406 - Digger T. Rock

Digger T. Rock, Legend of the Lost City. Burrow through mysterious caverns, each one a mind-boggling maze of unknown dangers. And welcome to Nostalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. And what we have here is... A game that is going to have to have the title said more than once because it's also the kid's name, the main character's name in the game. Is that okay, Mike? Is something wrong? It's going to be fine.

It's going to be fine. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Digger T-Rock, is the T like supposed to be, is the T like a play on something? Could there be a middle name where the T would mean something funny? It feels like the whole name is kind of like laid out to say that, but I don't really get it. It's like it's going to be a pun in a different language.

But I'm like T-Rock. If you put it together, it's going to say something, but it doesn't. T-Rock. Or it's just Digger the Rock Johnson. Yeah, I mean, that's sort of what I was going for, yeah. Of course, he predates. He hasn't been revealed yet. He's not born yet. No, he's born for sure. I mean, he's barely born, though. I mean, like, on the...

Not The Rock, but The Digger. We're talking about The Rock. No, this character is barely born because on the cover he looks maybe like Elmer Fuddish or on the title screen, but when you start the game I didn't know it was going to be like a newborn baby.

The baby? Yeah. Yeah, and also, what's up with the size of the shovel he's using? I mean, it's cartoon-sized. Cartoon-sized, but no, it's also way too small of a weapon. Like, it has, like, a few frames. I didn't really notice, but, like, that's like a dig up, like, flowers in the garden shovel. That's not, like, dig a hole in holes. Right, not, like, go in a cave and fight enemies. Also, who goes...

Who uses a shovel when they go into a cave? Well, you have to ask yourself, did he know that it was going to be this big? Did he have any idea what he was getting into? Because maybe he thought this was like a dig-dug situation. and he was just kind of going, like, digging through sand. It seems like he just kind of fell into this giant cavern. I don't think he would be... I'm starting to question how realistic this game is overall. No, no, no, no, no. There's no way that he would...

Outfit himself with the helmet with the light if he didn't anticipate actual like spelunking and Like bringing dynamite and explosives and stuff. No, he's definitely knew he was going into a cave system He did because in the manual, it spells out that he also found a sign that pointed to the lost city with an arrow pointing down straight to the ground. And he's like, maybe I should start digging. Like, why would a sign be there?

How could it be lost? You are asking the real questions. Right. But this is a rare game, not in the sense of it doing anything interesting, just that it's... Developed by the company Rare. And as we mentioned, it's a caveman miner who's also a miner. If that works. He's a caveman? Yeah. Do we know he's a cave? I mean, he's in a cave. He's a man in a cave, but there are distinct cavemen later. He doesn't look anything like them.

The minor, minor thing went over well, but the caveman joke didn't. No, I know. It was just the fact that you said the word. Right, right. Didn't win. He's not a literal caveman like the ones you would see in caveman games that we played on the NES. This one just meant that he dwells in caves in this game. And so you will...

You're helping him reach the lost city, question mark, if it's actually lost. In terms of the gameplay loop, you are in stages of the cavern. And your goal is to find the exit door. You have to find the pillar switch for it. Step on the pillar to open the door. And then you have a certain amount of time before the door closes. If you don't reach the door in time, it will close.

That's just the objective, but there are a lot of things that happen in this cave in addition. But just going over that core concept there, how does that hold up? It's definitely, you're correct. You didn't actually put any false information out into the airwaves describing that. That is an accurate description of the game. And yet, the game is maybe a little more...

Tedious than that, it's not just like find the door, find the switch. Yeah, so the game, it's kind of like a maze where it's all just rocks.

and climbable rocks and and like scoopable rocks that you can move out of the way to uh to to make a path with your shovel trowel whatever you want to call it um there's teleporting rocks that if you know anyone that's worked in mining well they'll tell you that like every time they run into some teleportation rocks it always ruins their day yeah or or helps sometimes sometimes it helps i would imagine

um but yeah i think like you know the actual the the the part of all these mechanics that actually sort of like it can It's actually like standing on its own here is is sort of the whole like Get out of there as fast as you can. There's a time limit where you trigger the door and open the door So that that's interesting

Yeah, and you find out pretty quickly, or I guess I found out pretty quickly, I think more from reading about this online, but the beginning of the game, it's like, okay, this isn't so hard. You find a switch, you find the door. You might even notice that you have a time limit.

