little bit at least, you know? Like, well, um, I guess what was the, was last week or two weeks ago? The, the flying game. Oh, right. I'm bungeling Bay.
No, the other fly. Oh, Sky Kid. Sky Kid. It's more like if you don't make an input, you will die immediately. And it's just as confusing. That's so funny. I remember that. Yeah. You just, you, you think you're watching a cut scene crash on the runway, but like, this is just the complete opposite. And I don't know. I just, I just found it almost unacceptable. It's only acceptable because it's funny.
Sure. Yeah. I guess like, and you know, we've complained, you talked about Jumpman just there. We've complained about like how like he can't do jumps for a guy who's named Jumpman. Like if he jumps too far, he like, like even if it's a leap to the elevator. Jumpman is not Landman. Yeah. I guess that's true. He'll just like die. And that's like frustrating because you did land on the platform. It was just too much for a construction worker.
In this game, in this game, it's like, he's not even falling from heights. He's jumping across to the next thing and it's killing him. And if you do fall from a height, you don't even fall the whole way. You just, as soon as you fall, it just like stops. Like you're dead. You're dead halfway down. My headcanon though is just that, like I was talking to Mike earlier. My headcanon is that he went into the cave with already broken legs. Oh, that's a good guess. I like that. You might think that this, yeah, exactly. He's got like paper legs. Um, you might think that this game is actually just to tell people don't go into caves. You know? Like you'll die.
Like the actual only correct option is to hit up when you're in the elevator and get out of the cave. That's a whole overworld of it. The secret ending. Yeah. Secret ending where you go and reunite with your family that's like so unhappy that you took up this stupid hobby.
Uh, so obstacles, uh, other than the fact that you can kill yourself by doing like a ton of dumb things, you know, there's also some things in the game that could kill you. Sam, uh, Sam mentioned the steam, uh, kind of coming out of the pipes in the cave or whatever. And then there's also like a bat. Yeah. Alarm bats with acid poop. Or is it? No, that's guano.
Yeah. Guano. It says that in the manual. In the manual. I mean, uh, I have the manual right here. And then there's the ghost obviously, but it's just like, these are strange choices, right? Like that's all they can throw at us is like. Yeah. I feel like most of the obstacles are the cave. Yeah. And the platforming nature of it too, but. That's fine. I think if you put more enemies in the game, this would become really frustrating. More so than it is. Especially with that air gun, because that air gun like freezes you in place. Yeah. For a good while too. So the whole time you're like, air is draining.
Yeah. I think it's, it's trying to train you. Well, the fact that the ghost only shows up every so often shows you that, um, they don't want you to use the air gun very often.
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and i guess like a bigger question too outside of like you know your what you have at your disposal and the enemies in the game you know because there's kind of few things in your way is is there also like enough to explore is there enough like reason like the keys and the and like the coins are those coins i'm not sure but like that stuff is it there's not really like a lot it's it's
kind of a vast empty cake and it's not like they do anything other than like rack up your points so like if they were there was like something where i'm like oh i wonder what that's gonna do and i'm like i gotta try and get to that but like right you really only need the keys to keep progressing i think it would be cool just as spectacle um if every level you were sort of
discovering new things because it like the first time through uh you start seeing like oh there's like a weird like altar and like oh you get farther down like oh there's like a an actual giant pyramid and then like you have this little uh inter like intermission where you have all of the riches that you found and then you go to another cave but it's just a different colored cave it's exactly the same cave and i guess like it would feel a little bit more meaningful if it was different layout with
different stuff at the bottom but no this is just like you just keep going trying to get a high score yeah pallet swap and i learned this while looking stuff up after i was too frustrated to continue playing but uh it's a pallet swap and the keys are invisible the keys are invisible in the second playthrough oh which is great yeah cool you just have to know where they are yeah uh okay so
there's there's the enemy problem there's the emptiness of the cave there's the repetition of the cave the song that loops forever and you know not the best in fact that song isn't even in the original versions so i don't know why they thought like well if the any of this version wants to sell we have a four second song loop that we can just keep and the sad part is when i turn this on the menu screen has a song that i really like it's awesome but it's only on the menu screen i thought that it was like super like cool to open up on it kind of reminded me of like uh kid icarus's opening where it's like the title screen like scrolls up and you got like this cool theme song thing and then
