TOM FRANCIS
REGRETS THIS ALREADY

Hello! I'm Tom. I'm a game designer, writer, and programmer on Gunpoint, Heat Signature, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Here's some more info on all the games I've worked on, here are the videos I make on YouTube, and here are two short stories I wrote for the Machine of Death collections.

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Tactical Breach Wizards Is Out!

Tom’s Timer 5

The Bone Queen And The Frost Bishop: Playtesting Scavenger Chess In Plasticine

Gridcannon: A Single Player Game With Regular Playing Cards

Dad And The Egg Controller

A Leftfield Solution To An XCOM Disaster

Rewarding Creative Play Styles In Hitman

Postcards From Far Cry Primal

Solving XCOM’s Snowball Problem

Kill Zone And Bladestorm

Spelunky Explorers’ Club

Each day, Spelunky generates one set of levels that’s the same for every player. Each day, we play them. Some of us make videos of our attempts. You can browse mine above (click the listy icon in the top left), or see everyone’s on the blog we set up at https://spelunkyexplorers.wordpress.com/.

On the rest of this post are the earliest dailies we posted.More info!

Special Notice

I’ve finally done what I should have in the first place, and set up the Explorers’ Club as its own blog. I’ve also renamed it to the Explorers Club because that apostrophe was annoying me. Therefore, this’ll be the last time I update this post, and all future videos and scores will go up on our new home at: https://spelunkyexplorers.wordpress.com/.

It’ll be the same bunch of people, but they can now post their videos themselves, so the place won’t shut down when I’m away. It also takes up much less of my time each day this way, which means I can keep doing it for longer. Explore force!

7th of September 2013

Tom Francis – The Black Market timebomb

In this video I wonder how anyone survived the bit I died on. Here’s how Anthony did.

When he approaches the Ankh cave, you can see there’s a chunk missing from the shop nearest it – that’s presumably where a red frog blew up and triggered the terrorist alert. Must have been eaten by a pitcher plant or prodded by a tiki trap. I didn’t hear a blast, but it was probably drowned out by the gunfire – I think their reaction would have been instant.

Anthony Burch – Sticky

After this run, I got to hell by repeating the mantra, “always use bombs”. This run is the reason why I came up with that mantra.

Nika Harper – Bad Things Are Bad

Graham Smith – Black Market Frogsplosion (w/ commentary)

In case there were any doubts, everything can go wrong so quickly if you just get flustered. Damsels will be the death of me.

Jason Killingsworth – Arrow To The Heart

This death really hurt, and right on the City of Gold’s doorstep. Completely out of nowhere, no chance to prepare for it or react to it. Insta-kill, game over.

Rich Stanton

God damn it Derek Yu. God damn it!

Richard Stanton hitting the high notes on the 13th attempt at Spelunky’s Daily Challenge! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and he’ll hurl the controller at the wall. Enjoy!

Chris Thursten – Why Is Everything Sticky

I’m doing these again and I’ve got a webcam and a microphone and everything. There’s some competent god damn Spelunky going down in here, let me tell you.

Sorry about the frame rate issues. If anyone has some hot Open Broadcaster tips to share, leave a comment.

Philippa Warr

Today I tried cheating. Chris’s video which I used for the cheating is here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6CHhK…) but I don’t advise you watch it because it didn’t help :(

Explorer Scores

Jason Killingsworth – Temple 4-2 – $218,600
Anthony Burch – Temple 4-1 – $126,375
Tom Francis – Black Market 2-4 – $124,175
Aaron Linde – Black Market 2-4 – $92,275
Graham Smith – Black Market 2-4 – $74,500
Chris Thursten – Jungle 2-2 – $26,550
Rich Stanton – Jungle 2-1 – $42,150
Richard Boeser – Mines 1-3 – $30,500
Nika Harper – Mines 1-3 – $5,400
Chris Donlan – Mines 1-2 – $21,200

Tom’s note: Yep, something happened in the Black Market that day. Something bad. I imagine less than 5% of anyone who went there survived, so extra kudos to Anthony and Jason here. Jason, of course, had the advantage of already knowing the shopkeepers would be mad because he had taken the precaution of stealing from and murdering them throughout the game.

