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[Cthulhu]

Somehow this great thing has gone almost completely under Bay12's radar, and under radars in general.  It's been Greenlit, but aside from a laudatory RPS article it's gotten almost no publicity that I've seen.  I don't know why, it's great.

Reverse Spelunky is a good way to describe the gameplay, you're a dude and you have to climb an impossibly tall procedurally-generated tower filled with increasingly strange hazards as you ascend to the heavens. Like spelunky, the game progresses in floors and every few floors you reach a new environment with new hazards.  Unlike spelunky, there's no health.  You get a single revive at the start of the game, and you can buy more but they're expensive and only work if your body lands somewhere survivable (so if you fall into lava or somehow manage to fall out of the tower, your revive doesn't work).  There's all kinds of special events and strangeness too, and I'll do my best not to spoil any of it.

The atmosphere is great, with a sort of minimalist storytelling that reminds me of Dark Souls or Shadow of the Colossus.  Each guy has a name and a different colored shirt, and when you die it shows a little picture of your dude's fate, which is a nice touch.

It's also very, very hard.  If you die, it's always because you made some kind of mistake.  And you die a lot.  So far I've only made it a few levels into the second zone, about 700 feet up.

Does anybody else have this?  You can get it for five bucks currently, and the final price will apparently be ten.  Unfortunately for you yohoho types (or perhaps fortunately for the dev), the game's obscurity has left it uncracked, as far as I can tell.  You'll have to pay if you want to play.  It's worth five bucks.

Let's hear your stories!  Anything exciting happen to you? 

Oh, and a tip:  The mechanics as far as items are kind of opaque.  The dark red berries work like corrode pots but without destroying terrain.  The orange berries that look like corrode pots are actually "gold berries" and used to buy potions from the witch.

[Moogie]

I think the reason it fell under the radar is because everyone assumed it had been abandoned. A couple of LPers did some great run-throughs of the alpha builds on Youtube way-back-when, and I was considering buying it, but after watching the news page for months with no updates, it seemed clear there was not going to be any further development.

I'm glad to see it getting a revival, though. It really is a wonderful little game, with a ton of visual/audio atmosphere.

[quinnr]

I have this game! It's a pretty neat game, but yeah, I wasn't too optimistic about getting many updates. It looks like there have been one or two recently-ish, though, maybe I'll check it out again.

[freeformschooler]

The lava piranhas, or whatever, starting from room four up are some serious BS. I've never gotten past four floors. Someone said you can distract 'em with meat.

[Cthulhu]

The difficulty definitely ramps up in the hatchery.  The piranhas were an issue until I realized that you can swim in those levels.  Up to around three fours of the way up, just keep jumping and you'll swim.  Makes it easier to avoid them.

The highest I've gotten is the roof of Floor 5.  I didn't quite understand springboxes, and I was out of supplies, so I jumped up in the air intending to throw the box down and land on it.  It went off as soon as I used it, and I didn't grab in time.

So yeah, cracked my head on the roof of floor 5 but that's as far as I"ve gotten.

[Vattic]

Looks interesting. PTW.

[Moogie]

So I went ahead and bought the game almost immediately after my post. Have definitely got my money's worth already.

Piranhas aren't a problem, as long as you don't corner yourself, they're slow enough to swim past.

The highest floor I've reached was 9 or 10 I think? When it starts becoming full of dripping lava and exploding volcanic vents. I wasn't sure if the lava drips were fatal and I eventually found myself forced to jump through one... yeah, I melted.

Today I experienced something worse than the rising lava... the damned giant worm! No matter how fast you climb, it keeps right up with you, chomping away the dirt under your feet. Very annoying and usually leads to my death.

[boatie]

Only have one of the free versions and always meant to buy the paid one, definitely a great underrated game worth anybody's $5 CAD

[Eclectic Wizard]

I remember playing the original game that was made with Construct, that was a fun game.

[Cthulhu]

I made it to the fire zone!  It's tough.  Lava drips from the ceiling and while you can safely climb walls next to a drip, jumping across is very risky.  It can also be hard to spot them if you're not careful. 

Still though, I think the beetles in the hatchery are the worst monsters. 

[Anvilfolk]

Climbing is so slow though....