Playing A Game The Cave PC

The Cave has some really good ideas. First and foremost: its eclectic cast of player characters, each with a distinct aesthetic and a unique backstory. The game promises to develop these characters throughout its run, by engrossing the player in those stories, and examining each character's personality and motivations. And at the same time, each character has a special gameplay ability that enables it to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles in the wacky, quirky world inside the titular cave.

Unforunately, all of these lofty goals - every last one of them - are let down by roughshod execution and a general lack of polish.

Although each of the game's seven characters has their own story, these stories are all fairly simple: not just short, but shallow. As you unlock static pieces of "cave painting" art during the game, each character's story is gradually revealed, and (at least, based on the ones I saw) every one just maps to a single basic sin or vice. The game has a playable zone associated with each character, featuring that character's story, but most of these seem to have only the barest thematic connections to said story. The playable characters don't have any scripted dialog, dulling their inherent personalities; and ultimately, the element of "choice" involved for each boils down to a single trivial decision at the end.

Of course, the most fundamental flaw in this storytelling idea is that there are seven characters, and the journey has you select three of them. Meaning that, even if you wanted to play through the game multiple times to see each character's story, you'd have to see at least two duplicate stories by the end. Why not take the time to develop two more characters, or, even simpler, just cut one of these seven? It's a bizarre design choice that just seems incorrect.

The Cave's storytelling deficiencies wouldn't matter that much if the moment-to-moment gameplay was engaging and fun, buuuuut it really isn't. At its core, the game is about running around, picking up items, using them with other items, and activating switches to do stuff. Sometimes you'll need to arrange your multiple characters to solve a problem, like holding down pressure plates, or balancing a scale; most commonly, though, you'll just need to run from A to B, to C, back to A, maybe back to C, et cetera. There is a lot of running back and forth, and especially climbing up and down (e.g. ladders), which is particularly irritating because the climbing animation is infuriatingly slow. Basic movement makes up the majority of The Cave's gameplay, and this movement is generally tedious and tiresome.

The controls are also a little spotty. Collision with platform edges can get pretty janky, and jumping just feels unresponsive. There isn't just one concrete problem with the game's controls -- it's more a general melange of unpolished edges.

The game supports simultaneous local co-op, where each of two or three players controls a different character; a neat idea, but not implemented well at all. There's no split-screen, nor does the game camera zoom out to cover multiple players, so the camera can only follow one player at a time. If another player's character isn't in that camera range, that player can't do anything meaningful. Players can steal camera control from each other at any time, which allows them to swap focus, but of course means that everyone has to be coordinated with their plans and actions in real-time. In the end, this co-op is only a minor improvement - if that - over multiple players passing a shared controller.

Oh, and those character-specific abilities? They're very rarely useful at all. In general, the character-specific zones are made to require one or two uses of those abilities, but the rest of the game's obstacles can be overcome with standard moving, jumping, item-holding, and switch-pulling. In other words, the majority of the game doesn't care what characters you have. As a result, they really don't feel differentiated from one another, even within your three-person party.

The Cave isn't all bad, with some humorous narration and imaginative levels -- as well as its share of illogical, groan-worthy adventure-game solutions. But the game's highs aren't very high, and what it gets right is balanced out by persistent and sometimes glaring problems. The game overall suffers from a lack of polish, in both its gameplay design and its technological implementation. One gets the sense that a few more months in development could really have rounded this game out. Alas.

I don't regret my time in The Cave, but have absolutely no interest in going back to experience the stories I missed.

Better than: Brütal Legend
Not as good as: Broken Age
In many ways: like a spiritual sequel to Maniac Mansion

Progress: Completed with the Scientist, the Time Traveler, and the Twins.

Rating: Meh