Platforming roguelikes are all very well and good, every playthrough familiar, yet creating surprising new stories. But there’s also the pleasure of playing against the hand of a level designer, rather than an algorithm. Sometimes you want ‘getting better’ to just mean getting further, instead of slightly more equipped to start a new story. The basic platforming of
1001 Spikes is dense, so dense, with traps, but sophisticated enough that death is maddening but never cheap. Well, yes, death is cheap – you’ve 1,001 lives, for God’s sake – but never unfair. It gets a bit samey towards the end, but that balance of arrgh, uurrgh and oooh is cheerfully well-tuned for hours.…
