After Spelunky HD took the world by storm, its successor Spelunky 2 was well received by fans of the original and newcomers to the series. Providing a fun but very challenging roguelike experience, Spelunky 2 even features side character questlines.

But before Spelunky 2 or even what many think of as the first title, there was the original Spelunky, now called Spelunky Classic. A difficult game even by the standard of roguelikes, it struck a chord for many and, like many games of its ilk, developed a speedrunning community. The world record was established and held by BarryMode back in 2013, but that is no longer the case, and not for the usual reason.

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After thorough investigation from the Spelunky Classic speedrunning community and questions from reporters at Waypoint, BarryMode admitted that the speedrun was fraudulent. Clocking in at two minutes and 30 seconds, the run was suspicious from the start for several reasons. First and foremost was BarryMode's accuracy when choosing routes, always picking the fastest and least risky path to the exit. As it turns out, this is because BarryMode was using a mod for Spelunky Classic that allowed him to play the same levels over and over without them changing.

BarryMode took several choice runs of these levels and spliced them together to create the final run. In this way he eliminated the luck and necessity of starting over that are an integral part of Spelunky and anyone else's speedrun of the game. Upon being confronted, BarryMode admitted to the cheating and apologized, taking down his video of the speedrun. His record has been stricken from the record books, but beyond that the speedrunning community has largely accepted his apology and moved on without hostility. Spelunky is hard to beat without a guide, after all, and so long as he is no longer trying to make it look like he is a master at it, no one has any further beef with BarryMode.

Oddly enough, BarryMode had no real experience with video games prior to creating his YouTube channel, and faked the speedrun with the hope that his channel would blow up into a revenue source for his family. While it never happened, it also let him bow out of the scandal with much more grace than, say, Dream's admission to cheating in Minecraft.

The discovery of the cheat is a testament to the dedication and perceptive nature of Spelunky's speedrunning community, and speedrunners in general. Speedrunning has become more and more entrenched in the gaming scene and the communities are usually welcoming to those who wish to try their hands. There are a lot of games new speedrunners can try to learn fast and look impressive, so provided there's no cheating, just about anyone could become a new world record holder.

Spelunky 2 is available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Switch.

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Source: Waypoint