K. I've just searched up, and it turns out there's been a lot of action surrounding Spelunky. I've got some exciting news. Basically, after EFFELPAZE, some 5th-rate gamedev studio somewhere, bought the license to make Spelunky 6(Which drove the already-sequelitis-struck series to all-new depths), the rights for the series were in turn sold on to some other gamedevs, 2511 Studios, who have made several more installments of the popular series. They're making Spelunky 9! It looks REALLY awesome.
This is from the 2511 website a few days ago:
News -- 23 Mar 2011 -- Spelunky 9 Announced!
Hello to all our fans! Given the success of Spelunky 8, we're proud to announce the development of Spelunky 9!
The details aren't all set in concrete yet, and this will probably all change as we get closer to a beta release, but here's the plan:
-We're partering with
Switchit001 for this major project in a complicated deal involving ads on our website -- They're letting us use the code for
Blocks Online as a base! This means a new physics engine to replace the dated Spelunky 7 engine, as well as a sandbox mode and online multiplayer!
-We're going to implement a lot of new content -- The game will have 20 areas arranged into 80 levels, 67 different enemies, 31 items, and several secrets and easter eggs to find. We're of course keeping the original snakes, frogs, bats, and so on, but of course there are going to be a lot of original ones.
-The new physics engine will require a rewrite of the water system. In all previous Spelunky games, water drainage is awful. We're going to set this right this time!
-We're going way back to old-style spelunky -- Simple 2D graphics, permadeath, and so on. We MIGHT add a story though to flesh out the world though, but it'll be sort of like the lore pieces in
ToME4 and won't get in the way.
-As this is Blocks Online we're working with, and the game mechanics from it are staying, you'll be able to build blocks in Spelunky 9, guns are staying (although they won't be built in to the character, they'll be items of course) and bombs will be kept with minor changes so they act more like tradition Spelunky bombs. Ropes will simply be a kind of block. You'll need to collect powerups to build more blocks, as like bombs, instead of constant regeneration, and we're also going to be messing with the lineup of blocks available.
-For those of you holding your breath for online multiplayer, here's how it'll work. we'll have one official server that can be entered normally, but we're hoping to implement some form of IP-linking for private servers.
-Unlockables are also on the map, but we're not sure if they'll fit in to the game so don't be too excited.
We don't know when we'll get a proper release, but we're trying for a beta version next month.
