Breaking Brad: Breaking Brad: Spelunky Without Shortcuts

@PimblyCharles: dude, its not cool to be anti-mass effect, thats so 2012.

@KatyGaGa said:

@PimblyCharles: dude, its not cool to be anti-mass effect, thats so 2012.

but I will forever be anti-mass effect in my heart. Even though MC Hammer pants are so 1990s, I still have a huge dislike for them. Does that mean anything or am I hunkin too much right now?...

Great Breaking Brad. I hope he plays more Spelunky at some point.

It seems that Bubble Bobble was an influence on this game. The bubbles for one, but it's the ghost that makes it apparent. Does anyone see any other references or influences to Bubble Bobble?

Congratulations Brad and Vinny! This has renewed my Giantbomb Premium Subscription!

EDIT: I apparently have a couple more months to go before my subscription runs out. But the feeling is there.

The intro to this is gold.

QUIT SAYING MY NAME GOD DAMNIT

We need a series called 'Vinnyventures' where Vinny is allowed to do whatever the hell he can come up with, for 2 hours each week, as long as he records it.

20:07 Hey look, more hopping zombies. The Jiangshi are back, baby!

@NoelVeiga said:

You are right in that the behaviour of the snake isn't random, only its placement is, but the placement of enemies in hard to see places, offscreen hazards and other similar things has been regarded as bad design in platformers for ages. The fact that Spelunky is procedurally generating these doesn't let it off the hook in my book, bad level design is bad level design, be it done by a man or a computer.

That said, the way it handles random level design isn't Spelunky's only problem. Its controls are fast but a bit twitchy, and it has this sharp, jarring moment when you go from being in control of your character to being entirely at the mercy of the physics engine that is very annoying, as it tends to send you pinballing into hazards.

FTL definitely has situations where your loadout can't deal with the situation, and not every situation is beatable, but I feel you guys are painting a picture of unwieldy mechanics here entirely for the sake of argument (you hear this a lot on GOTY discussions, famously from Brad, right?). FTL does have multiple ways of dealing with overpowering odds, the best being... well, overpowering them through maximizing damage output and improving the ship, but there is also the option to escape fights. And, frankly, not calling you out on your statement, but I've played a fair bit of FTL and I've never been in that scenario, really.

But forget FTL for a second, I only mentioned it because I genuinely think it's better designed. Perhaps the best example of Spelunky done right is the other game I've been talking about instead. Binding of Isaac also has second to second skill-based gameplay, and it doesn't feel nearly as twitchy and random as Spelunky does. My point is still the same, and it holds regardless of what you think of FTL.

Re: Paragraph 1 - They aren't saying that Spelunky's design isn't bad because of procedural generation; they're saying it's not bad because nothing that actually happens when you play is random. The geometry and placement of dangers/treasures is random, yes; not what happens to you.

"Enemies in hard to see places" - There are no hard to see places. Unless the level is dark.

"Offscreen hazards" - Second time brought up and you ignored the counterpoint that you are given the tools to avoid this. If you drop down without using a rope, even if you don't have any left, you are the one at fault if you fall on spikes that you couldn't see before dropping down, not the game.

Paragraph 2 - They only become twitchy if you start running; something that you are entirely in control of and at fault for if it gets you hurt or killed. And if you get hit by something that takes control away from you until the physics have had their way with you, you shouldn't have gotten hit in the first place.

Paragraph 3 - "And, frankly, not calling you out on your statement, but I've played a fair bit of FTL and I've never been in that scenario, really." - So what are you doing, then, if not calling him out? Saying you never were that unlucky?

My favorite part is that he pretty much defeated the bees entirely (killed the queen and all but one or two of the smaller ones). But, because he was so shaken up from the madness, he made some obvious mistakes and died. Haha.. Man, still bumped I never got this game.

Man, they sure do like to antagonize the people trying to help them in the chat. It's actually pretty rare for people to put any misdirection in there. We just wanna help Brad. :(

@ErinIsADrunk said:

Yes!

Brad looks like Wukong from League of Legends.

@NekuCTR said:

Man, they sure do like to antagonize the people trying to help them in the chat. It's actually pretty rare for people to put any misdirection in there. We just wanna help Brad. :(

Brad's said many times that he actually can't stand the GB community. Not surprised he doesn't listen to help from the chat.

@Roy42 said:

Re: Paragraph 1 - They aren't saying that Spelunky's design isn't bad because of procedural generation; they're saying it's not bad because nothing that actually happens when you play is random. The geometry and placement of dangers/treasures is random, yes; not what happens to you.

"Enemies in hard to see places" - There are no hard to see places. Unless the level is dark.

"Offscreen hazards" - Second time brought up and you ignored the counterpoint that you are given the tools to avoid this. If you drop down without using a rope, even if you don't have any left, you are the one at fault if you fall on spikes that you couldn't see before dropping down, not the game.

