Gameplay
The Cave’s story is based on a magical talking cave (voiced by Stephen Stanton) with a labyrinthine set of tunnels within it. Seven characters have come to the Cave, believing they can “learn something about themselves and who they might become.”
The story completely depends on the which character you select for your three-person party. You can assemble your team from seven unlikely adventurers, each with their own unique personalities and stories and then descend into the mysterious depths of The Cave. You’ll choose from a roster of characters like a love-struck Hillbilly, a pair of creepy Twins, a medieval Knight, and a futuristic Time Traveler.
In terms of gameplay The Cave basically marries the basic idea of Maniac Mansion with some platform elements. Gilbert has stated that he wanted to revisit the concept of having several playable characters that the player can switch between as he noted that within Maniac Mansion, several of the characters had minimal use within the game, and sought to correct that within The Cave by giving equal weight to each of the seven playable characters.
You cannot die in the game and there is only one save slot something that will let down some hardcore adventurers,who would like to have 3 or 4 games running at once. Your characters are able to carry only one object at the time so there’s no real need to worry about inventory or red herrings.
The game is described as a puzzle-platformer but it is fundamentally an adventure game, the platforming only amounts to climbing up ledges and occasionally down ladders.The Cave’s puzzles will be familiar to those who have played any games of the classic adventure game era. Mostly these are set in motion by the spelunkers taking an item and repurposing it in combination with something else, or taking the right thing to the right place and inserting it for desired effect.
The Cave is divided into six major areas with smaller areas at the start and end. Three of the major areas are the same no matter which characters you select, but the other three will be determined by the team you assembly. It is impossible to enter those areas without the appropriate character’s special ability, such as the hillbilly’s ability to hold his breath underwater or the scientist’s ability to hack terminals. Each character-themed level is inspired by an incident in that character’s past, but we cannot reveal more.
The true joy of The Cave comes when uncovering your characters’ backstories by playing through their areas and by discovering the “cave paintings” that reveal comic book panel style stories about them. The way this game transforms from a kid’s game to the dark experience is in one word amazing. Depending on how you solve certain problems you’ll eventually be presented with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ endings. What might tire you a bit is that in order to experience the different stories you have to play through the non-character-specific areas you’ve already done.
Your first playthrough will likely take around four hours to complete, but the idea of having seven characters is that you’ll revisit The Cave in order to see everyone’s journey as there in total 14 different endings 2 for each of the characters.
Conclusion
The Cave is a charming little puzzle-platformer that features interesting areas to explore, unique art design, and a bunch of quirky characters to play.
The story isn’t anything special and some puzzles might be goofy to the point of being obscure. But most challenges are extremely well designed and implemented, and the attractiveness of the pleasing visual presentation, the sinister sense of humor, and the uniqueness of the seven characters result in a game full of winning personality.
It’s not the game that will blow your mind like Maniac Mansion, but still remains a very well executed adventure game which you can easily tell that was created with the ultimate love and respect for the genre.
Gameconnect Rating: 8.0
