this review is messily structured, but i'm too tired to fix it and don't want to have to make a google doc to store it in, so:

it's reputation as a bad game, specifically the fragility of the player character, drew me in.
that fragility encourages intentional gameplay, i think; the traps, also often viewed as unfair, lead you to progress deeper and deeper into the cave each time, as you memorize and refine your route.
while the game is still flawed, seeing it in that way made the flaws forgivable, and gave me a new perspective on game design/playing (i mean, wow, that idea of 'progressing deeper each time' is how most older games work, just not contextualized as clearly as spelunker's cave!)
pretty important note!: i haven't even completed this game yet, so maybe there is some outright stupid stuff later on, i dunno.
also: the c64 version seems pretty cool too, i should check it out (like i think it has title cards for different areas?!)