Spelunky News!

 15 Years of Spelunky!

Posted by garebear on November 14th, 2023 @05:35AM

It's hard to believe it's been almost 15 years since the original version of Spelunky was released. Join us on December 16th to celebrate all 3 games!

 

 Introducing Main Segmented!

Posted by garebear on April 1st, 2023 @01:54AM

The most important ranking is finally here.

 

Are you tired of having to actually complete runs to submit to MossRanking? Not satisfied with NO MOSSPOINTS for submitting your IL, Area, and Pace categories? Well starting today you can compete for Segmented supremacy.

 

Spelunky Classic

Spelunky HD

Spelunky 2

 

See how many moss points you can get in hundreds of different categories!

 

Don't forget to check out Moss Total

 All Shortcuts + Olmec Tournament in January!

Posted by LWHazel on December 3rd, 2022 @07:32PM

Hey Spelunkers,

 

We are doing an All Shortcuts + Olmec tournament in January of 2023. The tournament will have two stages, a group stage and a single elimination bracket stage.

 

If you would like to participate you can fill out the form here

 

And if you have any questions for the event organizers about the event, you can join our discord here.

 

 

 Digging Deeper with... Carlibraun

Posted by LWHazel on November 1st, 2022 @11:35PM

Digging Deeper With... Carlibraun!

How did you come up with your username? Carlibraun is a screenname that Ive had since I went online for the first time. Back in the early 2010s when ICQ and Skype were the big messaging apps, my family decided to make accounts. Since I was rather young and had no idea what this ment I went with suggestions from my family. My sister came up with the name of Carlibraun. Obviously a play on Charlie Brown from the Peanuts, which my family found cute, it fit my IRL name and using the german word for Brown added an extra twist to it. It was good enough for me so I used it for everything else from that point onward. The name grew on me a lot and Im happy I kept it as mine consistently for so long. Kinda allows for a sort of “branding” for your online presence. And It reminds me of my Sister :)

What's an interesting fact about you? I am studying physic, although that has been quite a trainwreck for a while now… :))))))) I do have a beginner Interest in philosophy (specifically this podcast) and I like to learn about ideas and different ways of thinking in general. Uhh… I am Italian, but grew up all my life in Germany, specifically a part of Bavaria that doesn’t want to be considerd part of it. I like to use that to annoy people by cycling through “I am italina/german/bavarian/not really bavarian” :^)


How did you first get into Spelunky? Im not 100% sure anymore but Im confident it was a Summoning Salt video back in late 2017. I knew of Speedrunning before but never found the idea of doing exact inputs over and over again interesting. The Videos made me want to try it anyway. So I decided to look over my Steam Library of games I owned. Stuff like GTA5 were options but my PC wasn’t that great. After some more scrolling I found Spelunky HD. I had played it before but only beat Olmec the hard way, and I didn’t even care for Hell. That was back in 2014 when I saw it in a Letspaly of a German YouTuber.
I was already a big fan of Roguelikes and especially The binding of Isaac at that time (which I knew would be a horrible Speedrun game without doing any research… funny how I ended up still running it for the Pentathlons :D). I did some quick research on Lunky Speedruns and decided that a game with short run times, that is not a “static” Run, had everything for Speedrunning build in and was not super massive/competitive anymore would be neat to try out as my first Speedgame. I did some runs on my own and quickly discovered the Top runners streaming on Twitch. Spef was the first person I talked to In chat. Watching him, Kinni, Ix and others and just trying to copy what they are doing made me improve rather quick. I also started to try out to stream my grind sessions, mostly micless, and joined the Discord. People started to show up in my chat to talk and Especially Ixs words saying that I was doing well and had potential made me stick around and grind for my first submission. I wanted it to be respectable: a sub 3:30 low% (or a no% completion but Ix talked me out of it). I go that run eventually and that’s how I got roped into the Community.


