Giant Ruined Teleporter Look-Alike

Well, I made it to the tundra stage reliably, and found this in the bottom left nearly immediately.

Click the image to go to its respective steam community page.

Ominous...
There's also one on the other bottom corner of the map, but it was blocked off by the terrain generator.

 

Yeah, at least one spawns on every Tundra level. No known use yet. If they have one in beta.

 

It would be so cool if you could summon an optional boss with it and go to a bonus level

Who's with me?

 

Some kind of ruined temple or alternate dimension, maybe?

 

Yeah, there is definitely room for some really neat secrets/bonus areas or a raid boss or something here. Makes me excited!

 

Once during the alpha, I saw the Ring of Whatchamacallit spawn right in the center of that thing. I have no idea how or why, and couldn't find any way to replicate it. It's very possible it was just a coincidental drop from a Vagrant, but the placement was perfectly in the center... and I recall being surprised by it, which I shouldn't have been if I had killed a boss there.

 

Ring of what? Was it that dark purple ring with a skull on it?

 

Yeah, that one.

 

That would be the Wicked Ring.

Anyway, on topic, it would indeed seem like a really interesting addition to have something like a type of teleporter that has a small chance to appear in a certain level. I'd imagine one that looks smaller and worm out, perhaps as a possibility to unlock another character. It sounds similar to the possible branching paths in spelunky that way, in my opinion.

 

How about this: after you charge up the usual teleporter and are ready to blast off, you can opt out and take altar/telepoter thingie instead. It could lead to an intermission level between levels N and N+1, or it can replace N+1.
It also could have a level, money or total item amount requirement.