1001 Spikes is a game of rigorous trial and error
platforming. What sets 1001 Spikes apart from mainstream platformers is just
how hard it is to learn and react to the rules guiding the enemy, projectile,
and spike behaviors. Stepping on a block could activate a retracted spike or
cause the block to crack (signaling a pifall). These world behaviors happen
quickly with bottomless pits and spike floors surrounding the player. Any
mistake in judgement or reaction will lead the player to a quick death. The
player must navigate each level to collect the key to the exit and then
continue through the level to reach the exit. That is 1001 Spikes in all it’s
masochistic hours of play. It boils down to trying over and over to memorize
each obstacle/enemy/world behavior and reacting appropriately. And you have
1001 lives to learn them all and beat the game.
The player can perform a low jump, high jump, and throw a
dagger. Performing the low jump allows the player to travel farther
horizontally while the high jump allows the player to cover more vertical
space. The developers designed the levels around these two jumps in order to
maintain the usefulness of both. Neither falls to preference as the level
design alternates. Some sections
have a low ceiling, requiring a low jump to both clear obstacles and avoid the ceiling.
Jumping into the ceiling reduces the horizontal distance one can jump as a
penalty. Levels also require the player to scale vertically or hop over several
enemies. The dagger allows the player to break away false walls, attack
enemies, and trigger switches. Each tool becomes an essential part of the
player’s repertoire.
One challenge involves fast moving boulders that flow from
dispensers. The player can short jump over each one. The hook is that the
boulders can come in sets of three with a small gap in time before the new set
rolls out. Counting sets also comes into play when navigating between boulders
to acquire the key to unlock the doors. One such level contains several skinny
platforms over an abyss with the key over the rightmost platform that sinks
when the player steps on it. The player has to keep count of the sets of
boulders, making sure to hop over each one, reach the key, and jump back to the
stable platform all while avoiding the boulders. One only has enough room to
reach the stable platform if they jump back during the small gap in between
deployment of the new set of boulders. This small detail in the behavior of the
boulders allows the player to advance. The designers use these small details of
behavior and the slight room for error as the guiding principle for every
challenge in the game.
Players must also focus on the small details of each sprite.
Pitfalls regularly occur throughout the game as well as faulty moving platforms
that will break and fall. Many are clearly marked by cracks in their art. Other
times, the player must be acutely aware of the auditory cue that the ground is
about to fall and plummet them to yet another death. Steadfast awareness and
reaction time are the player’s best friends. Some levels even feature long
sections of spikes that alternate between 1.5 second protracted and retracted
states. An auditory cue signals to the player to perform a high jump to clear
the spikes. Once back on the ground, the player can continue advancing.
The game’s rigor tends to make it unfair. It is a
masochistic platformer in the same vein as Super Meat Boy or the Japanese
version of Super Mario 2. Like Meat Boy, the game’s abundance of respawns
allows it to throw out ridiculous amounts of difficulty towards players who
have honed their platforming skills in the past decade or two. But whereas Meat
Boy gave the player infinite lives, here the player has 1001. That may sound
like a lot, but this is one of the most trial and error fueled games I have
ever played.
It was not uncommon during my playthrough to die over 150
times on a single level (An in-game stat system keeps track). The pinpoint
accuracy required for the levels, especially the ones in the back half of the
game, becomes maddening. Not because it requires the player to perform well,
but because of how the Game Over system works. Once the player burns through
all their lives, the game forces you to watch an unskippable 20-second game
over screen with maddeningly slow text scroll. Then it respawns the player with
3 lives. 3 lives that will soon be lost and beckon the return of the 20 second
game over screen. The taunting impedes the flow of the game and keeps the
player from immediately experimenting with new ways to traverse the levels and
clear obstacles. The only remedy is to suffer through the constant game over’s
until one completes a world on the map, thus granting the player several
hundred lives.
The combination of all these elements reaches fervor in the
back half of the game. Sound cues for impeding protracted spikes, bouncing
platforms with two different alternating jump archs, 2 or more dagger throwing
blocks on different timers, all requiring the player to constantly try over and
over to master timing, memory, and execution.
A player must perform at their best to succeed, lest they
wish to beckon the return of the Game Over screen. The level navigation is
sublime and incentivizes the player to discover hidden pathways behind
breakable blocks. The player must constantly scour the board for shortcuts,
firing a dagger into each one to get around difficult sections. These shortcuts
are a way for the player to minimize risk as they continue their trial and
error adventure. Searching for one of the thirty hidden collectables behind
breakaway blocks elicits a great sense of discovery.
Bennet Foddy, creator of QWOP, called the game “too pure.”
His statement is perhaps the best lens to view the game. Although Foddy’s
comment is rather amorphous and abstract, purity is the ideal achieved with the
gameplay of 1001 Spikes. It’s expectations, level design, and obstacle behavior
all demand perfection. The trial and error masochistic platforming is well
designed and innately unfair. One has to try over and over to beat a level. I
have been playing platformers since I was 4. I died anywhere from 20 times to
190 times depending on the level. The game’s challenge keeps me interested as
it throws new obstacles at me. Although the Game Over system is a stupid
penalty and the trial and error gameplay can be maddeningly unfair, the sublime
bliss of the game’s positives greatly outweigh any negatives.