just have it be like this game start yeah you're on like some big journey it is like a very cinematic opening screen where like each credit pops on like to the beat of the music it's like very like epic when that's like half the memory of the game what's his name what's who's the guy who's the guy his name uh tim martin tim and tim g martin's name there you go nice uh i don't know it felt very like not not very epic but decently epic because you know this guy like wants it to be known that he was in charge of this game all right guy let's see what you got yeah and you know having just watched
uh um bandersnatch recently on netflix old news mike yeah i know i know but i haven't seen it yet having or experienced it yet yeah yeah having watched it it's like you know those guys were making games around that same time and they were all like you know they knew who the creators of the games were so like i wonder if like that was just a thing that like you know even though video games weren't popular putting your name on the game had gave you a lot more validation in the gaming world yeah it was like wow one guy made this as opposed to like nintendo r d one it was sort of like uh um i think it was more of like i guess the indie thing to put your name on it because when when we
think about uh like the the japanese scene at the time the the most you'd get is just like your initials in the high score menu or something along yeah it's true you wouldn't even get yeah like even remember in the metroid episode we talked about they wouldn't even spell their names correctly or fully you know like they were just kind of like you get this and then like that that's what you have we don't have enough characters to do your whole name sorry sakamoto um yeah okay and then you know anybody else have any other thoughts on spelunker that we didn't talk about here
great because i'd like to talk about some similar more successful games in my opinion that are like spelunker uh one being dig dug everybody know dig dug the uh arcade arcade style this is not i think this is not spelunker in the sense that like you know you're exploring a cave but you're you know it's a more satisfying arcade loop yeah of the game and less on the exploration but there's still like things to find in the sand as you're digging and like there's much more going on in the screen there's a lot more to be like aware of so i think dig dug is more successful in that approach of it then we have as sam mentioned earlier in the show spelunky which is like oh we're not sticking in the in the
same generation no no no okay uh a roguelike version yeah of kind of like the same thing but like you know it's not the same cave every single time so it's very interesting and dynamic whereas like in spelunker you beat the cave and then you get oh the cave is purple now great yeah uh and then one more dimension steam world dig and that's like the metroidvania version of spelunker where like you are digging your way through a cave kind of at however you want at your own pace at your own leisure and you're upgrading as you go and i think like those three are examples and like you know yes they probably couldn't have been done on the nes though dig dug probably could have but like
they're different examples of the same kind of concept that i think are way better that's spelunker yeah um there's that yeah this isn't getting i mean i know we haven't done it yet but i don't think this is going to be essential so yeah i think it was worth mentioning other versions uh as like other recommendations but a sequel was released for spelunker if you can believe it spelunker 2 uh yusha yi no chosen like that's the that's my terrible uh we know the japanese english
translation we don't know um no one knows i don't have the translation i guess like nobody bothered to uh do it but spelunker 2 is how we'll refer to it uh irum published the game they were the guys who also published um 10 yard fight no what a game i can't remember i know we've had we keep pushing yeah we keep forgetting obviously not published another sports game yeah another sports game
we get we get like these i know we get them confused all the time that's why it's worth but funny enough the reason why i bring up spelunker 2 uh is not because it was japan only but also because it was released the same month as we got the original spelunker in north america so it was released in september 8 september 18th 1987 and so i think it's funny that like as we're getting it they're releasing the second version i bet they've had high hopes that they would be able to get the second one over here too but if we didn't that probably means that it didn't sell as well as
broderbund uh hoped yeah and then there's a spelunker hd on the ps3 which is a remake of the original spelunker with hd graphics and 100 levels okay so can you really call it a remake at that point as long as the first level is the first is the first cave then i guess it's a remake sure yeah i agree with that uh sentiment and then in japan again japan like must love spelunker 2x a third gaiden and and knuckles this one i have this one i have the english translation for so it's spelunker black okay which adds it adds a new character it's pretty much spelunker hd again but with a new character and now some parts of the level are just completely black