yeah yeah well the time limit is only there once you open the door yeah right so so you you open you find a switch okay now you got 60 seconds to get to the door like that's kind of cool and it's it's not too hard but i i think i learned this more from reading online that uh there's a lot there's a lot to collect and you apparently really need to collect a lot of this stuff by the end of the game so really you shouldn't just go straight for the door you should

collect your items you know which i'm sure we'll get into later what each one does and collect some currency so you can buy stuff later um which of that i think adds to like a little bit of the exploration of like this this cave digging uh experience that you're having like where you you have to you have to find things in the cave where it feels a little bit more like okay now i'm a cave explorer and not just looking for the exit

And it's not like Dig Dug where everything is just there's the surface and then everything you dig into and you kind of create these routes. The cave is a little strange in that there are very open areas. There are platforms. And then there's also these. diggable areas where you can create different ways to reach the top or whatever, or you can just dig it all out. And you can climb over these things again. It becomes a little difficult.

uh to read sometimes like what's climbable and what's not um the rules of the game are clear but just from a from like an art perspective it wasn't uh it wasn't great for me but you're doing all that you're kind of like scouting out the level first like you have to do like one look through of everything if you want to collect everything in this stage you go do one look through of like where everything is and then once you've built the map in your head then it's like it's time to press the pillar

and and go for the exit yeah like the whole planning aspect of that um that makes you be a bit more thoughtful in how you're sort of navigating the space i do agree that it is that Everything kind of looks samey enough aside from like some of the enemies and rocks that are just gonna be some different color to make it pop but in terms of climbable walls and the actual like

boundaries of the game and like walls and floors and stuff. There is some like textural differences, but it's all the same color. So you kind of, you really do have to be on the lookout for a lot of things.

Yeah, and on top of that, there are parts of the texture that you can't dig through that does have hidden items or even times where you suddenly just for one little tile can dig through or... walk through so it does suffer a little bit from that thing we've had issues from about in the past where like okay there's a hidden thing

that you just couldn't possibly see. There's no clue, no hint as to where it would be. It just is hidden here. And I think it might even be randomized where some of this stuff is hidden. So I guess once you know that, you can kind of walk around and poke the ceiling with your shovel as much as...

as much as you can but that kind of gets tedious also so like it's it's not the best designed way to hide secrets in a game and there are a lot of items that you'll need not only to beat the game that is true joe that uh you can't Can't just go to the end level empty handed and expect to win. But you also just need these things in general throughout your playthrough to get through these stages. There are.

I guess they're like rope ladders that you lay down or whatever from platforms. These are all things you find. You don't have in your inventory, but there are these ladders. There's the stone slabs. There's dynamite. And there's the like, I guess they're like rocks. They act as your projectile. Yeah, you can just throw rocks. And that is the most confusing one of all the tools because it's the only one that you can't deliberately choose.

The rocks are treated as your main attack when you have them in your possession, and they're based on your... proximity to the other enemy. So if you are far enough away from an enemy and you press the attack button, it will assume that you meant to throw one of your precious rocks away at it.

and use it but if you're close enough it will default to the shovel but there's never an opportunity to deselect the rocks and say i just want to use the shovel yeah i found that pretty annoying um It was funny the way that I discovered that it was like context sensitive like that Because I just realized that I couldn't just select what I wanted to use but I think that

There are worse things that it could have done like that. This is much more like, I guess, user friendly than having to press select to change between those two things when you're kind of. You're moving around. Maybe you're trying to beat the timer. You've got enemies in front of you. I guess I'm okay with that. Yeah. Well, I was just going to say, I think if you're a perfect player...

This is fine. This is a great way to do it. Like me, you will accidentally waste a bunch of rocks while playing it. It does get kind of annoying. And I think, yeah, if you had to hit select and go into a menu. to switch to the rocks that would bother me or not bother me but that would interrupt the action a little bit like maybe if it was just hit select once and it just shifts it just toggles on and off or whatever

might be a little better. But yeah, I mean, there's no perfect way, just like so many things, there's no perfect way to do it with a controller that only has two buttons on it. But yeah, it was definitely a pretty unique way that they went about it.

Whereas the ladders and the bombs, Dynamite, they have purposeful environment interactions. But do they act really like puzzles? It's not like a... oh, I got to place the ladder in a specific spot to solve this puzzle. It's more like I have to place the ladder here or else I'll fall to my depth. It's funny that the way that I was looking at this game, it reminds me so much of Spelunky, which...