Show Previous Days And More Info

6th of September 2013

Tom’s note: At PAX in Seattle last week, Anthony and Ashly Burch invited me and Nika Harper up to play Spelunky co-op with them on-stage. We manage to keep our shit together for like 3 minutes. Starts at 1:43:00 in this video.

Tom Francis – The ship in the shop

At 15:18 I don’t mean Ankh, I mean Mattock. And I don’t mean shop, I mean gambling parlour.

One of my deaths here was predictable and avoidable. The first, though, I’m a bit baffled by. Some kind of area-of-effect stun?

Also I’m wrong when I say I needed all 3 ropes.

Anthony Burch – Fun is a four letter word

I wasn’t having the best day today. And also in Spelunky.

Tom’s note: Anthony and I lose the Ankh – and our shit – in exactly the same place today!

Jason Killingsworth – To Hell in a Jetpackbasket

Managed to run the table on my first Daily Challenge. It was fun to have almost everything I touch turn into a journal entry and see achievements unlocking left and right.

Philippa Warr

I BOUGHT A TELEPORTER

Rich Stanton – He dozen know what he’s doing!

The twelfth in this little series of Spelunky videos may well be the most disappointing – this is an exercise in futility, topped off with a display of arrogance that is roundly and justly punished!

Hopefully it’s not obvious how hungover I am :P

Richard Boeser – Not listening to my own advice

Not paying enough attention and again getting killed by an arrow trap.

Explorer Scores

Jason Killingsworth – Hell 5-4 – $743,350
Aaron Linde – Ice Caves 3-3 – $185,500
Tom Francis – Ice Caves 3-3 – $32,975
Anthony Burch – Ice Caves 3-3 – $6,550
Chris Donlan – Jungle 2-1 – $31,800
Nika Harper – Mines 1-4 – $19,300
Richard Boeser – Mines 1-3 – $14,600
Graham Smith – Mines 1-2 – $26,300
Rich Stanton – Mines 1-2 – $12,900

Tom’s note: Ice Caves 3 once again claims three victims. More than usual died in the Mines. And Jason comes 26th in the world with that ridiculous performance, on his first ever daily. Sickening.

5th of September 2013

Tom Francis – The Giant Yeti and the bomb boom

Here is the kitten GIF to which I refer.

Graham Smith – Aiming for the City of Gold (w/ commentary)

Rich Stanton – The Eleventh Hour

Rich Stanton Vs Spelunky’s Daily Challenge once more! More pug-rescuing, rope-tossing, heart-losing action than you can throw a boomerang at – and one big discovery for our man.

Nika Harper – Bombs, man. How do they work?

Part of the #SpelunkyExplorers Club, this is my Daily Challenge, and it’s short enough to watch on a restroom break at work. Not a spoiler. Just look at the timestamp.

Richard Boeser – Visions of a Black Market

Sorry about the poor voice recording again. This time construction work outside adds to the drama.

So I never got this far before in any run. I felt I was close to the black market and then totally lost my mind. Should have given up earlier. The ghost punished me for that.

Explorer Scores

Tom Francis – Ice Caves 3-3 – $63,050
Rich Stanton – Ice Caves 3-3 – $34,625
Graham Smith – Ice Caves 3-3 – $26,600
Anthony Burch – Jungle 2-3 – $11,725
Chris Donlan – Jungle 2-2 – $4,900
Richard Boeser – Jungle 2-1 – $16,650
Nika Harper – Mines 1-2 – $11,200

Tom’s note: Ice Caves 3 was a tough one today! It’s fun to watch me, Graham and Rich all die on it in different ways.

PS: Added Graham’s video to yesterday’s set – click Show Previous Days.

4th of September 2013

Tom Francis – The Jetpack Mattock Snakepit Conundrum

I should probably stop it with that dumb bomb thing.

Anthony Burch – Idiot

Rich Stanton – Tenth time lucky!

I’m talking pugs. I’m talking jetpacks. I’m talking playing that Ghost like a cheap fiddle and dropping bombs like Obama in Syria. That’s right, it’s Rich Stanton back for another pop at Spelunky’s daily challenge! What terrors await?

Graham Smith – Mattock, Jetpack, Udjet and a Ghost

Level 2 was amazing and terrifying and went very well. Level 3, not so much.

