Cavernreach

Alright. [i]Cavernreach[/i] is done and dusted. This is a pretty traditional story driven walking sim with some lite traversal puzzles and a splash of platforming. In this game, you are a professional spelunker tasked with mapping an unexplored cave system. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3787195331 Pretty early on, this turns into a search and rescue mission as you find out that a couple amateur cave divers had gone missing here only a few days earlier. With that as the story backdrop, you dive further and further into this cave system, both trying to map out these mostly virgin caves while also trying to find the lost cavers. However, as you progress, a new mystery reveals itself. Turns out, the First Nations People had been aware of these caves and interacted with them in the past. And a group of miners had also plunged into its depths about eighty years earlier. Without spelunking into spoiler territory, I'll just say that this game leans heavily into Christian mythology tied together with native folklore and presents a surprisingly...ummm...dark tale which weaves ancient past with present and offers some fun technological twists throughout. And a fresh perspective on some of those silly tales our religions offer IRL. One that is still on the silly side but is perhaps a splash more believable. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3787195317 The gameplay of exploring this cave system, through sumps and winding mazelike tunnels, and into large caverns with amazing crystal growth and other cool visuals, is pretty impressive. This isn't AAA gaming, and you shouldn't expect that level of graphical fidelity, but what it offers is a thought-provoking look at what could be, and what you could potentially find as an explorer. It's a very cool setting which I've long been fascinated with in general. Traversal is pretty seamless overall outside of some of the narrower sections, where you might get stuck on rocks and have to find the exact perfect spot to get past them. The platforming is actually well thought out, and it turns out that shift jumping is this game's version of a long jump. No need to run and jump. Simply press shift and spacebar together. I liked that a lot. That mechanic simplified things for me. There are a couple things that were irksome about the game, however. For one, while presented in a very believable fashion, your mouse sensitivity while crouching or crawling isn't optimal from a gaming perspective. Also, there are no manual saves and the gap is too wide, especially early-game, between autosave points. IMO. Also, certain objects can only be interacted with while crouching and are sensitive to being in the exact correct position to trigger the interactions. It's just a splash too fickle. My last complaint is late-game optimization. There's a lot going on, on-screen, towards the end of the game, and the game froze several times during those final sequences. It never crashed, but just something for the dev to look at if he has time. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3788033614 Overall, it actually took me right around four hours to complete the game with my remaining in-game time being me forgetting to close the game when I was running errands, lol. I think this is one of the more enjoyable walking sims I've played, with a very underutilized setting, cool lore, and nice visuals. It's well worth a look. [b]I received this license via our IndieGems Curator program.[/b] [code]If you found this review helpful and would be interested in supporting my Curator group, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32549618/]Robilar's Reviews[/url], it would be appreciated. Cheers.[/code] [code]Also follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]IndieGems[/url] for more reviews like this one.[/code]