What run of yours are you most proud of? I think that goes to the Max no% completion, rather unsurprisingly. That was the run I worked the hardest and longest for. I like no%, as to me it embodies the concept perfect play at all the times the best. Getting a good no% time was one of my first long term goals, even before Max Low, Low hell or filling out my main page. Being one of the few people who cared about no% as a Speedcategory also felt like I had to get it. To fill out the ranking, cause if not me then who. Even more so after a lot of other people who were going for it lost interest post the “max nah%” completion. When I finally did get a run that was allowed on the ranking I did shed some Tears :’^) Im also quite proud of my first Max Low Hell, the No% WR, my Max Low No Gold Hell, and, to a degree, the ASO WR.


What is your favorite part of the community? When I joined the HD community I really liked the small size and maturity of it. Everyone was respectful, easy to talk to and kept stuff fun and not too serious, drama was a rarity and/or small and interpersonal. The average age of the active members was def. higher than my Age, which contributed to that feeling I think. That changed a lot with S2 unsurprisingly, but overall the Spelunky community is definitely still one of the best videogame communities I know of. Ive made some good friendships over the years even if some didn’t hold as well as I wished…
Having a nice place to talk about a shared interest in ones favorite videogame, without toxicity while still being somewhat competitive and helping out with information where they can, is just really nice in general!


What is your favorite game?
I don’t think this is much of a surprise but obviously Spelunky HD. It’s the Singleplayergame Ive spent the most Time in by a massive margin. Other than that I do like all of the Pentathlon games a lot, nowadays Nuclear throne the most of the other 4. Its probably my second favorite game overall. It is quite literally the perfect score game: no hard cap on the potential Score in any given seed, nor does it actually go on for infinity. I also played a lot of Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft Minigames back in the day. Minecraft is probably the only game that would trump my Spelunky playtime.


What is your favorite TV show/movie? This is the only other “Whats your favorite X” question that is easy to answer, since Ive only ever watched one TV show all the way through. That would be Breaking Bad. Absolute top tier quality show. I also liked what I saw of Better Call Saul and shows like House M.D.. Oh and Scrubs and Once Piece when I was younger!
Movie wise… hard to pick. I do like the Humor of the Monty Python Movies a lot. I also enjoy the Movies from the Coen brothers, Tarantino and Christopher Nolan a lot. Big Lebowski, No country for old men, Interstellar, Inception, Pulp Fiction, hell throw Gran Torino in there why not. Don’t know if id call any of those my “favorite”. Its not as clear as with BB.


Who is your favorite musical artist? I don’t have one. But my music taste is very varied and broad. Some artists of various different Styles include Mika, Gheist, Ratatat, Worakls, French 79, Frank Sinatra, Amy Winehouse, Sewerslvt, Lemmino, Peter Fox, ENV, Caravan Palace, Käptn Peng, Obylx/Odjbox, Sim Gretina, Animal Collective … I could go on for a while…

 

What is your favorite food? I don’t know, theres too many things to pick from.. I like japanese cuisine a lot and italian is just overall the best european food you can get T B H. Anything from a grill is always a good pick too!

 

Describe your personality in three words. Caring, Egotistical, Sexicon B)
I am not going to elaborate further.

 

If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why? Honestly I do not know what Id do with some supernatural power. Once you pick one you’d always feel like “but the infinite possibilities of all the other ones :(“. Teleportation or Freezing time sounds amazing, just so you can do more things. Eternal youth so you can do anything in life without the curse of not being able to die is also neat I think. But honestly I don’t know. So just 10 quintillion Dollars for me please. All while staying anonymous. With that I can live my life how I want, can do tons of good things for my loved ones, me and in general and since its a secret I don’t get to deal with all the social alienation of being ultra rich.

 

Do you have anything you’d like to say to the community?
gg people, great hell runs. lol
What? Kiri already made that joke? Back in 2018?!? :(

 Digging Deeper with... KyRZy

Posted by LWHazel on October 24th, 2022 @08:19PM

 

Digging Deeper with... KyRZy!