Was you know Most people that were into indie games circuit 10-15 years ago or whatever Probably played Spelunky and it kind of has a similar

like vibe and a similar, uh, even like just the items that you'd use, uh, where I think these levels are a bit more handcrafted, obviously, because I think it's Belunky. It's all like, procedural generation but there's just going to be points where you need to use a ladder just so that you can get further down and i i think that that was a pretty it felt like you were making your own way

The cavern Maybe you weren't and maybe this is the only way to actually get through it correctly But it at least felt that way So I kind of liked it

It's just that if you don't place the ladder there and you fall to the ground, depending on the height, you'll fall to your death. Oh yeah, you'll die. There's also just like the... it has like there's multiple places that you could put the ladder you know yeah yeah yeah but it also has like that jump man from donkey kong mechanic where like once you fall you can't like out

You can't maneuver, you fall. You're just falling and then that's it. You have to wait to find out the punishment. But yeah, I get what you're saying, Sean, with the latter. It feels a little more... even if it's not, it feels a little more like free form the way that you place the ladders and where you place them. And even the fact that you can like connect two ladders to each other, like a longer ladder. Like it just feels like, Oh, like I, I discovered this.

this quirk in the physics and game mechanics of this game rather than this was what was intended for me to do, which I'm sure it was intended, but it feels more like I'm discovering it.

And so the digging aspect is mostly to dislodge boulders or find new passageways. Could they have done more with- a game that's mostly about digging with a main character whose name is digger should it have been like should there have been a larger focus on digging i don't know i thought that like they did it like you know i'm thinking of like dig duck or dig dug where it's like one

It's all about digging, but it's just there's like one version of the mechanic for digging, if I'm remembering Dig Dug correctly. But like this has like a few different ways that like it feels like that's this guy's main mechanic where like. yeah you can dig through the like i don't know i guess it's like the the sandy texture of dirt and like and like open up new pathways you can there's also the like kind of brickish texture where you can

It reads to me like digging, but like you can walk on all on all like the whole vertical plane. Like, you know, you can you can walk up and down if this if this is your background, which kind of gave me the vibe of like. Oh, you're kind of swimming through loose dirt sort of feel, you know, where you can move up and down. Oh, that's not how I read it. Yeah, I read it as like, oh, I'm digging through this. I just don't need my shovel right now. You know, like, this is me tunneling or burrowing.

you know kind of and then uh and then there's also the rocks where you can you can dig to dislodge the rocks or you can dig to discover secrets in there it was like everything and then even attacking the enemies you're using your shovel like It's like every action you can do is some variation of digging, but they're different. So I felt like, I don't know, it felt to me like a very fully baked quirk or fully baked gimmick where it wasn't just like a one move. It was like.

this whole moveset based around digging. I think it's more so just cave exploration. Maybe if they called it Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds or something like that, it would be a lot more descriptive.

Because other than that, it's just... Because most of the sand that we've been describing, the kind of stuff that reminds us most of Dig Dug, it exists for one thing, and that is... the few rocks like the few boulders that it can dislodge otherwise it's completely superfluous you move through at the same rate as you move generally um

and it really just sort of maps your progress otherwise. It doesn't really feel otherwise that you're really doing much digging. You're right, but there is one more thing that maybe just happened to me more often. I noticed myself being careful at how much of that sand I dislodged because enemies, especially those mosquitoes, will follow you based on the paths you create. That's true.

so i i was trying to create like as small and narrow and windy pathways as possible and and keep myself separated from them as i'm going through but like yeah it's not like a huge extra thing but it was like another layer that that mechanic added to the game that's true joe but a different game would have made those sand things that you are digging out they would have made those pits uh more like platforms that like you can

Once you dig them, you can't go back through them. It's like you're creating new ways to reach these areas. It's a little strange that after you dig, you can still... reach every area that you previously dug out you know as if it as if it was a platform um could you just reword that i'm not sure i'm following exactly yeah i mean so like um There isn't a lot of, aside, again, aside from the boulders, there's no real effect on the game.

once you clear it out you can still stand on that same platform where it was as if like there's now like you're as if it was load-bearing Then it would like, and maybe other stuff fell, and maybe it would block your path. This game doesn't have enough, I feel like, redundant paths to make that feasible, and it's more so a maze with context.