Explorer Scores

Anthony Burch – Ice Caves 3-4 – $98,225
Tom Francis – Jungle 2-4 – $51,550
Rich Stanton – Jungle 2-2 – $46,325
Chris Donlan – Mines 1-4 – $6,300
Graham Smith – Mines 1-3 – $3,450

24th of August 2013

Tom’s note! I’m back from GDC Europe, and on the 29th I leave again for PAX Prime. So I’m afraid I don’t have time to go back and fill in all the days I missed, but I will keep up with the new days while I’m home.

Luckily, Anthony’s been pulling them all together on the Hey Ash blog while I’ve been away!

If there are particular Explorers you like, subscribe to their YouTube channels! I’ve subscribed to all of them, so my youtube.com/feed/subscriptions is like 90% Spelunky now. Even if you don’t use YouTube, you can add them as an RSS feed to whatever you do use. My channel has some scraps of an insanely lucky run I did while I was away, and I also put up non-daily practice vids there sometimes.

Tom Francis – A pond of skeletal fish

I’m back from Germany, with tales of why I was in Germany, and doing Spelunky dailies in Germany.

I think I stand by what I was trying to do at the end here. The only thing I’d change is that I now see a way I could have used a bomb instead of a rope right at the end, which would have taken more time, but killed me much less.

Anthony Burch – Scariest Daily Ever

What a nightmare. My goodness.

Tom Bramwell – FOCUS

I didn’t get that much further today than yesterday, but the performance overall was a lot stronger. As Toby in the West Wing would say, I managed to get more blood going to it, and it shows. Hoping to penetrate even deeper tomorrow, but today’s run still includes rat-throwing, ghost-dodging and an inevitable outcome. You’ll see it coming. Enjoy.

Chris Thursten – Mammoth Error

Stay here, dear Man Damsel. This is something I have to do alone.

There are a few issues with framerate in this video – Fraps stuff that I’ll try to fix for tomorrow.

Explorer Scores

Mike Rose – Temple 4-4 – $146,175
Anthony Burch – Temple 4-1 – $18,625
Chris Thursten – Ice Caves 3-3 – $7,400
Tom Francis – Jungle 2-3 – $91,125
Tom Bramwell – Jungle 2-1 – $29,600
Chris Donlan – Mines 1-2 – $6,300

16th of August 2013

Tom’s note! I won’t be able to update this post for about a week as I’m away at GDC Europe, but I should be able to keep playing and hopefully recording.

I’m suggesting the other Explorers tweet their YouTube links and tag them #SpelunkyExplorers – that way you can just search for that to see all their runs as they go up.

Tom Francis – Where is this lift taking me?

This might be my funniest death. Sorry for the laugh-explosions, my headset broke so I’m using a new mic.

Phil Savage – I blame a misunderstanding

Why are subterranean shopkeepers so damned paranoid? Anyway, pretty good run, despite a painful number of mistakes. Also: not sure why the Ankh resurrected me inside a giant head containing a secret door leading to the regular next level. So that was weird.

Tom Bramwell

Today’s Daily Challenge is brought to you by my righteous anger! Nothing to do with the game, and I sound fairly normal in the video, but believe me, I’m seething. Will this affect my play? Will I finally get a jetpack?

Anthony Burch – Arrogance

I literally — LITERALLY — could not have been closer.

Dan Stapleton

I thought things were gonna go well after buying a bunch of health. Oh well.

Dan Griliopoulos – Snap Happy

A fairly slow run until I hit a dark level with one heart and decide to leave the torch, take the camera (around 8:15). When I drop the camera, it’s by accident. And then a sad death-by-pot-spider. :(

(And I really don’t know why Avidemux is swapping the blue and red channels. And screwing up the sound.)

Mike Rose – Full on final boss meltdown

I’ve never managed to reach the final boss before. Today I did, and for the last 4 minutes of the video, you can hear my voice become more and more filled with terror.

It’s also well worth watching the crazy death-defying stunt that happens at 15:30. I have no idea how I did not die there.

Tom Senior – ‘Splode Toad

The latest daily, recorded in the office, so no voiceover for this one. After the death of another pug, I have decided to be nicer to pugs, or at least do a better job of tracking how much health they probably have left before throwing them at a dart trap.