 

Hello everyone and welcome to the inaugural issue of Digging Deeper, a remake of the old Mossnews segment, 21 Questions. Our first guest will be KyRZy; without further ado, let’s jump into our questions!

 

How did you come up with your username? KyRZy is just a shortened version of my real name - Krzysztof (good luck with pronouncing that one). Originally I shortened it to just krz but 'y's made it easier for other poles to read it.

 

What's an interesting fact about you? In high school I was a part of archery club. But because I was bad at it....I mean because I wanted to focus on exams and college, I decided it's better for me to drop out.

 

How did you first get into Spelunky? I've always loved the roguelike and roguelite genres. When I was still recording let's plays for YouTube, it was just a matter of time until I found out that Spelunky HD existed and tried it. People liked watching me finish most of my Hell runs and I enjoyed playing it, so I did it for a while. At the time I didn't know speedrunning existed so I mostly did Hell runs up to when Spelunky 2 came out.

 

What run of yours are you most proud of? I would probably choose the category that gives me the chills every single time I'm on the final stretch - Pacifist Low%. Besides MossRacing, I completed this category only once and I choked so many paci Tiamat kills. So when I got my completion, with a time of 5:06.983, I was very happy because I could finally move to grinding other categories. But I feel like I'll need to improve this time in the near future.

 

What is your favorite part of the community? I love that the community is very open to everyone. Whenever I needed anything, everyone was willing to help even if they didn't know anything about me. As an example I could bring up the situation, where I wanted to propose a TAS showcase for a polish charity speedrunning event, but I didn't know anything about TASing. I asked Sonth and Spencer if I could use their files and they just shared them without any questions. After I discovered that an update broke the TASes, both of them found time to fix them for me. So I will again take the opportunity to thank Sonth and Spencer, because thanks to you, we raised a bit more money for charity. Thank you

 

What is your favorite TV show/movie? I'm not really a movie guy but if I had to choose...I think I've had the most fun watching Deadpool in cinema. I didn't watch Deadpool 2 yet, but I'm pretty sure I will do it just before the next part comes out.

 

Who is your favorite musical artist? I've always listened to most genres but I'll say that artists like Skillet or Autopilot Off were always on my most listened playlists.

 

What is your favorite song/album? Blessed By a Nightmare by Autopilot Off from the album called Make A Sound.

 

What is your favorite food? I have a soft spot for kebab from my hometown. I know that it isn't a regional food, but it's just made way better there. Since I've moved I cannot find anything even comparable to it.

 

Describe your personality in three words. Goofy, but composed.

 

If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why? There's so many to choose...I guess kinda useful and not so overpowered would be being as fast as Flash. I could travel fast and far without getting exhausted and maybe then I would be able to quadcook consistently.

 

Do you have anything you’d like to say to the community? Thank you to everyone that is part of the community and in particular to those who keep everything running. Without MossRanking, everyone helping with rule discussions, organizing events or just streaming the game and being active on discord, this community wouldn't feel so alive.

 MossRanking Updates

Posted by garebear on February 19th, 2022 @07:35PM

 

Hey everyone! It's been a while since we've done any updates but I plan to start providing frequent updates, starting with some recent changes to our categories.

 

Spelunky 2

Low% Update

With a vote of 24 in favor, 17 against we have updated to Low% rules to allow picking up the Four-Leaf Clover as long as it doesn't result in an extension of the ghost timer.

 

New Categories

We've added the following Score Area categories:

 

 

 

Spelunky HD

Main Speed

There were recent nominations to update Main Speed to include some new categories of those nominations No Teleporter No Gold Any% and No Teleporter Max Hell% stood out specifically. 72% of voters voted to adding both categories.

