Remember that gorgeous Xbox-only remake of the superb randomly generated platform game Spelunky we were drooling over ? The one with new monsters, streamlined controls, and four player co-op in which you can throw your friends gracelessly around the levels to help them reach stuff?
The jealousy was too great, we had to know: could it ever come to PC? I asked creator Derek Yu.
"There's a very good chance we'll see the HD edition of Spelunky on PC at some point."
";)" Yu added.
Hot randomly-generated damn.
In his talk at GDC, Derek said he thought of Spelunky HD as a sequel to the original platformer. The first was made in Game Maker, a cheap and easy tool for making (mostly) 2D games from scratch. Derek calls tools like this "the equivalent of a sketchbook: lets you get your ideas out very quickly." Twitterer Kinten posted a tantalising fuzzy photo of the screenshot Derek showed of multiplayer in action.
While it's by no means confirmed, Derek's answer is exciting because it presumably means he's not under any exclusivity agreement with Microsoft that would prevent him from bringing the game to PC. That's the fear when a great indie game gets an even greater version on Xbox Live Arcade.
Valve would be nuts not to want this on Steam, and evidently Derek himself is up for it. With the Super Meat Boy guys recently revealing that their game sold dramatically faster on Steam than on XBLA , Introversion saying Microsoft "make you work harder [but] don't back it up with sales" , and Team Meat chiming in again to call the XBLA development process "a mind fuck" , perhaps the days of indies seeing consoles as the big time are coming to an end.
