Future Project Idea: Expansion Spelunx Rooms

[Scott Baret]

Here's an idea for anyone who is good with HyperCard and MacroMind Director...how about a challenge to see who can come up with a new expansion room for Spelunx?

The program was designed to be expanded, as evidenced by the builder. All copies of Spelunx came with just three rooms, but apparently there were more in the works. (There was also evidently a DOS version in the works at one time...source for that is the color Spelunx manual).

I've thought about this for years, especially as an educator who sees the value behind the activities of Spelunx and would have loved to have seen more, especially in the areas of mathematics. I haven't programmed a lick of HyperCard in YEARS, so I'd need to get my old Danny Goodman book out, and haven't even opened the copy of Director I got in 2003 (though it's moved around the storage unit a few times).

It would be easy enough to link into Spelunx from what I can tell. 

I figure we've made new After Dark modules, why not one of these? 

 

[LaPorta]

I think that would be a great idea, after having played Splunx and my kids now playing it.

Robyn and Rand Miller might be willing to weigh in on this if we contacted them via Cyan. I am sure details lost to time, but perhaps they still have documentation around regarding how they made the individual modules and put them in.

 

[MattB]

That’s a great idea. I have Spelunx both on Steam for modern PCs and the original install disks for the black and white HyperCard version somewhere. The documentation definitely suggested more rooms were planned, and the game itself includes more tunnels that dead end where more rooms would be expected. Sadly the Steam version doesn’t have the map editor.

 

[bigD]

I like this idea too - I used to enjoy programming under both HyperCard and Director, so this would be a fun excuse to get back into it. Someone else would need to do the art - I’d be useless there!

 

[tt]

Here's an idea for anyone who is good with HyperCard and MacroMind Director...how about a challenge to see who can come up with a new expansion room for Spelunx?

I've also thought about this, and lead to the idea that the easiest way to do it would be to graft certain parts of Cosmic Osmo into expansion rooms. Those two games have the most similar artistic style vs. any of the others. It would be cool if they would release the stuff that never made it to production.

 

[Scott Baret]

Great to see my old thread revived!!

Looking back at some of the replies, it sounds like we could have a pretty solid team here on this.

Good thought about Cosmic Osmo!! They're similar in play style, too.

One thing that I always felt could be incorporated into Spelunx is more of a math based game. The best you've got is the coordinate grid system in the Nemo room's upper level. Of course, to be Spelunx-like, you'd need it to not be regular drill. Something similar to The Factory (the Sunburst/Wings for Learning game) may have fit in pretty well, but perhaps themed more to the cave idea or to some other theme prevalent in the game (which seems to like space, storytelling, and whimsical stuff in general like the polka dancer in the Arwen room).

Also, it would be fun to see the singing ketchup bottle from Osmo make its way in. I'd love to see the dog make an appearance, too, but it seems there really aren't animals of any kind in Spelunx.

Hmm...now that I think about it, how about a crossover where Osmo somehow crashes in the cave kingdom?

 

[LaPorta]

How do we actually write add-on stacks, however?