Graham Smith – Boomerang, Impaled

I deliberately taunted the boomerang guy, forgetting that he wouldn’t run towards me, but would THROW HIS BOOMERANG.

Chris Thursten – Which Button Is For Sorry

Problem A: I haven’t played Spelunky in about a year.
Problem B: I am dreadful at Spelunky.
Problem C can be determined as the sum of Problem A and Problem B.

Explorer Scores

Mike Rose – Temple 4-4 – $84,575
Anthony Burch – Temple 4-4 – $57,375
Phil Savage – Temple 4-1 – $55,325
Tom Francis – Alien Mothership 3-3 – $63,150
Graham Smith – Jungle 2-4 – $7,775
Steve Hogarty – Jungle 2-2 – $43,975
Tom Bramwell – Jungle 2-2 – $29,175
Dan Griliopoulos – Jungle 2-2 – $24,875
Tom Senior – Jungle 2-2 – $19,225
Dan Stapleton – Jungle 2-1 – $4,675
Alex Wiltshire – Jungle 2-1 – $2,775
Chris Thursten – Mines 1-3 – $7,400
Alexander Bruce – Mines 1-2 – $36,400
Chris Donlan – Mines 1-2 – $17,800
Nika Harper – Mines 1-1 – $6,400

Tom’s note: I’m special!

15th of August 2013

Graham Smith – Bat, Impaled

Forgot to hit the record button from the start. Naturally, did much better than recent attempts. Naturally, died shortly after I started recording.

Tom Francis – You’re probably wondering why I panicked

Annotations aren’t working but when I say “The one thing I do have…” I was going to say “The pitcher’s mitt,” which I thought would be more useful than it was.

Thank God Spelunky ignores your controls for a moment after a level loads.

Nika Harper – Spelunky Practice

I’ve only played it once about six months ago (hi Pentadact!) so I decided to share my shame of being terrible at Spelunky no matter what I do.

Anthony Burch – Cockatiel Power

The only thing I’ve learned from this is that I need Beast on my shoulder whenever I start.

Tom Bramwell

Oh man. There are some bad early mistakes in today’s run. They cost me dear later on. There’s some unsympathetic procedural level generation going on, too, but I can’t blame that entirely for my woes. Quick reminder: I spice up my Daily Challenge by always seeking to obtain the shotgun and jetpack when I’m aware they’re in a level. Boom.

Mike Rose – It’s a long time since I’ve managed to do this

Pretty decent run today – not much cash, but I was focusing on getting as far as possible anyway. The death just shows you how (un)familiar I am with the Temple enemies.

Explorer Scores

Anthony Burch – Temple 4-4 – $90,500
Phil Savage – Temple 4-2 – $77,250
Mike Rose – Temple 4-1 – $42,000
Tom Francis – Jungle 2-3 – $45,025
Graham Smith – Jungle 2-3 – $27,950
Tom Bramwell – Jungle 2-3 – $3,950
Alexander Bruce – Jungle 2-2 – $43,075
Tom Senior – Jungle 2-1 – $17,300
Chris Donlan – Jungle 2-1 – $5,700
Steve Hogarty – Mines 1-4 – $24,600
Alex Wiltshire – Mines 1-4 – $18,700
Dan Stapleton – Mines 1-3 – $27,400
Nika Harper – Mines 1-2 – $9,100
Alec Meer – Mines 1-2 – $7,100
Dan Griliopoulos – Mines 1-1 – $4,000

Tom’s note: Me, Graham and Tom Bramwell all impaled ourselves on spikes on the same level. Graham and I were both trying to avoid the same bat, and died a few feet from each other.

Although overlaying other people’s runs as ghosts might be tricky, it’d be amazing if you could see the corpses of all your friends who’d played this Daily already – fossilised in the rock if they died somewhere that’s still solid in your playthrough.

14th of August 2013

Tom Francis – Let’s go to the Worm Level!

That will be the first in what you’ll see is a series of bad decisions I’m about to make.

Anthony Burch – Semi-Constant Vigilance

In which I talk about how Spelunky is about mitigating the chance of making stupid mistakes, right before making a stupid mistake.

