Spelunky, Dark Souls, And The Reincarnation Simulator

Hi there! This has not a thing to do with Nintendo games. It does deal with death in video games, and a certain genre that had to at least somewhat influence the NES. More on that eventually, but this is something I've been chipping at for a little bit. If I can't post it on my blog, where the hell can I post it? Enjoy, hopefully. We'll get to more games that start with the word "Little" on Friday.

Death is an inevitability. Doubly so in video games. Video games, however, offer a chance at rebirth. Extra lives. Continue points. Saves. Luxuries that video game players take advantage of, in every possible way. Living a long and full life is the aim of every human being. Doubly so in video games, again. Consider the concept of the "no-death" run. A challenge where one attempts to survive for the duration of their quest without death setting them back. Really, we're all living the no-death run, but eventually it has to end. Before we get far too morbid, let's take a step back. Let's look at how death defines video games, as a concept.

It is the 1980s and everything is neon. America and the USSR dance the Dance Apocalyptic, and the video arcade is a bustling hotbed of dim-lit video screens, the acrid stench of cigarette smoke lingering in the air. Quarters jingle and jangle in the pockets of the many, and every machine is lit with a dazzling array of primitive pixels. Dozens of them sing out their basic beeps and boops at once, creating a cacophany of computerized chaos. This, then, is the lair of the Dread Beast GREED. He is ruler of the land of Video Game Death, and like Charon the Ferryman of old, he demands a single coin to give the player access. The rules of the games vary. Blast asteroids. Eat all the dots. Shoot all the missiles. In later years, our video games would gain depth. They would become narrative forces of their own, telling detailed stories and guiding one along the Experience. That is not so here. You play, and you keep playing until death strikes. The stray fragment of space rock collides with your tiny fighter, venting its metals into space and splattering its poor captain into the vacuum of the void. The foul spectre of the recently departed, vengeful and angry upon its own death, lashes out at the hungry creature in the maze, and it collapses into a singularity. A Soviet nuclear missile strikes an American city, and the resulting backlash causes an apocalypse in red and yellow. THE END.

In this space, a new genre is born. It is a genre that many are familiar with; the roguelike. The genre has a gravity like no other; so much so that its very name defines itself. A roguelike, then, is a game like Rogue. This is not territory I wish to dwell on for too long, as it is not quite the point here. While we are here, though, let us take a look at Rogue. My god, what a thing of beauty. A 30 year-old wonder from a forgotten age. Now, there are hacks and versions that update this ancient concept... but forget all that for now. The original game is built from ASCII characters. Letters and punctuation. It is a world built entirely out of words, and if that concept doesn't make you starry-eyed, then I do not know what would. Now that we have gazed in awe, let us read the sacred tomes of this world's rules. The Gospel Of Rogue, if you will.

1) Death is not an inconvenience. Death is a hunter to be feared. Death of the player character in Rogue is death to all that you have achieved in your play session.

2) This world of words is ever shifting, always changing. You can return upon untimely death, but you will find a completely new world awaits you. The song is similar, but your exploration will be of an unknown world every single time.

3) Items of mysterious power may be found on your adventure. Colored potions. Scrolls with cryptic incantations. They have various effects, both positive and negative. However, just like the world of words, their effects will shift upon your demise. Cyan can heal you, or blind you. 

4) Time revolves around you. The world reacts to your every move. Enemies will move when you move. Attack when you attack. You will not hunger if you stay still... but you will not progress further either.

This is a rough sketch of the heart of Rogue, the so-called "Berlin Interpretation". Appropriate, that. It brings to mind the impenetrable wall that cut through the very soul of Germany when Rogue was in vogue. Eventually the wall would fall, but Rogue would live on, a candle lighting the way for countless others. Nethack. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. Mystery Dungeon. Dungeons Of Dredmor. These are the roguelikes; those who are like Rogue. They all follow the four base rules of Rogue, as true heirs to the throne of the Berlin Interpretation. Now we have refreshed ourselves on the mechanics of the genre. We can get to more interesting things. What happens when we throw some of these rules out the window? What if we removed the random nature of the items? What if we made everything real-time? These are the roguelike-likes... which is a silly name. I have a different name for what I want to talk about.

Let's talk about Spelunky, a reincarnation simulator.

For many of you, Spelunky will need little introduction. For the rest, it is a game that follows rules 1 and 2 of the Gospel of Rogue. Your player character, by default a bulb-nosed Indiana Jones wannabe, delves into 16 to 20 floors of randomly-generated bedlam in order to seek out fortune and glory. Death in this labyrinth is a setback, and will send our spelunker back to square one. Once there, the ancient curse of the place will make the walls shift ever onward, creating entirely new hazards for our hero to escape from. The key difference, and the reason this thing has sucked away over 28 hours of my time in the past two months? Spelunky is played like an action platformer. Real-time running, jumping, and whipping. This makes the game slightly more accessible for me, being a veteran of such jumping and attacking games. Spelunky is a very good game, a must play, five out of five socks... but I am not just here, building my labyrinth of words, to merely talk about how great the video game is. I wish to talk about Spelunky as a reincarnation simulator; as a game that teaches you how to play it as you play it. One of the first ways you'll do that? Pots.