I don't think that would actually work, but it makes it feel less like digging. Yeah, because a game like SteamWorld Dig will have it where, you know, once you've dug out that area, like, you will fall. You can't climb back up the same way that you just dug out. Now you have to make new platforms. You have to basically build your own platforming stations to climb back up rather than just crawl, like rock climb the wall.

yeah I guess that yeah I see what you mean because he is more of like I was taking it again like he's burrowing this whole time but yeah I don't know how my burrowing analogy with the brick texture how that actually fits with the heat but then what are you digging out with the other texture if you're then burrowing through something anyway so uh yeah i see what you're saying

The game kind of sits between puzzle platformer and arcade platformers. You know, there's the arcade timers and enemy pressure, but then the puzzle of like planning out your route before you commit to it. If you had to...

push it one way or the other, which way would you have leaned the game more? Would you prefer it as a puzzle platformer or would you prefer it to be more arcadey, quick bursts of gameplay? Well, I think this is more of a puzzle platformer than... arcade platform i think even just in what you would you might consider the more arcadey moments of the game the whole like get to the exit quickly is still a puzzle in itself because you know you're

sort of mapping out your route back and it's really just about execution and the and the combat isn't really that complex to say that this is an action game so i think this isn't this is a puzzle platformer through and through and I think there's a version of puzzle platformer cave dig stuff that is good than any action version that I can think of.

To answer your question, they're like, yeah, I prefer the puzzliness of it. Yeah, I do too. It's like puzzly. It's like one of those games where it's like a puzzle game without like an... without exact distinct puzzles you know what i mean the whole thing feels like uh you have to be a little cerebral about it but like it never feels like oh my god i finally solved that uh

You know, it's not the adventures of Lolo where like, oh, I got to figure out the solution to this part. It feels like there's like a few solutions and it's a little more fluid. And I enjoy that about it. I think that makes it feel like kind of relaxed experience. But yeah, I would.

I would also say it feels more puzzly than it feels like an arcade game. It seems like an arcade game, but it does feel like it's not like, you know, yeah, like a Donkey Kong or something like that, where it's just like constant action.

Yeah, so I guess the question being if you could push it in one way, I do agree this definitely feels like a puzzle platformer. The arcade version of this would be like... more more caves but much shorter stages where you can probably see the whole stage in one screen or whatever and you have to just trigger the pillar at the start and figure out how to get to the exit as quick as possible like 60 seconds or something and then you're still

having these collectible power-ups of the ladder or whatever that you use, but you have to collect them within the stage and then place them appropriately. So it's more like Twitch reflexes than the current game we have. I would want to push it more towards puzzle, like personally, because it just feels like these mechanics are like ripe for some really cool puzzles. It sounds like, Mike, you want this to be more like that pizza game. That indie pizza game

I'm trying to remember. There's not too many indie pizza games. Pizza Tower? Come on, help me out here. Indie Pizza Tower. yeah pizza tower sounds like you want an immediate like if it's all about just escaping a place fast this doesn't have this game I've just basically seen like Video of this game. I've never played it myself, but I think the whole concept of it is Getting to a place and then very quickly getting out of it in a much more action-packed way

It sounds like you want that game. Damn. It's not that I want that game. I guess I was just saying if you had both, I would have preferred to push it to the arcade. I don't like how drawn out. and open these levels are it doesn't quite feel like I'm exploring anything because a lot of it isn't digging and then a lot of the like okay look at everything to then just go back to the beginning to start the actual level

Isn't that fun? Yeah, I think a lot of like a lot of the levels are optional. Like a lot of it's like, oh, yeah, this is great because I got some more dynamite. I got some another rope ladder. I got more gems. But it's like. If you actually just do the level, just find the lever and find the exit, these levels are really short. Like a lot of the cool stuff is just like if you're doing the extracurricular.

Which turns out to be necessary anyways. I ran into enough things that killed me that it wasn't too short for me. I don't particularly like the mosquitoes. They killed me? They themselves didn't kill me, but they got me into a position to be killed. Well, your shovel can only attack like three pixels in front of you, so that's not helping. And then there's enough of a delay between...

Your swing and when enemies can attack that it doesn't really help ever uh so yeah i died enough times i never really felt like oh this is quick yeah yeah well i mean the enemies only get harder too you have the cavemen uh later on who have like those um The red sticks that they hit you with.

You have dinosaurs. Yeah, dinosaurs. You can bribe the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are the whole ending of the game. It's just like they're the boss at the end. Who would have thought dinosaurs were guarding the lost city? That's where they went. Right, that's where they wound up. Isn't this the Godzilla plotline? Yes. The creepypasta. You have to. No. You have to blow up.