Graham Smith – Bomb, Rock, Impaled

I AM GOOD AT SPELUKY. I AM. I AM.

I AM.

Tom’s note: This death is insane.

Dan Griliopoulos – N00b run

At least I saved the girl.

Tom’s note: I do not know why the red and blue channels in Dan’s video are switched.

Mike Rose – I just hate them all

Did better this time around, although that death was just uncalled for. I also realized just after I finished recording this that we’re meant to be going for distance through the game, rather than cash, so that’s definitely going to change my tactics for tomorrow!

Tom Senior – That was, in retrospect, foolish

My shot at the Spelunky daily challenge 14/08/2013, Did it end in total victory and obscene riches? No, of course not, but there are at least a few moments of sheer panic on the journey to my inevitable demise.

Explorer Scores

Anthony Burch – Ice Caves 3-3 – $28,650
Mike Rose – Ice Caves 3-1 – $69,700
Alexander Bruce – Jungle 2-4 – $37,075
Phil Savage – Jungle 2-3 – $29,500
Tom Bramwell – Jungle 2-3 – $9,350
Tom Francis – Worm Level 2-2 – $50,850
Tom Senior – Jungle 2-1 – $22,875
Alex Wiltshire – Jungle 2-1 – $8,550
Chris Donlan – Mines 1-4 – $25,500
Dan Griliopoulos – Mines 1-4 – $25,300
Dan Stapleton – Mines 1-3 – $32,500
Graham Smith – Mines 1-2 – $2,600
Alec Meer – Mines 1-1 – $7,700

Tom’s note: No-one made it to the Temple today! Must have been a tough one.

13th of August 2013

Anthony Burch – Welcome to the Deathpit

On the one hand: god dammit. On the other hand: pretty cool way to die. On a third hand: god DAMMIT.

Tom’s note: Anthony’s death is so crazy and sudden that I had to rewind a few times before I really saw what happened. It’s a spoiler for the vid, but if you’re curious I took a shot of the crucial moment that explains it.

Tom Francis – Tight spot

Well, that got interesting.

Graham Smith – Crushed

Oh the ghost is coming, I wonder what direction from. Hey, the room is rumbling. I don’t remember ghosts making things rumble? Wait, what did I just pick up again? Oh right yeah I remember from the literally thousands of other times I’ve survived this scenario.

What has gone wrong in me?

Mike Rose

My first Spelunky Daily Challenge video for Spelunky Explorers’ Club, and I thought I was doing pretty well, unless the most embarrassing death I’ve ever experienced happened.

Going to try turning the music down a little tomorrow, since you can barely hear anything I’m saying.

Alex Wiltshire – Hail of arrow

I’ve brought in my 8-year-old kid to help out. He didn’t help out. But at least it’s funny.

Alec Meer – Humiliation In Blue

I am RUBBISH. Like, really, unbelievably, stupidly rubbish. And so is my microphone, it transpires, so there’s just some barely-audible muttering. Probably for the best, mind.

Tom Senior

In which, extremely hungover, I discover new levels of incompetence in the Spelunky daily 13/08/2013. Things I learned – 1. So THAT’s how ropes, capes and cavemen work. 2. There is no corpse that can’t be weaponised.

Tom Bramwell

Today on the Daily Challenge, we have more views on the scoring system courtesy of you guys (thanks!) and a sequence of levels where the gods of procedural generation have laid off on the spider jerks for once. It’s not a happy ending, though, which is as we’ve come to expect.

Phil Savage – I blame the boomerang

In which I get a boomerang, and my confidence overtakes my ability.

Dan Stapleton

Ran out of rope, kept falling down to the end of the level. Ah well.

Explorer Scores

Alexander Bruce – Temple 4-4 – $327,750
Tom Francis – Temple 4-4 – $141,600
Anthony Burch – Temple 4-3 – $12,175
Tom Bramwell – Ice Caves 3-1 – $8,050
Phil Savage – Jungle 2-4 – $20,575
Dan Stapleton – Jungle 2-2 – $17,175
Tom Senior – Jungle 2-2 – $9,625
Mike Rose – Jungle 2-1 – $48,150
Graham Smith – Mines 1-3 – $22,400
Alec Meer – Mines 1-2 – $19,900
Alex Wiltshire – Mines 1-1 – $9,500
Chris Donlan – Mines 1-1 – $6,900

Special props to Antichamber creator Alexander Bruce for that insane score. Even by Spelunky’s money-only scoring system, he was 20th in the world for this daily.

