The Spelunky Classic community have revealed that a speedrun record on Spelunky set way back in 2012 is actually a fraud.
Spelunky is a 2D platformer, published back in 2008. It focuses on a cute little ‘spelunker’ – cave explorer – who must travel through cave networks collecting treasure, fighting enemies, avoiding traps and rescuing damsels in distress. The game generates the caves in a different order each time. This makes every play through of the game entirely unique. This feature makes it especially challenging for speedrunners, since you can’t memorise a single optimal run-through of the game.
The record for Spelunky Classic was set by a player calling themselves ‘Zohma’ (later changed to BarryMode). BarryMode completed the game in two minutes and 30 seconds. Now this unbeaten record run has been revealed to be fraudulent.
how to cheat a spelunky speedrun
So – how did BarryMode cheat the game? It seems they installed a mod which stopped the random generation of the caves, meaning they could practice the run over and over again until he perfected it.
The fraud was detected through a single missing block on one of the between-level screens, as reported by RockPaperShotgun. A tiny detail that had gone unreported on – until now. When someone pointed this graphic anomaly out in the Spelunky community Discord, the fraud began to unravel.
Speaking to Waypoint ahead of publication, BarryMode said “I do apologize for that deception…It was bad character and I can admit that.” BarryMode took down their run from YouTube before the story was published.
YouTuber XanaGear, who focuses on Spelunky, has created a video breaking down the fraud. They note that: “This run has not been credible for a long time”.
The creator of Spelunky, Derek Yu commented on the controversy, saying that it was the only major example of cheating in the game he was aware of. He also expressed his admiration for the Spelunky speedrunner community:
“As a creator, it definitely means a lot to me that people spend the time learning how to speedrun Spelunky. They deserve proper credit for being the first to do something in the game. Those accomplishments are part of the game’s history!”
The new record holder on speedrun.com is an American player with the username groomp, at 2 minutes 40 seconds.
What do you think about this speedrun cheat? Are you a speedrunning fan? Let us know via our social media channels.
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Featured Image Credit: Credit: Mossmouth, LLC/Microsoft Studios