so they just they just did less work yeah yeah they're just like you don't have to see you can't see anything you have to you have to feel around but how do you know when you're bumping into i guess when i guess sound i guess in some way you know i i it was japan only i couldn't play the game if you die there's something that would kill you there yeah exactly i guess it was more just like you know i mean at this point spelunker is like ingrained in their heads so they might just like no like big fans of spelunker just know like oh yeah and in this section you gotta do this it's kind of like in tetris right when like um tetris the grand master which is like the arcade super
version of tetris that like you see top level tetris players playing when they're doing that and then all of a sudden like the blocks are invisible but they're still breaking them it's like at that point they just know yeah what's happening you know like it's a it's a whole nother level of playing i don't think spelunker black was meant for people who played the nes version of okay but there's no way that there's like a pro circuit of spelunker there's there's always a pro circuit of everything if agdq is talking anything okay awesome games done quick if you don't know what i'm talking about it if that doesn't say they they play spelunker yeah no what was uh what was
spelunker black released on spelunker black was also released on the ps3 okay and then uh even very recently uh spelunker is on switch there's a really fun cute uh and it has a demo if you're interested uh i played the demo in japanese a while back but my understanding is now the game is also available in english uh but you don't need you don't need to know anything but it's kind of
cute it's the spelunker concept and you do you can die just as easily but you have a two foot fall jump again yeah kind of uh i don't know if it's that bad but it they they like kind of made everything cute and chibi uh sounds like sean's on board and there's like rpg elements of it too like like what you collect like the caves are levels and what you collect in them carries over so like you can skip
stuff but obviously if you collected everything in the level like a big pile of gems yeah you could spend more at like the shops and stuff it's an interesting concept i would highly recommend checking that out um a lot of people who played the original spelunker pushed that on me when the demo came out on the switch they were like oh i love spelunker you got to give this a try and i just think like you know great for them that this series is still somehow running like on some level but like i would never recommend if you're enjoying the demo for the switch one to go back and try the nes one you know be like you know what you would really like a version that strips everything out
and the smoothest thing in the game is the elevator ride it is a smooth elevator all right uh should we go into the essential games list let's do it all right it's time for the essential games list
it's hard everybody's laughing but no one will know why um but maybe you guys are just laughing because you can't wait to vote that's exactly what it is and in case you're wondering what the essential games list is it's basically like us deciding if this game is still worth playing today i don't care about 1983 it's in the past it's also to some people happening right now like you know it's like the years are fluid yeah and we're just traveling time is just confetti exactly
events happening around us so i'm talking about if you're currently situated in the coordinates of 2019 uh that how do you feel about this game at this moment in this uh in this hemisphere i think i think that's me i think it's surprising okay great um so sam you can go first then tell how you feel since you feel like you're a candidate of i feel like i'm 18 universe at least right now i
am okay i still gotta work out whether or not we're we fit take your time um there's lots of it so how are you voting sam well uh deep breath is not essential uh it's i mean i feel like you play if you're at once and you're like all right i get it and that's all there is to it is it a play it ah it's like a maybe play i think if you're at all curious no it's a play all right i'll give it a play it's either it's a play it's definitely all right it's a play i'll give you a play it's a play
joke play i think it's a play great um i think that even even if you took out like the things that bothered me the most like particularly the controls being so bad and the in the fact that you die so easily in this game i don't think it's really still that interesting i don't know if i would still get even give it a play it um sam is mouthing it's a play but you know i i think like it's
interesting that they what they tried to do with the expiration but it just it just doesn't do it for me um and and i noticed while i was playing i already mentioned how much i liked the the opening music on the title screen and then when i got a game over i really liked that music and i realized like i'm enjoying this more before and after i play it than actually the time i'm playing it so
like i can see why people like it but it just was not for me sean uh one thing i i want to say is that i don't think that exploration was the the main conceit going into like the development of this game i don't think we're seeing it especially clearly in the way that they wanted it to be seen it's more it's just a puzzle game it's just a puzzle platformer with unforgiving uh verticality i guess
um that being said it's still it's still bland um it's it's a chore to move around in uh if you have to if you if you're on just like a weird incline you might die when you land um and uh yeah like there are there are games of this era that that did cave diving better which is a very specific thing to be better like to have things like outperform you at so i would say especially when
