It needs a reset option. I can't get the other endings if I can't start over from the beginning.
Reviews for "CAVE EXPLOR"
tobyalden responds:
Don't worry, you don't need to start over from the beginning to get the other endings. If you refresh the page after the game ends, you can continue playing from your last checkpoint.
I would have liked to get the nymph ending, but she glitched in single tile bottlenecks. Couldn't get her to go through all the way, causing me 2 hearts damage each time i had to roll onto the next screen through her stuck body. There isn't enough hearts in the game to take 12 damage just to get to the end.
Nostalgia trip with an interesting gameplay gimmick, but held back by its finnicky implementation. Holes being hard-edged instant death triggers (unlike the GBC Zelda games, where they have a soft edge and 'slipping' animation which allows you to recover from brushing them) makes some rooms very aggravating - almost the entirety of the challenge of the game is in the angel room. There is absolutely no reason for enemies to take so many hits to be destroyed. There's also a bug where you have to push your friend through some room transitions, which can be a run killer.
| 56% Overall |
Story: 4/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Difficulty: 6/10
Length: 3/10
Replayability: 10/10
The Zelda-like appeal of this game is something that originally caught my eye. However, there are a lot of things that I feel are done both right, and wrong in this game. The off-putting music really doesn't set the theme of the game well, and the blurbs that come up when you damage something don't fit the theme to me much to be quite honest with you. This is a rogue-like, in my eyes, and the odd and generally kind of "awkward" appearance of the game as a whole doesn't fit well with the physical wording and style of what's going on.
The story is lack-luster, being kind of generic and bringing in the "granted wish" ending really makes me feel like you went with the easiest thing you could think of. While it isn't a bad thing to do so, it comes off as quite cheesy and unoriginal. With the retro art style I'm sure you could've came up with better. I'd note this if you're going to be making story-driven games in the future. This, to me, comes off as supposed to be ambient. You have grim depressing music, quite grim blurbs that talk about doors "wincing" in pain when you hit them. It's unsettling, but the plot (story) fails to pull you into that feeling. Compared to the overall theme, the story was lacking the most.
Gameplay wise, I feel like this did a decent job. I didn't really have much of a problem with how the game played, other than the fact that it felt a bit basic. I gave you a five because you didn't add anything that hasn't been done before in previous games. A lot of the animations were ones recycled from older titles (actually, you completely copied Zelda animations from the Gameboy titles, which again, isn't bad, but is something I noticed). They're unoriginal, and gameplay wise you do not add a lot of new features that would've made this pop more. You can roll, but it looks like the Roc's Feather jump from the aforementioned gameboy titles. You really could've spent an extra bit to add a few items, especially since you're ripping the animations. No matter, really, as it's not a big deal as I stated before.
There are three individual endings, which definitely leaves for way more to do than the other games. However, the difficulty spikes up really high in some areas. I went from not dying at all, and killing most of the enemies quite easily to struggling with the angels in the one winding room. The lack of i-frames (invincibility frames) make situations like this quite frustrating. It's not unable to be beaten, but it's something that if you work with this same style again to definitely note.
The length of the game, which I grade as "time to reach the first ending possible", is something that I'm quite disappointed about. I didn't even play fast, and I was reading the blurbs that popped up when I killed something (for example, the doors). I was going with my first natural instinct to what was happening, and I've spent longer writing a review to it than I have actually playing it.
Replayability is a big factor to me, and as a player I feel like there's something to work toward. There's three endings, and despite me finding the first one within ~5 minutes of playing I know there's two other endings. If they, logically, take ~5-10 minutes each, I'd get ~30 minutes of overall playtime which is something that I feel not many flash games can do anymore. Not many of them have fresh, new content that can last even close to half an hour, let alone an hour. Everything nowadays is given at face value, and I'm glad that you do differently.
Overall, this is quite poor in some cases but isn't "BAD" overall. I'm not a fan that you didn't use your own original animations nor did you go above and beyond making a decent story as you had the foundations here. I'm okay with re-using assets from other established games, but the areas that you specifically created are quite lacking. You continue to use the same "creepy", "ambient" theme that I feel like you don't realize that your games just... Aren't matching this style right now. Additionally, your other game, "Overgrowth" is almost identical to this other than the fact that it's in a different viewpoint and with a gun instead. Otherwise, the style is the same ("grassy", "ambient", "creepy", "off-putting"), etc. - You even use the same theme of Z/X controls.
tobyalden responds:
Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and detailed review! I'll keep your comments in mind while I make my next game :)
the geometry of this game just kills it. rolling sideways has me hit corners, stop dead, and fall into pits when i was definitely low enough. if you're going to use this perspective and not be forgiving on stuff like that then you need to get it RIGHT.
and not being forgiving on stuff like that is just laziness. it takes MORE effort to design a game to be smooth around the edges.