Rules are made to be broken, once you know them. Spelunky would be half as interesting if it was more intuitive and user friendly, it's one of the strong points of roguelikes, even recent ones (see Binding of Isaac). 

Much preferred The Binding tbh. The design felt like it was on my (the player's) side more. I ended up 100% on that one.

A lot of playtesting has gone into Spelunky, but it seems many things are just, well, broke.

Maybe I haven't played far enough, but why are the shortcut tunnels not on the main screen? I can see the arguments for them off to one side, but none of them doesn't boil down to 'frustrate the player' at its core.

Intuitive and user friendly don't have to be the pariahs of games design.

Granted that most designers that focus on these don't really like the game they're making, and it comes out in how it plays.

There must exist a bridge between Garage and Indie design, just a case of figuring it out.

Not ignoring the Roguelike element, but thats just a description of a format, and one that's inherently friendly to small dev teams since its not necessary to spend all that time building full levels. 

Antibiotics. Ignore most of the above. 

Because I got into it after Supa recommended it in like 2009. 

Unintuitive was probably the wrong word.

Unpredictable, rather. 

I get the unpredictable, it's something that goes right through the game. Sometimes a flying rock will hurt you, sometimes not. Sometimes the ledge grab doesn't work on certain ledges, identical to the rest.

There's lots in there where I'm not sure if its bugs, or intended behaviour.

'bomb in a chest' is the worst thing in the game. Or maybe its the control scheme in general.

Even though it sounds like I hate the game it is compelling - I'm still playing it at any rate.

Just don't buy into the argument that roguelike = broken so much. But it depends how 'broken' is quantified.

I suspect they'll struggle on XBLA, although it'd be nice to see them do well. 

I got stuck on for a fair while, and posted before I think:

http://www.desktopdungeons.net/ 

Are a gateway drug into proper roguelikes.

For some odd reason nobody's linked to DoomRL yet. 

Nice, thanks. 

Been waiting ages for the tiled version of DoomRL.
And it was worth it, it's awesome! :D 

Hope you weren't looking forward to Assassins Creed 3 on pc -

�We�re definitely supporting PC, we love PC, but I think it�ll be PC with a controller."

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/ubisoft-recommends-a-gamepad-for-ac3-pc-gamers-request-proper-keyboard-and-mouse-control-scheme/

Ahahahahahahahahaha, etc. 

^^ was me 

@Daz, quiet a lot of games play better with controllers plugged into a PC, they were designed and tested that way. 

If devs loved PC, they would develop PC games, not port console games. 

You mean the same way devs hate unpaid overtime, so don't do it? 

I have Asscreed on the PC, and it TOTALLY needs a controller. It's the only game which I have which NEEDS one. The controls are silly. Spacebar makes you run forwards (WTF?!).

Like Crackdown. Ever play that? Almost impossible without a controller I'm sure.

I have a mate who plays Skyrim on his PC with a controller (XBox360), and he loves it. 

I'll get a wired 360 controller and play Assassins Creed 1. 

I played a large chunk of AssCreed 2 on a PS3. It has some of the worse controls I've ever used.
I was quite shocked after the amount of hype that went on and on about it's cool movement system and stuff. I didn't realise it would involve holding three buttons at once and giving up camera control. Yeah, don't let me control the camera right when I need to see where the hell I'm going.

And I so wanted to get into it because the actual atmosphere of wandering around a town is really cool :( 

rFactor car sim, real tracks, real cars, formulas, GTs, 100MB basic game engine, 300MB each car, 50MB per circuit, 1MB program to connect. my favourite ATM are F458 Macau street circuit, F1_2006 Jerez/Korea, GP2_2010 Singapore night street circuit. icq/qip contact 259689233 

I prefer controllers for everything, including FPS's (and I know saying that will make a lot of you back slowly away from me, feeling the walls for an exit whilst making sure not to break eye contact). It's a comfort thing for me.

If FitzQuake had support for the 360 controller, I would be on that shizzle. 

You're not alone. I love controllers for almost any games on my PC. When games don't support my 360 controller, I sigh in disappointment. 

I wanted my controller to work when I got Super Meat Boy. That's about it. I don't see how people can play on controllers when a good mouse/keyboard setup is available (especially when it comes to shooter), but then I've been largely a PC gamer since I was 4-5 years old so that may have something to do with it. 

Decades of mouse and keyboard use have ruined my shoulder/wrist so the less I need to use that combo, the better. 

with my Rat 7. 

Mouse and keyboard are good for FPS with guns, but for anything else it really depends. For most games playing with a controller is nice, for strategy games and such I like playing with my Wacom tablet when that's supported, much easier on the wrist and more natural.