You have to blow up the first few dinosaurs in this final level to get them to move back. A mechanic that is like... Did I not know... Sorry, I just need to clarify. I put a gem in front of them. and then jump past them and did not get hit. Was I just lucky and I wasn't supposed to do that? So I know the gem is how you're supposed to get past the last one. Yes. I only know that because I watched a video of it. I didn't get to the last one.

But the dynamite was at least how I got past one of them before that. Or just pushed him back a little bit. Right. As dynamite does. The dynamite makes sense because it's an explosive. You can never kill them, but they're guarding the path forward. Use the dynamite. They blow back and then you jump over them and you're in the next part. The last one of these dinosaurs, the one that guards the end of the game, the dynamite won't work on it.

It's very strange, but you have to use the diamond. So it's good to confirm that at least the diamond works elsewhere, too. But it's kind of funny to think that, like, if you didn't have enough diamonds and you... and you only have the dynamite left, you're out of the game. Wow. Yeah, that is really weird. But also, the diamond thing makes me wonder, are these dinosaurs or are they dragons? Because dragons are notoriously known for wanting treasure.

I see dragons in this game, and I see dinosaurs. And I don't think... There's definitely T-Rex adjacent designs in here. The arms are too short. They're all from the same genus and class and everything. Yeah, we all know about the genus and the class and the order. Yeah, everyone, that's seventh grade stuff. But they do have like really small arms. Dinosaurs.

Notorious like T-Rex short arms. I don't know about dragons. Do dragons are dragons notorious for the little arms too? Well, is it a wyvern or is it a worm? It doesn't have any wings at all. All right, so then it's a platypus. The final boss of the game is a platypus. Confirmed here. That's exactly it. Okay. And then as soon as you get to the end, it's just, congrats, you found the lost city.

Now, what the hell is Digger T supposed to do now? Live down there? Yeah, he's down there. Well, there's water. But it was like a fountain. It was a perilous journey down. He's got to like go do it all again in reverse. There's a to be continued sign at the end of the game. Were they planning on like a mirror mode where you now go in the other direction for the sequel? The weird thing about the to be continued sign is like he's jumping up and down. He's all excited. He's happy.

Then he falls down and, like, gets upset. Like, the look on his face is upset, and then it says, to be continued. Like, did the fall... Was that supposed to, like, signify something or, like, give us, like, a cliffhanger? He got a CT? Made him fall. He got a concussion. Why did he fall and why is he all upset? And what's he looking at? Now I'm realizing I'm kind of sucked in by this cliffhanger. Here's why I'd be upset. I've made my way down.

To this ancient city. There is water, yes. But I don't see food anywhere. I don't see other people. I know... that I'm probably going to die in the next couple of weeks down here. So maybe the to be continued is like you kind of play a game. about him starving to death over the course of however many days or weeks you have to dig your own grave yeah yeah that's probably part of it yeah um so that's how i see it

Oh, speaking of like graves and deaths, I don't want to gloss over the disturbing death animation in this. Oh, where you just sort of melt? Yeah, you like melt into like a thin... puddle of yourself but like your clothes are still there like very weird I'm a fan I'm a fan I think just to move move more just into the animations in general

I would say that this game may be over animated. And my only reason why is I don't know how many games we've played recently. Maybe, maybe like... three four years ago in the timeline this might have been more of like a thing that we're just like oh well they didn't realize how bad that felt yet But does it need a turnaround animation that you then need to press the button again to start moving forward again? Do we need that? Yes. Wasn't a fan.

Yeah, no, I it is a little like it's like too many frames that, you know, that are not like going fast enough that you can tell. I do like savvy. Yeah, I do like the animation of sort of shimmying into.

crawlspace because that's very smooth and the game just kind of knows when you want to do that but yeah don't think it needed the the turnaround animation all of the characters including digger like are pretty well designed and and have clear clean reads and animations and everything it's just kind of like the world around them granted it's in a cave like i think it's supposed to read this way but it's just all kind of like blah otherwise

The enemies and you are like the colorful part of the game. Yeah. And the way that you move... too is it almost kind of reminds me of Mario where you've got a little bit of slidiness to you there's a little weight there's a little momentum which we always praise about Mario but I don't know if it's what was needed here because like you're digging you're you're kind of like

taking it a little slower than mario you're not doing these big giant platform jumps where you get running starts and you know jumping on enemies or anything like that like i feel like you want to feel a little more like in control here and there's an ice level later that lets you slide and like that's an interesting like shake up but like we've already been kind of sliding throughout this whole game so it feels like a little i don't know it just feels like unnecessary uh

levels of of physics there yeah i want to say that the the physics and just the game feel the the controls are well designed but is it well designed for this game specifically right Maybe not. They are smooth, though. It just doesn't actually mesh.