Paragraph 2 - They only become twitchy if you start running; something that you are entirely in control of and at fault for if it gets you hurt or killed. And if you get hit by something that takes control away from you until the physics have had their way with you, you shouldn't have gotten hit in the first place.

Paragraph 3 - "And, frankly, not calling you out on your statement, but I've played a fair bit of FTL and I've never been in that scenario, really." - So what are you doing, then, if not calling him out? Saying you never were that unlucky?

P1: But I don't have a problem with random. I think that's what a lot of the disconnect is here. My fault, too. I've been doing the forums thing of just trying to disprove what the other guy says rather than explaining my point better.

See, I didn't object to random at any point, I objected to randomness making it harder to read the game and harder to get better at the game. Then somebody latched on to me saying that FTL (and Binding of Isaac and a bunch of other games) deal with it better than Spelunky does and we've been arguing whether FTL is more or less random than Spelunky ever since...

...which is not my criticism at all.

Anyway, that clarified (hopefully), let's get to business. Regarding the rest of P1, I already explained that a lot of the problem with the geometry is that it contains bad level design. Is it possible to navigate it? Sure, but it also is unpleasant to navigate, it looks messy, it's hard to read and easy to have one mistake propel you into the next through no fault of your own to a complete wipe. The game also seems to think this is hilarious, because it actively avoids all the tricks to prevent that kind of crap in platformers, from not making you pinball like crazy after a hit to giving you invincibility frames after one.

To be clear, Spelunky has the kind of bad design that made older platformers frustrating, and it has it ON PURPOSE. It's an artistic statement. I just happen to not like it at all. I didn't then, and I don't appreciate its hipster redesign now for the sake of a "older games were so much better" neoclassic argument.

Oh, and just so you don't tell me I "ignore" stuff, there are plenty of hard to see places, both due to location and due to the visual design of the game making it hard to catch arrow traps or enemies at a glance, which happens to different degrees on each tileset. Ropes and bombs do allow a mulligan but they are in finite supply, and regardless of having tools to bypass some leaps of faith, leaps of faith are bad design in 2D levels, period. If they were somehow a game mechanic I'd accept the criticism, but they're not. Spelunky simply admits that this is bad design and then gives you items to bypass this spot of the random level generator resulting in bad bits. That's worse than not having the bad bits in the first place.

P2 - I refer you to my previous complaint about how gamers are no longer allowed to criticise design choices in masocore games because that'll get them accusations of disliking it because "you are not good enough at it". There are times when difficulty is well integrated and times when it's not. Super Meat Boy was entirely designed around being hard and twitchy by having small levels and quick reloads. Dark Souls was designed around being punishing and persistent, with predictable combat and rewards for playing it safe. Spelunky is just an asshole to you hoping that you persevere just because it's hard, not even being particularly good at suggesting how you could have avoided death.

I am saying that's a worse way to design a hard game than SMB, FTL, BoI, Dark Souls, Etrian Odyssey and a bunch of others.

P3 - I'm providing context to his statement. I'm not saying he didn't see two events that damaged the ship back to back on the first sector, but I never have, and I've played a fair bit. Clearly it can happen, because he saw it, but clearly it's really rare, because I haven't. Context.

I think they meant you are a wizard from Finland.

Vinny.... Never shave.

lol I think they changed the name of this video to make the challenge more realistic.

Chris Watters was the best part of this. What the fuck did you expect to happen?

@pyrodactyl said:

@Sweetz said:

@Abendlaender said:

Next time on Breaking Brad: FTL

You know you want it Brad! Come get it!

That would be great and also realistically achievable. Over the course of 16 hours spent with the game I went from "this is unbeatable BS!" to being able to win pretty much 90% of the time on Easy, and about 50% of the time on Normal, based on how lucky I am with my trip there.

my only successful run on normal in FTL took me 2 or 3 hours. I'm not even counting the 3 or 4 times I got to the flagship, each taking more than 2 hours. To complete FTL on normal you need to explore each system as much as you can and pause in combat very very very often. FTL is also much more focus intensive than CoD4 or geometry wars. So talking while playing means certain doom since it diverts your attention away from the game.

So if Brad plays FTL, he will:

• Ignore/not understand half the systems resulting in certain death
• Talk while playing diverting his attention away from the game and die
• Try to keep things moving and not pause as much as he should resulting in his death
• If and it's a HUGE IF he reachs the flagship (1h30 minimum) he will certainly die on the second form, crushing all his hopes and dreams in 20 seconds.

Short version: this is a very bad idea.

You know those first 3 points could be said of pretty much anything Brad plays on video, that's kind of the point :) Giant Bomb is in the business of entertaining, not doing tedious perfect runs of a video game that you can find from any nasally-voiced nerd on YouTube. They are the Top Gear of video game coverage.

