Spelunky update makes dark levels a bit less frustrating

And plenty of bug fixes for good measure

One of my goals for this winter break has been to get to hell and back in Spelunky, but I’ve been continually putting the task off. With the arrival of the game’s first title update on Xbox Live Arcade, I’m running out of excuses here. The focus is on fixing bugs, of which there are surprisingly quite a few, but there’s some key gameplay changes as well:

• Significant price changes to shop items (mostly reductions for weaker items).
• Flip-hanging a one-tile wide pit while carrying an item will not cause the item to hit you anymore.
• Critters now have lowest item pick up priority. (You will always pick up items that are in front first.)
• Items now take player velocity into account when determining whether to do damage from velocity.
• Tiki Men in dark levels now carry torches instead of boomerangs.
• Caveman villages cannot spawn in dark levels any more.
• Sceptre would kill you if you had it pressed up against a wall.
• Sceptre will not target harmless critters anymore.
• Hired hands were grabbing items for sale.
• Spectacles are now much less useless.
• Plasma Cannon flies straighter.
• Magma men will now ignite bombs and light torches.

While you can read over the full patch notes yourself, the highlights are fixes for various crashes, the Mattock resetting its “use” count after reaching a new level, and beating a level quickly not preventing the next from being dark. Between all of the patch’s improvements, my biggest issues with the game have been addressed. Designer Derek Yu also says there will be more exciting Spelunky news next year. Hmm, I wonder what that could be.

Chunky Spelunky update eliminates unintended ordeals [Joystiq]