I’d mentioned this glorious game (free too!) HERE. Lots of thrills. Lots of fun. Lots and lots of death.

Got home tonight from a train club work session, not really thinking anything was different. Started one game of Spelunky and just started playing. Got off to a badly, tumbling over an edge and falling – AEEEEEIIIII! SPLAT! Okay, not such a good start. But I found the damsel and got her to the exit, got a kiss and that lost life back.

Just got into the Zen of playing, using a pickaxe until it broke, then using its head as a thrown weapon (better than a rock) on all those Yeti I found later on. I didn’t have too many good items, just a compass and springy boots (and the spectacles, which do me no good later in the game). Then I got to the lower depths, managed to kill off the monster mummy (the one who spits flesh-ripping bees – GADS!) This got me his scepter, which spits soap bubbles that pick up living creatures and carries off their corpses until they pop (dropping the bodies – always stay out from under them, I’ve learned).

So I got through all that, and into the final level.

There is this big golden head, see? And there are three cavemen and a priest worshiping it, see? And it suddenly floats up into space and comes crashing down on them – SPLAT! And now, like this massive hobnail boot, its thumping slowly across the floor towards you.

Without a jetpack, without climbing gloves, your only escape is to run under it. When you do, it crashes to the floor, grinds around (tearing up the floor) and comes after you again.

So I was running about, back and forth like an ant, letting this thing boom down just short of me. I find myself holding the edge of the pit longer, making sure it was JUST about to come down on me and then bolting. This way I kept the pit from narrowing down, left myself more dash-about room, let the head slowly grind the floor downwards.

And then I saw the lake of lava below.

Oh ho!

I kept from doing anything stupid, slowly allowing it to dig. And suddenly it punched through, falling into the lake. I tossed a rope up and clambered out, running for the now open door. And there was the actual exit, the actual escape, a huge golden head for me to take with me. After I was ejected out of a volcano (still clutching my phone-booth-sized golden idol), I landed in the sand. The last scene of me, as the music swelled and the game credits rolled, was me riding my camel across the desert, two cavemen carrying the idol, my slutty red-skirted damsel bouncing atop it.

Man, I just sat there and thought how cool that all was. Hundreds of hours of attempts (something like 3400 runs) and I made it.

So, what’s next?