that's your whole game it's your whole game yeah just skip it uh skip it cool skip it there we go skip it all right and uh now for the verdict you've been waiting for it's me uh and i'm gonna tell you that this game is like a you know probably better left off as like a tech demo of like the very first parts of the first level and you just try those out and you're like huh neat and then you don't continue on like i don't know to me this isn't even a full game with everything that comes after it
and i think it's it's like cool that for some people they have nostalgia about this but i can't imagine if you weren't there at that time that you're gonna start playing it now and be like
where was this like in my childhood like i would have loved this like probably not all right it's one of those things you had to experience and unfortunately we didn't so we have no nostalgia for it and i am definitely not gonna put it on the essential games list but i'm also just gonna recommend that you pass it because i think at this point we've built up a solid library of games that you should play and those are all on the um on the website in the episodes list you can see we list play it skip it essential or listen to it if it's a special episode and um yeah that's fun and i think you'll see a bunch of play it's that i would highly recommend that haven't made the essential games list
over something like this so it's a no on both fronts for me you know it came out really hard for the play it's but now you guys are giving me second thoughts no you know what i think you just stick by your guns if you enjoy it you enjoy yeah i didn't really enjoy it it's more like i kind of got that feeling at least stick near your it was like play it so that you cannot enjoy it as much as i didn't enjoy it great okay yeah so like a lot of other people suffer too yeah it's not enough of them to listen to our podcast yeah it's like people like this game play it and you'll think they're dumb yeah i think every every game here comes with like that asterisk of like but play
it if you are doing this whole like exploration thing with us like if you want to play all the nes games like you shouldn't even care if we say play it or essential or not i think you should like tell us alongside everything we say is meaningless yeah yeah i mean like it should be to you guys like if you're the listener right you're just listening to us for the fun of it we should you should never say well you know michael esposito told me that castlevania was essential so if you don't think so you're wrong yeah at least we're not trying to like sell you loot boxes or anything like that i know not yet not yet uh but i should mention that for just 5.99 if you do if you choose what gets
essential yeah go to loopbox.gov and type in nesstelgia.com and you will get one loop box of loop box.gov yeah i love that uh and yeah that's right sam we just sell essential games over here you can buy votes votes individually though sorry yeah so each vote will be 5.99 you can't just um right can't just get the game on the list for that's only if you get a vote in your loop box yep you might just you might just gotta play it if you don't like what's on the essential games list you just send us a ddos and uh no one will ever see the site again send us a quick ddos and hit that like and subscribe button while you're at it
um seriously though that is all the time for this episode i hope you enjoyed spelunker if this was your game growing up uh and you're like upset that we didn't like it as much just just know this okay we're not making fun of you for your mistakes as a child okay we're not laughing at you we're laughing with you speak for yourself you should just you know like don't lose sleep tonight knowing that
like we don't approve of your game and instead think about what we're gonna do next week with spy hunter probably another game that a lot of people uh have played back in the day and uh i feel like i had but then i went back and played it i was like no i really haven't yeah i really hadn't played this game before so that's another brand new one for me and that's gonna be exciting so
that's why you should definitely hit that subscribe button for real z when you're uh when you're thinking about listening to another episode because you'll get them immediately they come every friday but just so to make sure that you hit the subscribe button i usually change it by a few minutes so if you want to get it exactly at like 756 instead of 804 you definitely you definitely want to hit the subscribe button we know you clear your friday schedules yeah uh i do know for a fact that certain people like to hear this on fridays that's why we made it fridays um not summer so not it's not summer wait it might be summer might be summer what's it like outside what's it yeah right into us yeah
there's a there's a form fill on the website for that whole thing if you want to tell us any of your thoughts games you've been playing recently what you've been in for dinner uh how your um resolutions for the year have been going just let me know what's your insurance plan like yeah and can we get on it all right guys that's right um and as a closing thought gamers rise up gamers rise up i'm michael esposito you can find me at esposito film on twitter and gamers rise up
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