Dumm Comics
Daily Dumms for Everyones!
Pages
Contents
- Blog (64)
- News (64)
- Comics (1388)
- Daily (725)
- Frog Racoon Strawberry (155)
- Life in the Analog Age (89)
- Rad Raz (83)
- Skadi (211)
- Sorry Guys (58)
- Wicked Wickle (68)
- Zoo Laffs (61)
- Hall of Dumm (663)
- 1930 Nightmare Theatre (318)
- Big Pants Mouse (122)
- Earthward Ho! (60)
- Guest Comic (42)
- Mech Lab (65)
- Rumpus McSnivel (8)
- Through The Porthole (48)
- Daily (725)
Links
Powered by WordPress with ComicPress |Subscribe: RSS |Back to Top ↑
I figured it’s been long enough I don’t really need to sit behind that shitty alias anymore…
Anyways.. Awhile back I picked up a NES and a box of Nintendo games at a garage sale for like $20.00, most of the games were pretty uninspiring. But one of them was Spelunker.
When I first played the game, I hated it. It was one of those god awful, “everything kills you”, NES games with awful game mechanics. The only other game I played that was worse then that was Solstice, which was also in the box of games, ha ha.
Anyways, after being really board one night I sat down with the game again and played it, and played it… And played it some more. Once you get the controls of the game down and get used to it’s unforgiving gameplay, it’s not really such a bad game. It’s kind of like Ghosts N’ Goblins, it’s hard as hell, but once you get good at it, you feel like a Boss playing it.
I never liked Ghost and Goblins either. It controlled well, but man, the enemies and levels were just too hard. The whole, “just an illusion” is probably the meanest thing in any game.
I gotta find Solstice.
I call games like this wall bangers, just because it’s just like banging your head against the wall. :)
Spelunker! Man, this game was hard. Every kid should try it… :p
Agreed, especially kids that think newer games are hard…
I know that feeling of trying those “hard” games. I still think that the worst game I have ever played was “Deadly Towers.”
I’ll track that down too. I love to see how painful they made these games. It’s weird, it’s like they built those old games for you to find a way to cheat to win, not actually get better at playing them…
I think this game was done by Angry Video Game Nerd…not sure…
Hmmm… can’t seem to find it. I’ll send him an email with this comic attached, see what he thinks :)
I think he will gladly review it in the future^^
is my imagionation or your borther in this comic likes Knives Chau from Scott Pilgrim :D Gabe?
I love that Scott Pilgrim, thanks!
Worst game I ever played on the Atari 2600: Swordquest– I never understood what THE FUCK I was supposed to do.
Worst game I ever played on the NES: Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom –Just awful. Repetitive. Annoying music. Did I say repetitive?
Worst game I’ve played on the 360 console (so far): Dead Rising –Sorry, but I game that forces you to save your progress by going to the bathroom and take a piss, should be burned on sight!!
Isn’t Dead Rising pretty popular? I thought a lot of people like it.
Man, I don’t even know what’s happening in this game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dts6t4q_2s
Are you kidding? Spelunker was AWESOME. And by awesome I mean really bad… but still awesome. I played Spelunker for about a billion hours on my Commodore 64 and honestly can’t remember what level I got to, just that I never won.
I’d probably have at least two extra years of (real) life if I could get that time back — as well as a much greater likelihood of a non-arthritic-thumb-laden future. But I don’t want it back.
In all seriousness, I didn’t know anyone else even knew about Spelunker. Whenever kid-me brought it up in public no one ever knew what the hell I was talking about. (This was, of course, not an uncommon reaction to many things I would bring up, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.)
Man, unlike you, I would love to have that time back. That game is almost unbearable. Castlevania 3 was another one of those games that I got really far as a kid, and now I can bearly make a dent in it.
Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eucFg-6FGyM
Also, via the description for that video:
Among Internet users in Japan, the word “Spelunker” is used to mean ” too weak” or “injure oneself frequently”.
Crazy! That seems impossible! How come he dies so inconsistently? Sometimes if there’s an explosion onscreen he dies, other times, he doesn’t seem to be harmed. Weird.
Ah, that Japanese definition of “Spelunker” seems to be dead on! I still can’t believe that someone liked the game enough to make Spelunky or even Spelunker HD!
It’s called a Tool-Assisted Speedrun (TAS), which means the person making the video is not “playing” the game in the normal sense, they’re using a Nintendo emulator with the ability to undo mistakes, play at slower speeds, etc. All with the goal of beating the game as fast as possible. Even dying is part of that strategy, since it’s sometimes faster to die than to walk back to where you need to go.
Pretty much any NES game you’ve heard of, and a lot more, have had the TAS treatment done, if you want to waste an afternoon some time.
Sounds like the cowards’ way. Shameful.