Amidst the earthen walls of Spelunky's mazes are several pots. Your first time playing, you will likely attack them head-on, as they can sometime contain jewels and gold. Jewels and gold are good! I want more of the jewels and gold! You will continue attacking pots, and then it will happen. There will be a snake or a spider inside, and you will take damage. You might curse at the pest that's taken away one of your precious hit points, but a lesson has been learned. Never attack pots head-on. Always throw them away from you. If they have jewels inside, you can collect them. If it's a creature, you just gave yourself distance between you and the monster. This is a simple example, and a non-lethal one... but even your deaths will teach you something that you SHOULDN'T do on your next run through the maze. Those arrow traps in the walls will react to anything moving in their range, and might pierce you through the heart. Dead. Looking down before you leap is important, lest you impale yourself on spikes. Do NOT stand next to those tiki statues, for death awaits. Every death, every dance with the Dance Apocalyptic and the Reaper of Souls, defines your experience with Spelunky. It is learning from life through death... and one day, your studies will pay off. You'll make it to a new area. A lush jungle. A frozen wasteland with an infinite abyss. A holy temple with ancient masters of death ready to tear you asunder. Eventually you might meet the god of this place, the reason for the endless cycle of death and rebirth... and topple him from his golden throne. If you wish, you could go on and attempt to conquer the realm of hell itself. The point, as always, is that Spelunky is a game that teaches you by killing you... in a way that is superior to most other hard games out there. A Battletoads or Super Ghouls is content to kill you for not burning a pattern into your brain. Spelunky will kill you for lacking knowledge of your world... but the reincarnation will leave you with your memory intact. Hell, reincarnation is even a key part of getting into hell; at one point, you must purchase an ankh from a shopkeep, and then allow death to take you on a later level. Only through death and rebirth will you make it to your true goal. What a beautiful game. Let's talk about one that's a lot harder, believe it or not.

Dark Souls is a thing. A brutal, draining, meticulous thing. Like Spelunky, it has sent many friends of mine into a fervor of death and rebirth at the hands of their adversaries and monstrosities. It would be difficult to class Dark Souls as a roguelike, considering it discards yet another of the Berlin Interpretation's rules. This world is static and immutable, a constant of your existance within it. All that remains of the Gospel Of Rogue is your ever-constant companion; death. The game knows this. Revels in it. Grabbing the game case and glancing at the back reveals its family creed: PREPARE TO DIE. Death is a certainty in Dark Souls, and it will happen to you. A lot. It is much like Spelunky in that regard, which is why I mention it in the same breath as a rapidly expanding wall of words about roguelikes. It is an experience with death and rebirth that I had at the same time I was experiencing death and rebirth in Spelunky. I am afraid, however, that our time here must be short. I simply have not experienced the sheer lurking terrors that await me in Dark Souls. Orstein and Smaug, Blight Town, Twin Gargoyles... these are dread beasts that have yet to darken my world. Here, then, is what I do know about Dark Souls. It hurts. My last extended play session lasted about 90 minutes. In Undead Burg. It was, much like Spelunky, an endless loop of my untimely death at the hands of some mistake or misinformation, followed by my reincarnation. Unlike Spelunky, everything I had defeated was reincarnated with me. Thus I entered a cycle of repitition that fatigued my very being. To quote a friend; this game demands a goddamned engagement ring in order for you to experience it. I danced ever onward, defeating the same foes, swearing every time I made stupid mistakes. Dark Souls and I were engaged at that point, a Proposal Peridot that eventually resulted in the death of my ego. With this battering of your very senses comes some sort of zen-like awakening. Death upon death will rack your bruised sense of self into frustration, loathing, and self-doubt. In that regard it's quite a lot like other hard games. Eventually, though, you will triumph. The dread beast TAURUS, who has broken every bone in your body a good five times with its hammer, will fall. You will sing the song of victory, and move on. Eventually I will delve back into this realm. One day, I shall come back.

That, then, is the grim waltz of the Dance Apocalyptic. The death that drives the roguelike genre is as constant as ever, but things like Spelunky or Dark Souls give you that ray of hope as you experience loss of multiple digital lives. A critical error in Spelunky or Dark Souls will take away what you have earned. What your death and rebirth can never take away from you, however, is what you have learned. That is the thread that ties Spelunky and Dark Souls together. Both are reincarnation simulators, where your unique perspective and experience of the void of death shape your next go through the gauntlet. Fantastic games. Both of them.