Spelunker — stories left

All other titles Irem was involved with had ended distribution by that date, so this became the only Irem title left.

It is also the last Irem cartridge for the Family Computer to carry a red light-emitting diode mounted at the front.

In addition to the original Atari version of Spelunker, shown in Japan for the first time, it contains ports of the Famicom Spelunker, the arcade Spelunker, and Spelunker II: 23 no Kagi.

An arcade sequel was released in 1986 as Spelunker II: 23 no Kagi, and a different sequel for the NES on September 18, 1987 called Spelunker II: Yūja e no Chōsen, both by Irem and in Japan only.

It was later released as a download worldwide and physically only in Japan, as Spelunker Party! on October 19 the same year.

It was a major hit in Japan, and Tim Martin was able to pay off the debts of Micro Graphic Image with the licence fees from Irem.

A review in the 1985-6 issue of 64, a British game magazine, also rated it highly at 79 points, and every reviewer praised it.

A review in the 1985-6 issue of 64, a British game magazine, also rated it highly at 79 points, and every reviewer praised it.

In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by the magazine Family Computer Magazine,it scored 18.12 out of 30, as listed separately.

Computer Gaming World of 1985 called Spelunker "a thoroughly enjoyable game ... a class act".

Ahoy! in 1986 said that the Commodore 64 version's "graphics are amazingly intricate".

With the scaling back of Irem's consumer business, distribution was scheduled to end on 2012-3-30, but it was later continued.

The game was released by Wizard Video Games during the video game crash of 1983 and sold poorly.

The game recession that started in the winter of 1982 deteriorated, and it was very difficult to find distributors to take games, especially from small publishers.

In Japan, Game Machine listed the arcade version of Spelunker on their February 15, 1986 issue as being the fourth most-successful table arcade unit of the month.