1001 Spikes

The title references the amount of lives the player has to complete the game. These are needed to complete the hard levels filled with enemies and traps such as spikes, boulders, falling platforms, crushing blocks, etc. – requiring a lot of trial and error. Basic controls consist of movement, a regular and a high jump, and an attack move (both melee and ranged). It is also possible to talk to characters at certain moments. A large amount of characters and additional costumes can be unlocked throughout the game, usually by discovering gold skulls in levels. Certain characters have specific abilities. The character Ninja Aban for instance is able to brief hold on to walls and perform a wall jump, Tina Hawkins (his sister) can cling to walls, and President Thompson has a double jump. Other characters are variants of Aban such as Soldier Aban and Slayer Aban, or characters from indie games such as Meat Boy, Nyx, Curly Brace, Commander Video, and a large amount from Super Time Force.

Spikes are the common hazard to avoid and most levels have a key required to open the door that leads to the next level. For the first part of the game players have the ability to skip certain levels, but this locks off the second part of the campaign where this is disabled. That means that to complete the entire game, eventually all levels need to be completed, but it is possible to access a world map and return to any of them. The story mode contains 61 levels and the entire game has more than 100 levels. The game can locally be played cooperatively with up to four players and also in a versus mode. Next to the main story mode there are three arcade modes called The Golden Vase, Tower of Nannar, and The Lost Levels. These coins, found throughout the game, can be spent in a shop for unlockables.