In June 2018, a youth soccer team and their assistant coach became trapped in the Tam Luang cave system in northern Thailand after heavy rains flooded the passages. The 12 boys aged 11 to 16 and their 25-year-old coach had gone into the cave on June 23rd after practice, not realizing that the monsoon rain was coming. Rising water and strong currents cut them off from the entrance and left them with no contact with the outside world for more than a week. A huge international rescue effort formed.

drawing in specialized divers, rescue workers, and officials from many countries as global attention focused on the cave. And Elon Musk. On July 2nd, British divers finally reached the group, finding them alive on a small ledge about four kilometers from the cave mouth. Rescuers debated several options, including teaching the boys to dive out, drilling a new entrance,

or waiting months for the flood waters to recede. After days of pumping water and a short break in the rain, teams launched a high-risk operation between July 8th to the 10th to guide each boy and the coach out through the flooded tunnels. and all of them were successfully rescued. The mission involved up to 10,000 people and enormous resources, but it also cost the lives of two Thai Navy SEALs.

You have to imagine that's what happened in the search for little Digger T. Rock as well in this universe. He went into a cave. I was wondering where that was going. I thought this was the sequels and spinoffs. Right? They just... The Thailand cave thing all over again, but in this universe with Digger T. Rock. I don't think anyone's looking for this kid. I think that really the reason that he does this to himself.

is because there's no one that would look for him. Yeah, that's why he goes down there. Exactly. There are no side characters. The only people that you meet want to kill you. I think that... This kid has a lot that he's not like, he's probably pretty sad all the time. Yeah, there's a lot to read between the lines in this. This is like a very well-written story. It doesn't just like spoon feed it to you either. You really have to like...

You really have to see, like, you make your own interpretations off of it. So, like, I think the story is one of the better stories we've had on the NES. All right. Well, then I guess it's just time to see if Digger T-Rock can excavate a place on the Essential Games list.

I did not have a great time with this game. I think my biggest problem was just how, not tedious, but how boring everything felt to get started in each level. the necessary collecting of what feels like optional items in order to complete both these stages and later stages.

It just didn't feel as cleverly designed as some other rare games that we're used to. And so I'm going to put it as a no. I don't dismiss that somebody could have fun with it. I'm not saying it's a badly designed game. It's just not something I had fun with. Sean? Yeah, I wasn't huge on it. I do think this had to have been a pretty big influence on Spelunky, though. There's even ghosts that float around in a similar way.

uh like spelunky is much feels a lot more feels much better and is a lot more fun uh but there's just so many borrowed like aspects that So that means nothing to do with this game. This game is fine. It's pretty fine. It looks and feels fun. Your mileage may vary on... how fun it actually is to play in terms of like that whole like execution thing. But yeah, it's otherwise pretty forgettable and not essential. Joe, I...

I think I did have a little more fun with this. I think it's a very flawed but very charming game. I think that's where I've landed on it. Like, I thought that... I was enjoying the different mechanics. I was enjoying the movement and even like the design. I know that the cave itself is kind of lackluster, but the enemies and you yourself are like pretty, pretty charming little.

chibi characters and stuff and i i think it was it's maybe teeters on the edge of a play it for me but uh but also definitely not essential nothing to write home about i think it's just another situation of like you know we start one of these each week i'm More often than not, we play a game that, like, eh, it's not very good. So, like, when there is one like this, I'm like, oh, yeah, I enjoyed this. You know, it's just not some, like, crazy essential game to me. So, definitely not.

Sean, you're forgiven for not remembering, but we did play a game on this podcast called Spelunker back in September of 1987. And I feel like that was probably. the major influence on Spelunky, because it also has those ghosts that you're talking about, but has a lot more of the elements as well. Well, all right. I retract everything that I ever said, and this game is essential.

I was trying to give you less points towards Digger T. You were helping it give a great franchise its birth, and I was like, hey, don't be so quick. Rare did put this on their Rare Replay collection, though. They'll put anything on Rare Replay. It's probably true, just like how we'll put every... NES game on this podcast, whether they deserve an episode or not.