12th of August 2013

Alex Wiltshire – “Amateur Hour”

“In which I make an an attempt on Tom Francis’ Daily Challenge league, sound too quiet to be properly heard, am spectated by my children and ROUNDLY FAIL.”

Graham Smith – “Arrow”

“I am very good at this game after having played it for something like 500 hours. I do not know what has happened.”

Anthony Burch

“Sorry for how quiet I am.”

Tom Bramwell

“Welcome to the disappointing follow-up to yesterday’s run! That’s an assumption rather than a guarantee – yesterday I made it to the Aztec city, so today was always going to struggle to rival that.”

Tom Francis – “This is probably what kills me”

Explorer Scores

Tom Francis – Temple 4-4 – $140,025
Anthony Burch – Temple 4-4 – $72,925
Alexander Bruce – Ice Caves 3-1 – $94,775
Tom Bramwell – Jungle 2-4 – $57,775
Phil Savage – Jungle 2-1 – $56,650
Chris Donlan – Mines 1-4 – $9,000
Dan Stapleton – Mines 1-3 – $31,000
Alec Meer – Mines 1-2 – $31,100
Alex Wiltshire – Mines 1-2 – $19,400
Graham Smith – Mines 1-1 – $10,000

11th of August 2013

Tom Francis – “I’ve made an error”

Tom Bramwell

Graham Smith – “Impaled”

Explorer Scores

Anthony Burch – Temple 4-2 – $26,900
Tom Bramwell – Temple 4-1 – $12,850
Phil Savage – Jungle 2-4 – $44,250
Graham Smith – Jungle 2-3 – $22,100
Alexander Bruce – Jungle 2-1 – $15,825
Alex Wiltshire – Mines 1-4 – $1,700
Chris Donlan – Mines 1-3 – $12,300
Tom Francis – Mines 1-3 – $4,500
Alec Meer – Mines 1-2 – $9,800
Dan Stapleton – Mines 1-1 – $4,000

10th of August 2013

Tom Francis

Tom Bramwell

Explorer Scores

Tom Francis – Jungle 2-3 – $49,950
Chris Donlan – Jungle 2-2 – $14,800
Tom Bramwell – Jungle 2-2 – $12,050
Phil Savage – Jungle 2-1 – $52,600
Alexander Bruce – Mines 1-3 – $30,900
Graham Smith – Mines 1-3 – $6,100

9th of August 2013

Explorer Scores

Tom Francis – Jungle 2-3 – $101,900
Chris Donlan – Jungle 2-2 – $12,375
Tom Bramwell – Jungle 2-1 – $12,775
Graham Smith – Mines 1-3 – $8,700
Phil Savage – Mines 1-2 – $19,000
Alec Meer – Mines 1-1 – $8,000

8th of August 2013

Explorer Scores

Chris Donlan – Mines 1-3 – $23,200
Tom Bramwell – Mines 1-3 – $16,400
Alec Meer – Mines 1-2 – $14,600
Graham Smith – Mines 1-1 – $7,100

More Info

I’m playing Spelunky’s new Daily Challenge mode every day, as is Eurogamer’s Tom Bramwell, and so far we’re both uploading videos of our attempts too. This page will be a home for those, like an old hunting lodge where we (dead) explorers share our tales of adventure.

Tom and I are also a bit unsatisfied with the game’s scoring, which values gold-at-time-of-death over all else. To me, how far you made it through the game is more important, and gold is only relevant to rank players who got equally far.

So when I have time, I’m also going to post a revised leaderboard for each day’s run, ranked by progress first and gold second. It’ll only include those of my friends who are happy to be ranked this way, since it doesn’t make sense to rate anyone by a metric they don’t care about. So this is just for those of us who value spelunking over hoarding – explorers.

Obviously there is a gentleman’s and gentlewoman’s agreement among explorers not to watch other people’s runs before attempting your own. And if you have videos or scores of your own to share, you’re welcome to do so in the comments.