 

Subrankings

 

Categories

 

 

Spelunky Classic

We've updated the World Record Progression for Any% to include the historical runs from moozoohortoslon, and ExplodingCabbage

 

 

 Derek Yu on Spelunky 2's more 'open-world' nature, items balance, and shoppies

Posted by hb on August 14th, 2020 @08:15PM

 

(Minor spoilers in this article.)

 

Developer Derek Yu has dropped a few fresh details about Spelunky 2 ahead of the upcoming release, suggesting that the sequel will feel more open in nature as well as hinting at some of the differences compared to the first game.

 

With Spelunky 2's release date confirmed as September 15 for PlayStation 4 (the PC version is expected a few weeks later), Yu - alongside composer Eirik Suhrke - was making an appearance on the latest Spelunky Showlike podcast. "One thing that's been really interesting for me is thinking about Spelunky 2 more like an open-world game or a sandbox game in some ways," he said, describing the step from the first Spelunky to Spelunky 2 was like Super Mario Bros. to Super Mario Bros. 3 or World.

 

"Instead of [thinking about it] like a roguelike, which I think implies more of a linear game, if you think about every run that you do in Spelunky 2 is like a different thread heading out in a different direction, where this time around you can try this, I think it's more like an open-world game in that sense. [In] an open-world game, you're just at this starting point and you can pick a direction to go in. You can go north, south, east, west. You can do that in Spelunky 2, even though it's ostensibly a linear game.

 

 

"A lot of that has to do with the branching paths, and also that second layer in the back. But thinking about the game like it's open-world has really informed a lot of the design and this idea that you cannot see everything in a single run. In Spelunky 1, it was actually kind of a goal to be like, it'd be cool if the player could see every single thing that you can see in a single run if they know enough about the game. Whereas in Spelunky 2, you literally cannot do that. No matter how well you know the game, you cannot see everything in a single run."

 

Yu added that he sees reaching the end as a "secondary goal" in the game, explaining: "I really just want people to explore and experiment, kind of in the way that the speedrunners do. Like they're going to do runs just to see, 'Well, what happens when you do this?'. I think I want more casual players to feel that they can do that, too.

 

"There's a lot in the game that pushes you to not care about dying in some ways - to care but not care like, the game is meant to be played across multiple runs. And so that's something that we really wanted to convey with the design this time around."

 

The Spelunky Showlike hosts brought up a new object in the game - a ghost jar. Breaking open the jar will reveal a diamond but it comes at a cost, with the ghost immediately spawning. "The ghost jar just came from wanting to give people a way to summon the ghost if they wanted to ghost-mine basically and not having to wait around," Yu said. "That basically came from the speedrunning and high score community to start with. And then I threw in the diamond because when you ghost-mine, the ghost turns gems into diamonds. I wanted to tie it to the ghost in that way."

 

 

While the promotional trailers and screenshots for Spelunky 2 have revealed a number of new items that players can expect, many of the old ones from the first game have been altered slightly. Climbing gloves, according to Spelunky Showlike, have been 'fixed' where "you don't really accidentally stick to walls", while using the cape requires a button to be held down rather than toggling. The tweak with the cape is due to a desire to standardise the controls (the turkey mount can glide).

 

But for other items, Yu wanted to do a little balancing while also using them to flesh out the new world. He added that Spelunky 2's array of items means that theoretically players should feel less reliant on the jetpack compared to in Spelunky 1.

 

"There are a lot of items in Spelunky 1 that just weren't super useful, or as useful as they could be," he said. "But [the balancing] works really well with also making the world feel more rich and just pushing the possibility space outward or filling in the existing possibility space - finding what are things that we can do with the items that would make them more interesting and more useful. And so a lot of those older items that people didn't use as much are more useful and that's intentional.

 

"I think one thing that was interesting to me was, having a variety of items and good items is that… when I play the game, I feel like the jetpack comes up a lot less in my runs and also I don't miss it as much when I don't get it. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's something that I'd hoped would happen and feels like is true. In Spelunky 1, you did kind of have sort of like an ascension kit of shotgun and jetpack, and I did want to move away from that for Spelunky 2."

