About Todd Schlickbernd

Spelunky, Mossmouth‘s gift to the platforming and roguelike world, is not easy. In no capacity is it easy, and in fact as of writing I have died ~600 times. Sure, a lot of that was just to find information, but we assure you the death counts for this game will be in the thousands for most players. While every adventure through Spelunky results in a score, and surely that is important, the real goal here is to make it to the end and get the treasure spoken of only in whispers in back alleys and on forums. This guide has a deluge of tips and tricks for you to employ in your journey through Spelunky, as well as an ever growing account of all the secrets and unlockables in this game. Here’s the disclaimer:

Spelunky is first and foremost about adventure. It’s about failure, about dying, about losing, about learning from each and everything you see that inevitably kills you. Part of the glory of Spelunky’s design is finding out how things work, the nature of the AI and of the ever-changing environments. You should experience that, and you should do so without this guide. We recommend you not look at this guide until you’ve died at least 100 times. That said, if you’re frustrated, or if you have to find the secrets right-just-now, we welcome you to enjoy our wealth of information.

We have no intention of spoiling the whole game for you, so the secrets and unlockables are on their own page, away from the tips and tricks. That said, there are plenty of spoilers in here as well, but we have separated each and every collection of tips by section of the game to which they pertain. Everything you’ll experience for the majority of your “newbie” experience is just below and none of it is entirely shocking, though there’s much useful information there. At the very bottom of this guide is our tips to completion, and they include information from every single thing, including the secrets, but they’re also our most comprehensive (and tested) tips for success. We wish you luck, adventurer. Read More

Welcome to the super secret section of our guide! The content is secret… not… not the guide. Spelunky is rife with “Did you know?”s and “Where IS this place?”s, and it’s our job to try and find them. Actually, it’s your job, but if you’re having trouble it’s our job to help! Not sure why you need to find these things? Well if you want to complete your journal, you’ll have to make your way through every nook and cranny of this game. We’ve cataloged each and every secret we could find, but as far as we know there are still much more out there, lurking in the roguelike shadows of this game. This guide will be updated as myself and the community discover new things. Please email me at todd@xblafans.com if you find something not in the guide. If you’re not ready to see all the secrets, head on back to the Tips & Tricks page. Read More

Some pre-release goodness. Curious? Tune in on Twitch.TV
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Guardians of Middle-Earth, the latest Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game to aim for the Xbox Live Arcade scene since Awesomenauts, wastes no time jumping into the action. We talked at length about the game in our preview from E3, but Monolith explains further how they manage to carefully select what elements of MOBA are strongest here. “We wanted to get players in and out of the game quickly”, designer Scott Compton told us in a roundtable press conference, “We wanted to get players in and out of the game quickly. 45 – 60 minutes is too long of a game.”

This Lord of the Rings MOBA was built from the ground up to be about the action and overall have shorter match times than other games in the genre. To achieve this, the foundation had to be set with the controls. While the answer to how a MOBA would work on a console has been of some debate lately, Monolith claims they had a rather easy time with it. Compton told us that “putting the player in direct control was a really satisfying experience. Using the left stick and “driving” the character around on the battlefield, rather than clicking and orienting your character that way.” Using rectangular, wedge and circle attack radii all aimed with the left stick, the game achieves precision even without a mouse. Read More

Speed running has been around for as long as games with beginnings and endings have. There are some people out there determined to rush through everything in a game, especially platformers, as quickly as possible. Well Alien Spidy takes speed running, fleshes it out a bit, and presents platformer enthusiasts with a skill-based platformer designed to be played at mach speed.

In Alien Spidy, you play as Spidy (imagine that) as he rushes to find the remains of his ship on Earth. He ventured from his home planet to find a friend of his who didn’t return, and ended up crashing on our humble planet. The story is really a mcguffin to get you crawling around this 2D Earth, dodging all manner of hostile flora and fauna. The world is a scary place when you’re a spider. Read More

Welcome to our Challenges & Encounters guide, two of the key returning features in Magic 2013! This page is for the Challenges, Encounters can be found here. As they were in the past, these puzzles require you to solve intricate victory solutions from abysmal situations. Most of these puzzles require you to win during that one turn, making this a very small, difficult piece of Magic strategy. Since these are puzzles, however, we can solve them the exact same way every time! As such, each solution will be in step by step format, so you can’t possibly miss a beat.

