“EEEEEEEEESPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORTS” – Patrick Klepek 2014

As a lot of other Giantbomb-users, I have seen Patrick struggle through many of the challenges that Spelunky offers, often halted by arrow traps, exploding frogs and – the most raison de la mort – his own greed. I started playing the game a couple of weeks before this feature started and have been trying to play the game on and off parallel to the daily broadcasts, only at a much slower pace. Only two days ago I beat Olmec for the first time, so I’m far from an expert at the game. I do, however, have some thoughts about the way it functions and why it is so successful, so I decided to put them on (figurative) paper. I also want to claim that Spelunky, though it may not seem like it, is probably one of the games that comes closest to learning a sport.

First of all, much, if not all of the fun to be had with Spelunky is learning its mechanics. It’s not rare for first time players to die on 1-1 or 1-2, simply because they weren’t fully aware what happens when you walk beneath a spider, or how to defuse some of the caves’ nefarious traps. The first real milestone is getting to the jungle, than the ice caves, the temple and beating Olmec. Other objectives, like getting to the black market, the mothership or the city of gold, are optional and can help the player progress through the regular levels. Every new environment presents new variants of existing mechanics, as well as introducing completely new ones. This results in some trial and error, but the catch is that the specific challenges will not be the exact same the next time around. One needs to learn the rules of the game, not just master a specific sequence by beating one’s head against it.

Even explosions have rules.

And this is where the main analogy with sports comes to the forefront. Sports – like Spelunky – consist of a uniform system of rules and objects that largely stay the same from game to game. In its more serious permutations, the rules of sports can only be altered from people in an ivory tower, thus making sure that playing mainly revolves around anticipation. A soccer match (I’m from the Netherlands, so ‘ football’ would be closer to our pronunciation, but I’ll spare you guys the link with the American sport which involves way less footwork) always involves an even number of players on either side, a ball, two goals and goalies, and a referee which tries to stay away from the trajectory of the ball. By practicing it, one learns how to react in a certain kind of situation. This both involves learning how to anticipate for the location of other players of your team and opponents, as well as what is the most efficient or surprising way to kick the ball from a certain position or situation. By virtue of repetition, a player can grow, because the rules always stay the same, the situations just change.

Of course, sports aren’t the only activities that thrive by repetition. For example, learning a musical instrument is also mainly done by repeating certain standard progressions and learning chord shapes and scales. However, the main difference between learning an instrument and sports (and Spelunky), it the fact that the success rate is measured on a less explicit sliding scale. There is no definite point at which one plays a song ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, while a successful pass and an a pass that lands at the feet of an opponent can be easily distinguished from one another. Of course, there is a difference between a shot that reaches the net because the goalkeeper wasn’t paying attention and a shot that was almost impossible to save because of its perfect placement in one of the corners, but the result is still measured in binaries: ‘a goal’ or ‘no goal’.

The same holds true for Spelunky. As a result of the decision of a player he: A, ‘takes damage’, or B, ‘takes no damage’. The same holds true for reaching the exit in time, being able to collect a stack of gold, or the most characteristics dialectic of roguelikes: dying or not dying. And the strictness of its rule set is not just limited to this. For example, a spider always has the same jumping arch, and a boulder falling from the ceiling always features the same little bounce when it first hits the ground. This is the reason why a lot of people describe the game as being ‘fair’; it is very transparent about its rule set. The repetition functions like it does in hockey, and not in the process of learning to play a violin.

The AI of helpers is one of the most unpredictable aspects of the game. Never drop your shotgun near one of them.

There is still one important difference which makes Spelunky different from sports, and that is the elimination of contingency. Except for the random generation of the level layouts, every aspect of Spelunky can be predicted; it’s rules never function differently. In sports, a specific field can feature grass which is uneven, thus affecting the trajectory of the ball. These are elements that cannot be accounted for by sheer repetition. Repetition can be used to learn to anticipate to chance, but not completely eliminate it. This more or less makes Spelunky an ideal version of the way sports work on its most essential level. Or maybe it just makes for a more mechanized and more boring execution. Both of these statements probably hold some kind of truth.

So, while the connection between a single player platformer with randomly generated levels and sports is a little ridiculous, looking towards the mechanics of sports is interesting for understanding the success of Spelunky in pulling off its premise. At least, that’s what I think.