 

 

Finally, Yu talked about the shopkeepers in the game, who appear to be much more dangerous and threatening this time around. Shopkeepers - as well as Hired Helps - have greater AI and pathfinding and can even climb ladders and ropes, meaning that robbing shops become a riskier affair.

 

"I did want shopkeepers to be scarier," Yu told Spelunky Showlike. "One thing that really stood out to me from one of your previous podcasts - the one with Justin Ma who co-created FTL and Into the Breach - he was saying that he never robs the shops. He just doesn't want to deal with all that. And so I thought it was really important to make not robbing the shops as viable as possible in Spelunky 2.

 

"It was obviously viable in Spelunky 1 if Justin wasn't robbing the shops, but I wanted the pressure to rob the shops to be less if you really didn't want to… [but] it should still be tempting."

 

The black market has undergone a big change too, as a result. Although neither the Spelunky Showlike hosts nor Yu detailed exactly how the black market was different this time around, there was some allusion that it would be noticeably more difficult to rob. "That was definitely intentional," Yu shared. "That was another thing - making it viable to actually shop at the black market and kind of pushing you to do that if you want to was also important."

 

You can listen to Spelunky Showlike episode 50 in full here.

 

Previous articles:

Derek Yu discusses Spelunky 2 philosophy while aiming for 2020 release (11 May 2020)

Derek Yu talks about Spelunky 2 and how his daughter inspired him creatively (2 June 2018)

 

 

 Derek Yu discusses Spelunky 2 philosophy while aiming for 2020 release

Posted by hb on May 11th, 2020 @10:36PM

 

Spelunky 2 creator Derek Yu has dropped a couple of small hints about the upcoming sequel as the development team works towards a 2020 release.

 

Late last month, Yu confirmed on social media that he and Eirik Suhrke will be prioritising development on Spelunky 2 over UFO 50, and although the developer didn't share any new specific details while featuring on the latest episode of the Spelunky Showlike podcast, he did talk about his philosophy and approach to game design while repeating his desire for a launch before the end of the year.

 

"For me, the experience of working on Spelunky 1 and previous games has helped me move in the right directions at the right times," Yu said when asked about heading towards the finish line and whether or not he was considering making cuts. "At the point I'm at now, I don't feel like I need to cut a lot of things that I want to have in the game.

 

 

"In general, I've been developing a philosophy of not cutting anything from games. Just leave it in there, you know. But it depends on the kind of game that you're working on… For example, I think Spelunky 2 has become such a dense game that if I add an enemy or a trap, I can find a place for it. I can find a place to put that thing and there's not going to be an enemy or trap that just breaks the game.

 

"I knew I wanted to finish both [Spelunky 2 and UFO 50] around three, it's going to be four years. I didn't want to take much longer than that because for me, I think after three or four years, that's like a single game lifetime and then after that, I've changed too much as a person. And I kind of like these projects to be snapshots of me and of the development team in this three- or four-year period."

 

Later in the podcast, Yu shared how arcade games will continue to influence Spelunky for the sequel. He commented that one complete run of Spelunky 2 shouldn't take longer than an hour, and that he was inspired by the "lean and explosive" approach seen in arcade games.

 

"It's 'lean' because you have to push players along to the interesting parts of the game as quickly as possible," he explained. "And you just don't see it in modern games or modern game development. I think the temptation these days to make more sales in games is, you've got to make your games feel very full and I think it can lead to padding your game or choosing genres that feel like they're going to offer this 'full' experience so people feel like they're worth buying.

 

 

"And I say 'explosive' because [arcade games] don't save anything for the end. The experiences are quite short, to play through an arcade game. It's like 30 minutes to an hour tops for the longer arcade games. You don't want to save anything for the end because players are renting the game a quarter at a time. So starting with Stage 1, you've got to put it all out there on the table while still in the later parts of the game giving people something to look forward to. And I realise that I think that's been very influential in Spelunky 1 and 2, and it's a type of design that I really enjoy.