Recording Tips!

In the comments Ben Borthwick points to Open Broadcast Software, which sounds like it does most of this – haven’t used it myself. Points 4 and 5 are relevant either way, the rest is just my setup.
If you can’t get Spelunky to run at the res you want, there’s a file called config.txt you can edit to force it. It’s in C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Spelunky\Data or equivalent.
I use FRAPS to record, which is £25 if you don’t want watermarks, but it’s the best screenshotting/video capture thing I’ve used.
FRAPS has a checkbox for ‘Record external input’ – check that and select your mic, and it’ll record game sound and your voice.
I recommend turning the game volume low and the music volume VERY low, to make your voice clearer.
Do a test video to check you’re audible over the game.
Make sure you have masses of free disk space – at 1360×768, a complete 30-minute run of Spelunky takes up about 45 GB.
Once it’s recorded, I use AviDemux to compress it. It’s free and can open almost anything, including .mov files.
Under Video, I choose MPEG-4 Xvid and Configure it to a compression factor of 4. YouTube don’t recommend Xvid, but I’ve had terrible results with everything else – if anyone knows better settings/codecs/tools please let me know.

More Spelunky

TOM FRANCIS REGRETS THIS ALREADY

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Special Notice

Tom Francis – The Black Market timebomb

Anthony Burch – Sticky

Nika Harper – Bad Things Are Bad

Graham Smith – Black Market Frogsplosion (w/ commentary)

Jason Killingsworth – Arrow To The Heart

Rich Stanton

Chris Thursten – Why Is Everything Sticky

Philippa Warr

Explorer Scores

Tom Francis – The ship in the shop

Anthony Burch – Fun is a four letter word

Jason Killingsworth – To Hell in a Jetpackbasket

Philippa Warr

Rich Stanton – He dozen know what he’s doing!

Richard Boeser – Not listening to my own advice

Explorer Scores

Tom Francis – The Giant Yeti and the bomb boom

Graham Smith – Aiming for the City of Gold (w/ commentary)

Rich Stanton – The Eleventh Hour

Nika Harper – Bombs, man. How do they work?

Richard Boeser – Visions of a Black Market

Explorer Scores

Tom Francis – The Jetpack Mattock Snakepit Conundrum

Anthony Burch – Idiot

Rich Stanton – Tenth time lucky!

Graham Smith – Mattock, Jetpack, Udjet and a Ghost

Explorer Scores

Tom Francis – A pond of skeletal fish

Anthony Burch – Scariest Daily Ever

Tom Bramwell – FOCUS

Chris Thursten – Mammoth Error

Explorer Scores

Tom Francis – Where is this lift taking me?

Phil Savage – I blame a misunderstanding

Tom Bramwell

Anthony Burch – Arrogance

Dan Stapleton

Dan Griliopoulos – Snap Happy

Mike Rose – Full on final boss meltdown

Tom Senior – ‘Splode Toad

Graham Smith – Boomerang, Impaled

Chris Thursten – Which Button Is For Sorry

Explorer Scores

Graham Smith – Bat, Impaled

Tom Francis – You’re probably wondering why I panicked

Nika Harper – Spelunky Practice

Anthony Burch – Cockatiel Power

Tom Bramwell

Mike Rose – It’s a long time since I’ve managed to do this

Explorer Scores

Tom Francis – Let’s go to the Worm Level!

Anthony Burch – Semi-Constant Vigilance

Graham Smith – Bomb, Rock, Impaled

Dan Griliopoulos – N00b run

Mike Rose – I just hate them all

Tom Senior – That was, in retrospect, foolish

Explorer Scores

Anthony Burch – Welcome to the Deathpit

Tom Francis – Tight spot

Graham Smith – Crushed

Mike Rose

Alex Wiltshire – Hail of arrow

Alec Meer – Humiliation In Blue

Tom Senior

Tom Bramwell

Phil Savage – I blame the boomerang

Dan Stapleton

Explorer Scores

Alex Wiltshire – “Amateur Hour”

Graham Smith – “Arrow”

Anthony Burch

Tom Bramwell

Tom Francis – “This is probably what kills me”

Explorer Scores

TOM FRANCIS
REGRETS THIS ALREADY