I know this game. I know what you’re talking about! :P
Have you ever fallen more than 3 pixels without dying? :)
One of these days, Angry Video Game Nerd should review Spelunker. What do you think?
It was probably tool assisted. (Plays until he dies then goes back to a particular point before that until he gets it right)
Anyways, whose that weird looking guy sitting in the chair in the middle of the room?
Ha! That’s our family friend who actually gave us the game.
Agreed!
Please do an entire comic about him without featuring any of you.
Deal.
oh I thought you asked to don’t do one… hmmm….
Gabe, I’m giving you major props for adding Super Mario Bros. 2 & Mega Man 3 on that line-up of NES games. Especially Mega Man 3, as I’ll never forget the Wily Stage 2 Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsqMYXqGAVw
That song’s so good! I love Mega Man 3, it’s my favorite ones–and one of the only ones I could beat! :)
I remember NES zelda link to the past and there was some game bug that once you got to a certain area the game would just like glitch out and i could never beat it made me so angry that I eventually sold the game. But some of the NES games where really cool while other where just terrible. But they did how ever provide many hours of entertainment especially atari meanwhile games now a days are more play and throw away once the games done 50 hours of game play might as well trade it in.
Can you believe those old games only took a couple hours to beat? I remember playing them continuously for months!
Never played it…looks like the type of thing I’d give up on in five seconds.
I wonder if they made this game to annoy kids? There’s a freeware game called “I Wanna be the Guy” purposely made to bug people. It’s quite entertaining to watch Let’s Plays of it.
Wow, that game doesn’t look fun at all…
I am playing it right now at http://nintendo8.com/game/678/spelunker/
… I could not get off the elevator, when I finally did I fell 3 pixels and died…this game is awful lol.
Ha! Ha! Man that game…
Wow, I must have been very lucky to have avoided that game. I think the absolute worst I played with back then was the old E.T. game for the 2600. Once you fell into a frickin pit it became maddening to get out again and worst of all you HAD to jump in the pits to look for phone pieces. No wonder all the unsold copies ended up in a landfill.
Ha! Yep, I heard about that game! I would love to find that landfill!
Hey Gabe, have you heard of the indie game Spelunky?
It was made a couple of years ago and is probably one my favourite games of all time. It shares some superficial similarities with Spelunker, only it’s actually good. It’s free and you can download it here:
http://spelunkyworld.com/original.html
Is it that good? I love the creator’s games, he’s amazing. I’ll check it out! Thanks!
December 29, 2011 at 9:27 pm | Reply
It’s the type of game where you think it’s quite brutal at first, but the more you play and understand the dynamics the better you get at it. It doesn’t explain everything to you in the tutorial level, you sort of have to discover things for yourself.
Other games advance the gameplay by introducing new weapons, harder enemies etc where as this game is more about you learning more about the world. Because the levels are randomly generated you’re always playing a new, unique level.
It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I spent many good hours in the pixelated world of Spelunky.
Hi Gabe!
I mentioned your comic page here: http://bezerrobizarro.deviantart.com/art/Spelunker-276240930
I hope you don’t mind. :)
Cheers!
Of course not! Please share and help get the word out! Thanks so much!
Oh, I forgot to say thanks for the Christmas card! I always get them when I come home during Christmas and it’s like an extra bonus on top of regular holiday goodness. Hope you had a good one this year!
Oh great, glad you got it! Merry Christmas Tillie!
try Dark Souls… now
Normally I don’t comment on dummcomics but man this comic hits really close to home, even if my story takes place in the late 90′s. I was given Christmas money to buy a new Nintendo 64 game with when I was about 7 or 8. I had a choice between Ocarina of Time, Diddy Kong Racing or I *think* Super Mario 64… and I blew it on Chameleon Twist 2. I have no idea why either but I was horrible at the game and spent a good few months afterwards trying to find a way to ‘prove’ this game was broken so I could get a refund (surprise: I couldn’t). Taught me a good lesson in never buying something based off the colorful cover.
*I imagine this was an even worse problem in the 80′s for kids around Christmas time when NES games could vary from amazing to shockingly awful with little to no way of telling beforehand.*
Oooohhh, ouch! Man, that sucks! You always have to look out for those covers! They are out to trick you!
I wish I could play the games I thought they would be like based on the covers!
I would have to at least see the screens on the back of the box before buying, but that was even a gamble back then!
I remember hearing about the game, but haven’t played it. Not even the HD on PS3. I keep seeing the Spelunker memes, but most of them are in Nico Nico Douga. Heck, there’s even a Spelunker appearance in 3D Dot Game Heroes and it does have a remix tune and his death tune and animation along with him. I wonder if James Rolfe will do for that bad game since it has a ridiculous gameplay at which I already seen that in ScrewAttack.
We can only hope that the Angry Videogame Nerd covers this game! I haven’t seen any of the Spelunker memes yet. I’ll check them out…