 

"I think while working on Spelunky 2, I've had that mentality -- consciously or sub-consciously -- like, don't save anything. Just, I want the experience to end, playing from beginning to end, after an hour tops. And within that timeframe, I just really want this experience to be really dense starting with the very first area of the game. I want to be laying it all on the table, and I want the game to be as interesting as it possibly can be there.

 

"I've just been really into arcade games recently. I think they have influenced Spelunky's design from the very first game, even with stuff like the ghost kind of pushing you forward a bit as a soft timer. That's a very arcadey system and I may not have completely understood why it worked the way it did back then in the larger context of arcade design, but I think I'm starting to get it more."

 

 

And when Yu was asked about his thoughts on whether or not Spelunky 2 could have worked as an early access game, the developer said that he never really considered that idea. Yu added that he hopes players will be surprised by Spelunky 2 and explained why he doesn't simply want to give fans of the first game exactly what they want.

 

"To me, there's kind of a membrane between the developer and the player, and it feels strange to break that prematurely," he said, discussing why early access wouldn't have worked for Spelunky 2. "My whole relationship with feedback is just very strange. I tend to have to change into the headspace where, okay, now I'm going into feedback mode.

 

"Feedback is very important and especially from players of Spelunky 1. I do want to hear what they want to see in Spelunky 2, but I just can't have that constant sort of drip feed of feedback. There has to be, I think, large periods of time where the development team and I, it's just us in our own little world. I think even some of the uncertainty that comes from that like… 'Is anybody going to even like this?', which always comes up no matter how many games you've worked on, even that is good and I appreciate that feeling.

 

"It's sort of an exciting feeling, and ultimately releasing a game these days, more than people enjoying the game I think you want people to just really feel something strongly. I'm really scared of putting something out that is just what everyone wants. I know that sounds silly and you have to get to a point where you're lucky enough that that is not your main concern."

 

In 2018, Yu talked about how his daughter inspired him creatively for Spelunky 2.

 

Spelunky 2 has been confirmed for PC and PlayStation 4. An exact release date and additional platforms have not yet been announced.

 

 Nominations Voting for the 2019 Spelunky Community Awards has opened!

Posted by GC on December 4th, 2019 @03:25AM

Hello all!

It’s that time of year again - time for the 2019 Spelunky Community Awards! We will start with a 1 week nominations round before the final voting opens. Winners will be announced in a TBD format just before the turn of the decade! 

As of now, nominations voting is officially opened! Please vote ONCE ONLY at this link: https/forms.gle/2XGAMPDrPLMVnkJn6. Nominations voting will close Wednesday, December 7th, at 11:59 PM GMT.

~GC

 Spelunky in April 2019: A MossNews Recap

Posted by GC on May 6th, 2019 @09:56PM

Spelunky in April 2019: A MossNews Recap

 

Over the course of April 2019, many runs were submitted, science discoveries were made, and the community continued to grow! In these monthly recaps, I’ll be looking over some of the most significant happenings in the community including World Record runs (non-main category), other PBs, science discoveries, and how the community as a whole developed over the month of April! As I am one person, I unfortunately haven’t had the time to watch every single run submitted, nor do I have the time to recap them all. However, I will be covering each WR that does not have its own article (looking at you, ix), and numerous other significant PBs and first completions by members of the community. I’ll also be covering events that aren’t runs, such as new MossNews features, science discoveries, and community events (in months to come). If you complete a run you feel is significant, feel free to shoot me a PM, and I’ll do my best to cover it in the next recap. Like I said before, I’m only one person. If I leave out a run you think is important, take it as a testament to the sheer number of submitted runs rather than an affront to its significance (and definitely let me know for next time)! Without further ado, let’s get started on the happenings this month!

