Should the world descend into zombie-riddled chaos a decade from now, my daughter will hopefully already know that a bomb, in most circumstances, is worth more than a rope, and that a shotgun, on balance, is preferred to climbing gloves. On top of that, Spelunky teaches you the value of things. Lesson 1: Enjoy it while you can - after a procedural world has been played it's gone forever. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. Don't bate any snakes unless you really have to, and let sleeping bats slumber where you can. Spelunky also encourages a respectful approach to the environment. Greed is the root of almost all disaster and downfall in Spelunky, for example, while success requires a humble acknowledgement that luck plays a huge role in life (was it you who made it to Olmec's head, or was it the fact that you stumbled on a jetpack so early?). I've been playing Spelunky for two or three years now, and one of the things about Derek Yu's masterpiece that continues to dazzle is how elegantly it provides an introduction to the quieter virtues. The landscape shifts around, but the rules that govern it never do. The world's always changing, because the game generates its environments procedurally, and yet core elements of it remain dependable throughout. Spelunky, in case you've missed it, is a game about moving through a deadly, Indiana Jones-ish world of traps and spike pits and horrible ghouls, using only your wits - and your knowledge of the way the game's ecology operates - to keep you alive while you hunt for untold treasures. It turns out that my daughter's going to play an awful lot of Spelunky. This poses an obvious question, right? Namely: how can I get someone else - or something else - to do the really tricky stuff for me? Well, I think I have an answer. It's up to my wife and I to give this child not just any material comforts we can hustle together for her, but also a decent grounding in morality and some of the basic skills she'll need for life. And Tabasco sauce.Ī lot of the time, that person's probably me. Somebody's going to have to tell her about trees. I look at the trees outside of the office window and think, cripes, she's not going to know what trees are. There's no sign of her so far but, like any father-to-be, I've spent the last few days slightly awestruck by the responsibility I'm facing. My daughter's due date was this Thursday.
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