Important: We strongly advise you either view every step before trying these, or you stop the timer after each move, as some steps are between individual card plays rather than entire turn phases.

Again, there are 10 Encounters to go along with the 10 challenges, so if you want solutions or help with those, head on over to the Encounters guide page. Read More

The Encounters are back in Magic 2013 and that means single-minded AIs following patterns until you win or lose. These patterns will be the same every time, but keep in mind that they will still block and attack logically regardless of the pattern. Since this is a card game and you still have to draw cards normally in Encounters, it’s important to remember that sometimes you can’t win without the right cards. That’s perfectly fine, these may take a couple tries no matter how sound the strategy is. The first three are pretty simple Encounters so their solutions are pretty straightforward, but as you progress you’ll find these Encounters get more and more difficult (and more and more unfair), so we hope you’ll find this guide useful.

Also back are the puzzle challenges. These challenges dare you to solve intricate Magic puzzles with a very specific setup and solution set. You can find our solution set to those challenges here. Read More

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 was developed by Stainless Games and Wizards of the Coast and published by Microsoft Studios. It retails for 800 MSP and was released on June 20, 2012. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Stainless Games and Wizards of the Coast have brought us our third iteration of the ridiculously named “Magic: the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 201X” series. That means new cards, more missions, new modes, a redesigned interface, and yet the game’s name is still far too long. As such, while discussing the aforementioned inclusions, we will be referring to Magic: the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 as Magic 2013 for the remainder of this review.

For the uninitiated, Magic 2013 pits you against several AI duelists throughout its multiple campaigns. Use cards to generate resources which you spend to summon creatures and cast spells. Learn about the different decks throughout the campaign and unlock them for your own use. Red, white, blue, black and green cards populate each deck and all have different signatures; for instance, green features powerful creatures, where-as black specializes in manipulating the dead. Handy tips and a thorough tutorial do a comprehensive job of teaching newcomers to the franchise, so don’t be afraid to jump right in.

As an up-front for interested veterans, no you still cannot freely create decks or mix and match cards, unfortunately, however Magic 2013 has the most cards in the series to date. If you want the card game in video game form, this is it, but if you want all of the Magic: the Gathering culture, you’d best go down to your local game store and participate there. Since this is the third iteration and many of you are simply curious about what’s new here, Magic 2013’s cards are all from the upcoming Magic 2013 core set. On top of that there are four campaigns including two different sorts of puzzles and the all new game mode Planechase.

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When I told Pete Rosky, Assistant Product Manager at Majesco and curator of my Double Dragon Neon demo, that I had never played a Double Dragon game he said “Great! I’ll tell you as little about the game as possible then.” Confused and incredulous, I asked why. “I’ve never gotten to do this presentation with someone who hasn’t played a Double Dragon game before, it’s a whole new perspective.” Knowing then what I know now, I would have understood that Double Dragon Neon is an “old soul” of a brawler, living a life in the present with a staunch respect for the past.

Apparently, Double Dragon is kind of a big deal amongst brawler fans, so excuse me for those of you that I’ve offended by having not played the game. If it makes you feel better, I played this one and liked it. Double Dragon Neon is slow paced (which isn’t a bad thing, mind you) and all the character models are huge and for all the brawlers I’ve played this felt different. It’s a brawler that feels old, but looks new. I marveled at the eye-popping visuals and smooth animations, but the gameplay was nothing like the brawlers of today (because apparently it’s like the brawlers of yesteryear).

Just like Majesco did for my demo, prepare for a preview from a different perspective. Read More

The “point and click” adventure game genre simply refuses to die. Ron Gilbert, creative mastermind behind Monkey Island, leads Double Fine‘s upcoming console-bound return to adventure games, The Cave. Gilbert isn’t redesigning the wheel here (though I wouldn’t put it past him) but The Cave definitely has everything for the contemporary adventure game fan.

The Cave is an adventure game of the 2D platform and puzzle variety wherein you guide three characters along a journey through a mysterious, question-answering cave. Seven characters — amongst them a Hillbilly, Knight, Scientist, Monk, Time Traveler, Adventurer and a set of creepy Twin children — each find themselves with a deep desire which they believe the cave can satisfy. Though they have an overt motive for venturing into the cave, Gilbert says there’s something deeper going on in The Cave. Read More