Also, since you get the meaningful unlocks anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with him doing it on Easy, plus FTL has saving so they don't necessarily need to do it in one sitting. Call it a Breaking Brad Mini Endurance Run.

I became a subscriber to watch this video. So please do more breaking brad spelunky!

@Sweetz said:

@pyrodactyl said:

@Sweetz said:

@Abendlaender said:

Next time on Breaking Brad: FTL

You know you want it Brad! Come get it!

That would be great and also realistically achievable. Over the course of 16 hours spent with the game I went from "this is unbeatable BS!" to being able to win pretty much 90% of the time on Easy, and about 50% of the time on Normal, based on how lucky I am with my trip there.

my only successful run on normal in FTL took me 2 or 3 hours. I'm not even counting the 3 or 4 times I got to the flagship, each taking more than 2 hours. To complete FTL on normal you need to explore each system as much as you can and pause in combat very very very often. FTL is also much more focus intensive than CoD4 or geometry wars. So talking while playing means certain doom since it diverts your attention away from the game.

So if Brad plays FTL, he will:

• Ignore/not understand half the systems resulting in certain death
• Talk while playing diverting his attention away from the game and die
• Try to keep things moving and not pause as much as he should resulting in his death
• If and it's a HUGE IF he reachs the flagship (1h30 minimum) he will certainly die on the second form, crushing all his hopes and dreams in 20 seconds.

Short version: this is a very bad idea.

You know those first 3 points could be said of pretty much anything Brad plays on video, that's kind of the point :) Giant Bomb is in the business of entertaining, not doing tedious perfect runs of a video game that you can find from any nasally-voiced nerd on YouTube. They are the Top Gear of video game coverage.

Also, since you get the meaningful unlocks anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with him doing it on Easy, plus FTL has saving so they don't necessarily need to do it in one sitting. Call it a Breaking Brad Mini Endurance Run.

To me, Breaking Brad is more entertaining when there's at least a small chance of success. If Brad trains on spelunky, using shortcuts to learn the traps and ennemies from every level and gets better, he can bash his head agains the wall at 5 to 20 minutes intervals and eventualy beat it.

Because of his playstyle and the context of breaking brad, he couldn't beat FTL on normal in a million years. How soul crushing would a failed 2 hour run be? Soul crushing enough to make him drop the chalenge I bet. I'm much more exited for Mile high club/The end of Doom 2 moments than death and misery out of that feature.

Putting it on easy would also be agains the whole spirit of this feature since, last time he tried to play on that difficulty level, he got to the flagship on his first try. Not really a chalenge of breaking brad caliber at that point...

@randomfella21 said:

#teambrad

@pyrodactyl:

Yeah, cause he never touched CoD 4 or Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet ever again after more than two hours of failure, right? Oh wait, there are 3(!) lantern run videos on this site, all bascially because of Brad and they didn't even come close to getting the achievment. So I disagree.

Brad, you need to respect your enemies, but not fear them.

@Abendlaender: That's a fallacy; the Mile High Club and Lantern Run attempts were mostly failed, lasting only a few minutes. @pyrodactyl is saying that a single run of FTL, taking two hours for Brad to get to the end, only to then die, would be demoralising enough that he would likely stop trying for the day, and very likely not bother trying again.

That was great. :-) Also: It's weird that people are arguing about the quality of this game on here.

I got pretty excited by the UHF reference.

2013: FUCK BEARDS.

That Mo Fo Bradley can't even pronounce Compass!

@Roy42:

Yeah, but that would make the whole thing better. Mile High was boring to watch (to me at least) cause it was just the same 5-30 seconds over and over and over and over again. Watching a whole game, like Doom 2 is muc more entertaining cause you see new things instead of Brad getting frustrated by the same two rooms again and again

I'm getting a weird sense of deja vu going on here... I seem to remember watching a video last year where brad was trying to do this in the 8 minutes. It was with Jeff. Someone tell me I'm not just making this up.

Team Brad 4 lyfe.

That was going so well. Stupid bees.

@Abendlaender: I don't disagree; it just wouldn't have good chances of happening more than once.

the frogs on the jungle fuck me up the most

Brad don't give up! We know you can do it!

Hope there will be an episode 2!

Was that another secret level right at the end of the video in the dark level?

I just remembered Drew went to North Korea that one time.

I love the intro to this.

With Spelunky recently having been released on Steam I think it's time @brad had another go at this :P

I would like to see a shortcut run, highly enjoyable!

Ahh, the olden days of Spelunky. We were all so naive back then.

I miss Spelunkin' with Scooooops!

I remember watching this when it was posted, and being constantly surprised and intimidated by this video.

1,000 games later and yeah... this was super fun to go back to.

Silly Brad, Spelunkys are for Scoops.

I can semi-reliably (1/4ish times) get to the end of the game, but I've never managed to pass the boss battle. Not sure why - something about it just trips me up every time.