Update [Mon 9th Sep, 2024 10:00 BST]: The official Commodore 64 port of Spelunky is now available to purchase from itch.io. The game costs $2.99 and can be played on your Commodore 64 emulator of choice and both PAL & NTSC C64 models.
Here’s a description taken from the store page:
“Spelunky is a cave exploration / treasure-hunting game inspired by classic platform games and roguelikes, where the goal is to grab as much treasure from the cave as possible. Every time you play the cave’s layout will be different. Use your wits, your reflexes, and the items available to you to survive and go ever deeper! Perhaps at the end you may find what you’re looking for…
“Paul Koller brings you the official Commodore 64 port of Spelunky. You can now play the classic roguelike how it would be intended on the best-selling 8bit computer!”
If you want to give it a try, you can buy the game here.
Original Article [Tue 19th Dec, 2023 14:05 GMT]: The critically acclaimed indie platformer Spelunky is coming to the Commodore 64.
The lead developer behind the project Paul Koller (who is working on the port alongside the musician and sound fx artist Mikkel Hastrup) has been posting various updates about his progress in bringing the indie classic to the ’80s computer since 2017 but recently shared a new trailer on YouTube with the announcement that it will soon be available to download.
What we found particularly interesting about this port is that it doesn’t seem to be an unofficial fan project, as you’d probably expect, but an officially approved Commodore 64 version of the game, developed with the backing of the original developer Mossmouth (Derek Yu).
From what we’ve seen from the trailer, the Commodore 64 port looks to be an incredibly faithful representation of the popular title, with players again having to navigate a booby-trapped cave system filled with snakes and bats to collect treasure, rescue non-playable characters, and eventually escape to the next floor. The only difference seems to be the graphics, which are obviously a little less detailed than the original due to the graphical limitations of the new hardware.
Spelunky was originally created by the developer Derek Yu and began life as a freeware game for Windows PCs in 2008, before being enhanced and released on Xbox Live Arcade in 2009. Since then, it has been ported to a range of different platforms, including the PS3, PS Vita, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.
A sequel Spelunky 2 was also later released in 2020 and is currently available for PS4, PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
We’ll try and keep you updated when the Commodore 64 version finally releases, so you can try out this port for yourselves.