Welcome to My Favourite Games, a MossRanking feature in which we get to know our fellow Spelunkers better through the medium of video games. In each edition, we put the spotlight on one member of the community as they pick three of their most treasured video games ever and give their reasons why. Featured members are allowed to pick whatever games they want… except Spelunky. This special entry goes to the one and only Derek Yu, the mind behind Spelunky - the very game which unites this community. The vast majority of us have spent hundreds, even thousands, of hours enjoying every nook and cranny Spelunky has to offer, and it is an honour that Derek (whose other game credits include Aquaria and Eternal Daughter) was happy to spare some time to share three of his favourite games. Let's get started. Dark Souls "It's probably not a surprise to anyone at this point, but this is my favourite game ever." Dark Souls was undoubtedly a landmark game when it first came out in 2011. Developer From Software made some bold design choices - but they had a specific vision in mind and nailed it, resulting in a release which brought back a sense of nostalgia for those who yearned for classic game experiences. "Dark Souls brought back and modernised the kind of hardcore action and exploration I hadn't really felt from a AAA game since I was a kid," Derek explains. "Mini-maps, quest markers, endless hints, forced tutorials, and quick-time events had become the norm rather than the exception. From Software eschewed all of that and delivered a one-of-a-kind experience that felt truly earned, set in a world inspired more by the early, weird days of Western fantasy, before everything became a slightly different take on orcs and elves." "Lordran is a place that feels like it existed before you started playing." And what a world the game delivered. While Dark Souls excelled in its execution of the mechanics, the marriage between how the game played and the setting of Lordran was key to its ultimate enjoyment. "The care that went into each corner of Lordran made it worth dying again and again to see what horrible dungeon, gorgeous vista, or jaw-dropping boss was next," Derek says. "It's the connectivity that makes Lordran so special - not just the way the map is physically interconnected in all kinds of surprising ways, but also the way everything is connected in terms of the lore. It's a place that feels like it existed before you started playing. "Dark Souls keeps you playing in the best ways possible, by offering a unique and compelling world to explore and by respecting your time and curiosity." Super Punch-Out!! Back in the 1990s, out came Super Punch-Out!!, a boxing game which challenged players to fight their way to the top and become the champion by earning knockouts in a series of individual matches. While Super Punch-Out!! has the appearance of a sports or fighting title, Derek says that its puzzle-like qualities are what make the game so compelling. "To me, this is Nintendo design at its best: a distillation of a theme to simple but deeply enjoyable mechanics," he comments. "Each opponent has a limited set of attacks that can be countered with a limited set of player moves, and winning involves opponent knowledge moreso than fast reflexes." "Over the years, my appreciation of the game has only grown." But it goes deeper than that. The wonderful thing about Super Punch-Out!!, as Derek explains, is that although it may appear very simple and straightforward to play on the surface, matches go beyond simple memorisation. "You can take a serious beating before coming back and winning," he says. "The game is very generous regarding failure and gives you lots of opportunities to make mistakes and still come back and win the match. Basically, the game wants you to throw lots of punches to try and figure out what works and what doesn't, and there isn't just one way to win. The fastest knockouts require good knowledge and execution, but you can also get away with having either one or the other." "The funny thing is, despite its simplicity and cartoony quality, Super Punch-Out!! captures the spirit of boxing far better than other 16-bit boxing games that took a more realistic approach to fighting... After all these years of playing and making games, I've come to appreciate how difficult it is to create such a simple and elegant design, especially one that makes such good use of its theme." Liero Derek's third game is Liero, a freeware game which has been described as a 'real-time Worms shoot-'em-up' and can be downloaded from its official website. In Liero, two worms aim to wipe the other out using whatever weapons are at their disposal. But there are very neat gameplay twists involved which combine to provide a consistently entertaining experience, no matter how many matches you play. One of the most notable features about the game is the fact that the terrain is destructible, which can be used to your advantage and influences tactics. "The arena starts out mostly filled with dirt, but as an armed worm you can create tunnels either by digging or blowing the dirt up with weapons," Derek says. "In essence, the playfield is created in real-time by both players, adding a lot of strategy to the game and making each fight feel unique. "The destructible terrain and weapon variety create a lot of different match-up variables that are constantly shifting during battle. Some weapons are high-risk and high-reward, some are better at close-range versus long-range, some are good at tunneling through dirt, some are good for blasting out large open areas, and so on."

"The playfield is always changing as more of it gets blown up." Liero also gives players an extra traversal tool in the form of a ninja rope, which is "hard to master" but rewarding and satisfying when used to outmaneuver the opponent. The ninja rope is the perfect complement to the constantly-changing terrain and wonderful weapon variety. "You never forget the feeling of swinging across the arena with your ninja rope to deliver a face full of spikeballs to your entrenched opponent - or getting sniped by a gauss gun in the attempt," Derek shares.

"The variety of weapons, the per-pixel terrain destruction, the rope physics, the grunting and bleeding of the worms as they get low on health... it's all polished to a shine while retaining a tonne of charm. The result is honestly one of the best 1v1 games I've ever played, and although it's small, it feels perfectly executed." Previous entry: Krille71

