Caves of Lore

Loved this game, the perfect mechanics, a great history, beautiful pixel art. It was exactly what I was looking for! Finished it a couple hours ago and it was a fantastic experience.

it's pretty good

Just finished it, it is a good story a lot of secrets and puzzles, which I like. Can recommend it. Really good and I'm anticipating the continuation of the story. Played it at standard difficulty which was really easy

Time Played: Completed. 20 – 25 hrs. Had a couple of restarts. TLDR: This is a fun medium sized dungeon crawler made by a solo dev. While it has some rough edges, it does a lot with a little. If your looking for cutting edge graphics or something like that, this probably isn’t for you. If your however looking for an interesting setting and a story that while not ground breaking, it does a very good job at setting the atmosphere for the world. It could do with a little more explanation about how some of the systems work and little more fleshing out here and there but, whats here is worth playing through. Your just going to have to use your imagination a bit when it comes to the presentation. The good thing is the developer is still working (and is very responsive to bug reports!) on this and continues to improve the game 3 years after it was released. If your into “retro” gaming or just want an old fashioned game that relies more on its game play and its world building than making your PC sound like a jet engine, check this one out. Review: World / Setting: As far as you know, there is only the town. There used to be other places and even this place may have had a different name at some point. It doesn’t matter. The fog steals as much as it covers. You don’t remember who you were. That’s ok though, nobody else in the town really remembers who they used to be either. You tend sheep, you know that much. They do wander though and even though the village elders have warned you repeatedly to stay out of the fog, you just can’t let that sheep go. Not to mention the fact that your dog ran after it. So off you go after them, losing more of your self and your way in the ever present fog. That is until the fog clears long enough for you to see the hole you just fell down. When you awake, your trusty companion is with you… along with a skeleton clutching a book like it mattered more than anything in this lost world. Needing light you pick up the torch lying next to the remains and wrest the book away hoping to find some idea of where you are. As soon as you touch the book you begin to feel like you should be able to remember things. More importantly you remember that books have information and now you can remember that enough to read some of this book. You also get the feeling that you need more of these books if you want to understand why you can’t really remember things. Seeing nothing else you heft your torch and head toward a door you see in the gloom and whatever lies on the other side. Welcome to Caves of Lore. Find the Books. Break the Curse. Game Play: This is a throwback top down dungeon crawler. You guide your party around an above ground town and the mysterious caverns that exist below it. The game also does have several companions to find along with various side quests to complete. Story: While not ground breaking it is an interesting concept. You don’t remember anything and neither does anybody else. Most people have an idea of what they did before the fog rolled in, but that’s about it. All you have to go is what you find in the old books you find since the Codex restored your ability to read to an extent. The world sounds like it has a lot of interesting places and history but it has all been lost to the fog. The developer did a pretty good job of using the old horror movie trick. The less you can see of the monster the scarier it is. In this case less information there is the more interesting the missing pieces are. I guess kind of like how the Dark Souls series does it. Graphics: I’m sure you can see the screen shots. It might not have the greatest graphics in the world but what is here works well enough to give a pretty good representation of what kind of atmosphere the developer was going for. While the presentation might seem to be basic the developer really did a good job with the lighting effects and the little touches that give the world a sense of being, well a world. Something I miss in newer titles that focus more on being “pretty” than anything else. Sound: There isn’t too much of a variety, but what is there is good. I didn’t feel the need to turn the sound down so I could listen too my own music. Combat: Since this is an RPG, the only way your going to get those skill points is to go deal with some monsters. The combat is really well done in this game with a good selection of skills and character builds you can get by using the ability system and skill books that are found through out the game. The only slight problem I found was that toward the end of the game I fell into an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset since I was more or less just mowing down any enemy group I came across. So I didn’t feel the need to experiment too much. Though I will say sometimes the monsters could pull a fast one, once they started using abilities and spells and leave me on the ropes. Controls / Interface: The game supports both Keyboard / Mouse as well as controller. I preferred the KB&M as I found the controller a bit wonky. I imagine it works well enough if the player can get used to it. The Interface while serviceable can be a bit of a challenge to get used to. Some information is in weird places, and some functions can take way more clicks to get to than seems necessary but on the other hand if you think to look in the escape menu then a lot of the mysteries can be solved. The information is there, it even says it’s there, but its not exactly presented or organized in a way that makes it seems like this is the answer you may be looking for. I’m not sure if this a feature or a bug, the effect though is the game was a little confusing for awhile at least for me. Conclusion: While there is a lot I didn’t cover here, there is a lot that is interesting about this game. Similar to another game I reviewed awhile back, Tunic, half the fun is figuring out how it works and why it works. As in that game, the beginning area tells you, basically, how the game works and leaves it to the player to figure out the details. While I do have a few issues with the game, once it “clicked” I really started to enjoy it. Also considering that this was made by one guy over 6 years and he’s kept updating three years after it’s release, this is a game that needs more attention. Recommend to any one who likes old school dungeon crawlers and to those that are looking for interesting games that do thing things a bit differently.

Yep

Its good!