If you like indie console game Spelunky, you may love...
Digging for treasure
There's nothing quite like Spelunky.
Some of you might not know what Spelunky is, which is fair enough. This is, after all, Pocket Gamer, and there's no portable version of the game out there just yet. That's about to change, mind, with the imminent launch of a PS Vita version of Spelunky.
David Yu's indie masterpiece is a fiendishly tricky roguelike platformer in which Yu spits out cruelly randomised levels and frequent instadeaths like they're going out of fashion. There aren't any continues - just an endless cycle of restarts.
And yet it's impossible to stop playing Spelunky. There's such a palpable sense of exploration, trepidation, risk, and reward. And the anguish from making a stupid mistake. There's lots of that, too.
But where can you go for a Spelunky-like fix on your smartphones and tablets? We hate to say it, but nowhere. However, there are games out there that contain various composite elements of Spelunky.
Plonk as many of these on your playlist as possible, and you'll get a hint of that Spelunky magic.
EndingBy Aaron Steed - buy on iPhone and iPad or buy on Android
One of the most common words attached to Spelunky, alongside 'genius' and various four-letter expletives, is 'roguelike.' We even used it in our intro. This basically means a game with the same tough, free-roaming, randomised dungeon-crawl spirit of a 1980 game called Rogue.
Ending is one of the latest roguelikes to make an impact on the mobile scene. It doesn't play anything like Spelunky, really (it's more of a turn-based puzzler than a platformer). But the sense of nervous progression through random, mazy levels has a familiar pull to it.
Waking MarsBy Tiger Style - buy on iPhone and iPad or buy on Android
Waking Mars has a certain subterranean exploratory spirit to it that puts us in mind of Spelunky. Oh, and it's also a 2D platformer. Tiger Style also nails that same sense of discovery as you stumble upon a cool new feature.
Of course, there isn't the same sense of teeth-gnashing difficulty here, and death isn't waiting around every corner. But Tiger Style has its own laid-back take on platform-adventuring, and we're more than happy with that.
Junk JackBy Pixbits - buy on iPhone and iPad
In truth, Junk Jack is closer to another indie darling, Minecraft, in spirit and concept than it is to Spelunky. After all, it's all about smashing stuff up for raw materials and building yourself, well, anything you like. So long as it helps you survive the night.
But there's certainly more than a superficial similarity to Spelunky's 2D visuals in Pixbits's artwork, particularly as you venture underground. Plus, the way you can dig down to uncover goodies is rather familiar. The palpable need to simply stay alive is another linking point.
Paradox ExitBy Elbert Perez - buy on Windows Phone
Paradox Exit is undoubtedly the least-known game on this list, and it's the only Windows Phone game at that. You can draw your own cheeky conclusion from those two facts.
All we know is that there's a definite kinship between Spelunky and Elbert Perez's free-roaming mine-'em-up.
In both games, the respective developers manage to evoke that simultaneous sense of wonder and threat as you move through their hostile cave systems, digging up materials and slowly improving your protagonist.
League of EvilBy Ravenous Games - buy on iPhone and iPad or buy on Android
One aspect of Spelunky that occasionally gets overlooked is that it's a really tight, responsive 2D platformer. This means that when you fail - as you inevitably do... time and again - it never feels like the 'game' let you down. It's just a result of your own inadequate skills or carelessness.
In that way, we can draw a link to Ravenous Games's League of Evil series. Yes, these games are much more linear and are more traditional platformers than Spelunky, but they provide a similar mixture of supreme control and precariousness.
iOS gamers can play League of Evil 2 and League of Evil 3 if they're real suckers for punishment.