 

What better way than to start than with world records? Kinnijup improved the Low% Hell record with a time of 5:07, and reclaimed the Score record with a score of $7.43 million! D_tea also continued his score-running dominance by winning 2 back-to-back dailies - both of which were world records! This feat is unlikely to ever be repeated. In addition to those main category runs (which have their own articles), there were 4 more records split between Kinnijup and ix. Kinnijup improved the Low% No Gold Hell record (a devilishly tricky but enjoyable category), breaking the 6 minute barrier with a time of 5:57! As required on any Low% Hell run, 5-3 was an absolute nightmare and a vampire nearly ended the run after Yama’s death. His other world record was a massive 13 second improvement of the No Teleporter No Gold Max Any% category, with a time of 3:06. I am not exaggerating when I say this run is one of my favorite Spelunky runs ever - the extremely technical plays, close calls, and fast-paced excitement of the run far outpace the recognition it got - I highly recommend watching this run, as it is its own highlight reel. While Kinni was dominating the No Gold scene, ix secured his Tier 5 Pacify71 Achievement with 2 pacifist world records - No Gold True Pacifist Hell% (a time of 11:05) and Max True Pacifist Hell% (a time of 11:44). ix now holds all 5 pacifist world records, 3 of which have never been completed by anyone else! While several other runners have the ability to complete these runs, at the moment ix is far and away the best pacifist runner in the game, a reputation evident by these records. GG Kinni and ix!

 

April proved itself to be a prolific month for both challenge and speed runs, with many submitted runs in both areas. Both Yandie and BronxTaco completed an RTA trifecta, with All Characters and All Journal Entries by both, and an All Achievements run by the former and an All Shortcuts + Olmec run by the latter. The popularity of AJE since its introduction to the main ranking formula has continued with 10 submissions this month (including an impressive 39:34 by Khold), while ASO lagged just behind with 7 submissions (including a jetpackless 17:45 by TNF). Continuing with the main category runs, The popular Low% category received many submissions from newer players (including a first clear by #daily-challenge resident 84BombsJetpack). Samcv became the newest addition to the sub-3 club, after submitting an action-packed yet quite clean 2:59. The No Gold variant of Low% received a single submission from thatmarkguy (our most frequent submitter this month), who also submitted a speedy 6:26 first clear of the moneyed Maximum variant. This max low% category also received runs from other spelunkers, including a first clear by tuabiht, and the end of Spelunky abstinence from SAIBOT, who submitted a speedy #4 time of 3:51. In an amusing twist, Baq completed the category twice with times of 5:24.764 and 5:24.763, making him the WR holder for smallest PB improvement. Samcv also submitted a Haunted variant of this run, with a time of 5:38 despite a “questionable” temple. On the No Gold side of runs, both the Any% and Hell% variants received submissions from spelunkers of all skill levels, including a notable second place No Gold run of 1:51 by d_tea!

 

Other Hell main categories received multiple submissions this month, including a sub-5 Hell% time of 4:48 by ChocolateCake5000, who also completed the Max variant in a blazing 5:41. Other completers of Max Hell% include AlwaysOlmec, Buddy7heElf, BlueCadet3, SuspenseNasty, InTol, Baq, and thatmarkguy. In addition, kobs continued to shoot up the rankings with a fast Eggplant% (13:29). One of the most infamous categories, Low% Hell, was a very popular one! Aside from Kinnijup’s WR, Choco submitted yet another speed time of 7:06, while first clears were achieved by AlwaysOlmec, BronxTaco, and Kobs. Congratulations to all of these runners on completing this difficult milestone! The most popular category this month, however, was No Teleporter Any%. This category received 14 submissions, including an impressive first MR submission of 2:48 by Phoenix, three sub-2:40s (2:39 by DieDyeDai, 2:36 by ix, and 2:34 by Buddy), and runs from Skylark, InTol, Baq, jgunz3, BlueCadet3, Loki Nighton, HeinzSkitsvelvet (also a low%), TicTacFoe, 84BombsJetpack, and thatmarkguy.

