Cave stories - Spelunky daily challenges!

[fuse]

Spelunky is bloody great.

You can get it on most formats now, but the PSN version hosts one of the most inspired reasons to keep at it; the 'Daily Challenge'. It's the same old game, but you only get one chance a day to submit a score, with logs kept online for the last week's worth of your top scores. It's a good way of measuring your consistency through a quick session each day, and given it's a cross-buy game, you can always take a shot on the Vita instead of the PS3 if it's easier. There's a PS4 version coming too.

So what say you? I know a few of you are already dropping the odd score on the board every now and again, but I thought it'd be fun to a) collect all of our PSN IDs in one place, and b) have somewhere to talk about our runs, current aims, and to quiz each other on strategies and so on.

Once you've got people on your friends list, it's really just a case of playing each day and seeing how you do. If anyone has any particularly good ideas of other things to log/compete on I'm game, but for now if you do manage a particularly good run though, I'd just ask that you come say a few words in here so that we know what you did and don't miss it.

PSN IDs:

fuse2dx
doodledude
DavidHolliss
toythatkills

[doodledude]

I'd be interested in this, although my play times for Spelunky are quite sporadic, maybe once a week on Vita, although it will probably increase once the PS4 version is out also.
I am useless though and have only managed to advance to the next set of stages (after the first initial 4/5 x cave stages) once!

PSN ID: doodledude

[fuse]

That's fine! I think that being willing to soldier on is half the battle; when I first played I didn't 'get' the game at all, but after seeing a bunch of experienced players play I wanted back in - since then it's been a series of little victories since

Will add you tonight!

[VR46]

Never played it before but will when PS4 version drops. Am always up for competition etc.

Spelunky must be so searched for on Google, this thread has had loads of views, like ten times a thread like this would have normally.

Read this article last night funnily enough "Inside the work of the Spelunky record chasers"

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-01-inside-the-world-of-the-spelunky-record-chasers

[fuse]

Hah, yeah - it's some of those guys whom I saw videos of that re-inspired me to give it another crack.

Some really good tips that helped me on my return to the game were that spikes are only lethal when you jump on them (you can run through them fine), and that big spiders are easiest killed by getting a bomb lodged in their own web below them before they drop.

I've now finished the game I think three times? What I am trying to work on though is getting to hell - which I came very close to recently. Then there's the simple matter of lasting through it...

[fuse]

On Wednesday I finally made it to Hell... and lasted about 15 seconds

Couple of disappointingly early deaths each day since; I seem to either go all the way or die in the caves!

[toythatkills]

...big spiders are easiest killed by getting a bomb lodged in their own web below them before they drop.

It sounds quite trivial but this is probably my number one tip in the entire game, the thing that went furthest to improving my scores. Not only does it make the mines a hell of a lot safer (those spiders are the hardest thing to deal with if you don't know how) but it gives you sticky bombs, which just make everything a tiny bit easier.

Anyway, yeah, Spelunky is amazing. I own it on Xbox 360, on Steam, and on PSN, and it's probably surpassed all other games as my favourite ever. Animal Crossing aside, it's the only thing I'm playing at the moment with any degree of regularity. There's just an incredible amount of depth to it and so many secrets and techniques to find. How many of these did you have any idea about? I've played this over 1,000 times between the three platforms and loads of them were news to me - and this is just the tip of the iceberg!

New personal best in the daily this morning, $362,675! Still a way off the $500k achievement/trophy but I don't think I'll get that without a trip to Hell and I'm still just on the edge of doing that.

[fuse]

Man, today was the day - cleared hell, finished the journal, and smashed my best score to pieces all on the daily challenge. I'll spoiler-tag this just in case people are wanting to discover this stuff on their own.

->Open Spoiler<-

Run started nicely with two bomb bags and a bomb box on 1-1, and then a shotgun in a crate on 1-2... left the mines with spring shoes and a climbing glove too that I'd bought along the way. Found the black market easily enough on 2-1, and was left with enough money to buy a compass there as well as the ankh. By the time I got to 3-1 I'd sacrificed one live and one dead damsel, which thankfully meant that the couple of yetis that I found hanging around a shrine at the top of the level were enough to net me the Kapala; was worried that trying to get the damsel would prove troublesome as it was a 'wet fur' level - thankfully I managed to rush to the exit without too much trouble. Rest of the ice caves went smoothly enough, then my heart sank on getting to 4-1 and having a dark level. Managed to turn things back in my favour by setting up a ditch in front of a mummy so I could farm some life; knowing time was of the essence I left him earlier than I'd have liked, but still with some 20-something hearts. Irritatingly, Anubis was hidden off on some walled off corner of the map, which I still can't believe I managed to get to without dying. 4-2 was a bit nicer, with the gold door much closer to the start of the level (but still right on top of another mummy). Olmec fight went brilliantly, and you should've seen my face when one of his crates ended up containing a jetpack. Hell was nerve-racking as ever; originally made an executive decision not to go for Vlad's amulet as I only had 8 bombs, but after walking away I found a crate almost straight afterwards that contained a bomb box, so it was decided. Rest of hell went reasonably well - didn't really take any hits, was just being super cautious around the vampires and whipping every damsel before they had a chance to change. My first time fighting Yama, and (no doubt thanks to watching videos on the internet) it went ok! Bombed the two guys at the start; unfortunately one threw his bombs into the lava but the other set was very welcome. No pitcher's mitt, but still ended up taking him down with enough bombs left to blow up most of his throne to grab some loot. Left, breathed a sigh of relief, and then did a little dance around the front room.

30 minutes, 28 seconds, with a total of $461,250

[fuse]

Great run today leading to a new high score. Couple of early bomb boxes prompted me to take it slowly and push for score, and given I still had plenty (along with a kapala and about 100k in the bank) come the black market, I thought I'd rob the place, which went surprisingly smoothly. Blew my City of Gold / Hell chances by trying to shotgun an Alien Lord's shield in 3-1, but after the Ankh brought me back I got my revenge and claimed a jetpack. Much ghosting ensued. Milked 4-1 heavily at the cost of many bombs, and whilst I opened the vault in 4-2 I left the contents for the ghost, yet stupidly decided to take on the shopkeeper at the exit just as he spawned. A good $60k of low-hanging fruit squandered, still I came away with $576,650. This got me the 'Loads of Money' trophy, and most importantly at all, it beats TTK's best by $15,150

Have also been pushing very (very) hard on trying to get the Speedlunky trophy. I've now had Olmec down to his final row with over a minute to spare twice, and have made it to the Temple in sub-5 minutes plenty more times. But still waiting for 'the run' that sees it all come together.

[toythatkills]

Hah, I'll beat your high score one day. I don't really like ghosting in the dailies though because it's a very very slow way to play the game and it doesn't feel quite as fun doing that every single day, it just goes on too long. The dailies on PSN now are my attempts to get to Hell I think. But yeah, ghosting is definitely the only way to really achieve anything like that kind of score, so I'll be doing it one day and I will beat you! Maybe. I need to get the $500k achievement on Xbox anyway, so I've gotta get somewhere around that.

Congratulations on your Speedlunky, even though it's really annoyed me that I got it basically right after, haha! I beat your time, at least