 

 

Before we leave the speedrunning scene, I’d like to make two honorable mentions for runs not quite in April - d_tea’s Shield Run WR in 9:14 (also his first clear of the category), and ix’s Udjat Run WR in 20:20. Both of these categories can be very difficult and prone to the glitchiest “features” of the game, so GG to both runners!

 

With a shift to the challenge run side of things, there were many submissions to the less popular and more difficult run categories. I personally have a soft spot for Pacifist, No%, and HH runs, so I’m very excited to see these categories receiving some love. Firstly, Buddy7heElf joined the most elite completion club, by completing the ultimate challenge of Maximum Low% No Gold Hell (lovingly referred to as MLNGH or LMNGH). This is a phenomenal achievement, especially since Buddy has lost multiple runs on Yama and completed runs with unavoidable gold. The run itself is chock-full of exciting moments, including low health worm plays, strategic ropes, and spike-ball dodges. GG Buddy! There were two submissions in the Maximum Eggplant% category, including a jetpack-less first clear by GC (using a BM HH and scary “safe” spots), and a speedy second-place time of 15:30 by ix. Pacifist was another hot category this month. Aside from ix’s WRs, BronxTaco submitted a first clear of True Pacifist Hell% in 22:01, and GC completed the No Gold variant in 14:23 (without rescuing damsels, making it a 0/0/0 run). Pacifist grew in a non-official setting as well, with numerous runners completing the Any% variant (which allows 1 kill of Olmec), including ix’s WR of 4:23, and Bronx's time of 4:59. BronxTaco also submitted a first clear for the Key To Yama run, checking another run off of his Challenger achievement. Congrats to all of these runners for these awesome runs!

 

 

This month also saw the introduction of Co-op categories, with All Journal Entries Co-op. 11 runs were submitted, with the World Record being claimed by ix and Mazerak with a time of 24:27. Many of these runs were performed live at the Kapala Cup or the SpeedEvents Showcase, although 3 duos joined up on stream to complete this category, including ix/Khold, ix/GC, and BronxTaco/Yandie. I hope this category continues to grow, as it is quite fun to run!

 

Speedruns were not the only thing happening in the community this month, however. Science continued to be done, with discussions on how level generation on 3-4-2 changes depending on whether or not a player takes the worm path, as well as continued research into optimal score duping strategies. ContraMuffin, Kirby703, Dan, and other scientists continued with highly specialized experiments on whether removing large nuggets from large piles of money improves duping. Their findings boil down to this: While many factors may influence the exact results of duping, it is generally better to collect large nuggets before a dupe attempt, as long as the dupe pile has at least 128 items. This strat, introduced by d_tea, provides a minor increase to the theoretical maximum of score per level (without manipulating and keeping track of every single entity in the level). In addition, research was continued on a feature called “entanglement”. If you have ever seen two items swapping rendering order for seemingly no reason, this is entanglement at play. Entanglement is just what happens when 2 or more items share the same slot in the entity list. When that happens, the game swaps the precedences of those items really easily (and thus their rendering is slightly glitchy). In general, they will tend to swap places when entities are created/deleted (such as the whip or shotgun bullets). A swap in a specific direction (called “absorption”) had been confirmed earlier, and now the reversal of this swap (called an “emission”) has been verified to occur. For more information about this, many of the scientists in #spelunky-science would be happy to explain.

 

Finally, April saw the introduction of a new MossNews feature, Newcomer Spotlight. Initially suggested by Spef, this feature has been covering some of the new and improved members of the Spelunky community. The first two editions covered BronxTaco and Loki Nighton, and hopefully this will continue to be a regular feature.

 

April has been a great month for Spelunky, with numerous speed and challenge PBs, science discoveries, and community growth. Here’s to a successful May!