Cave Brawlers

[h1]Introduction[/h1] The only reason I’m willing to give this game a “free pass” so to speak, is because it amused me. There isn’t much to say in terms of gameplay aspects that would make Cave Brawlers stand out and yet the sequences that have nothing to do with its combat, are the ones which prove that rookie developer, Samuel Arminana, had something more complex in store for his Steam debut. If only the control scheme would lend a hand instead of constantly interfering to the point of near frustration. [h1]Story[/h1] As with any tongue-in-cheek storyline, our protagonist begins his adventure in an environment that has nothing to do with the overall context and dire situation he’ll be driven towards. A disco bar in the middle of a medieval setting, no less! Couldn’t help but notice the Knights Templar banners which are scattered across all the settlements of an otherwise nameless monarchy. Yes, there’s a fat king ordering people around, obviously. Players assume the role of an anonymous protagonist that NPCs refer to as “Soldier”. Feel fee to call him how you wish, but what’s truly important is that he’s willing and able to defend his liege lord when all other guards are too drunk or inept for their duty. An army of various creatures attack the first settlement’s defenses and after repelling them, Soldier sets on an adventure of epic proportions that will see him travel across forests, plains, deserts and the obligatory underground levels. You didn’t think that the game’s called “Cave Brawlers” for no good reason, did you? These so-called Brawlers are blobs of red slime that are even less of a threat than the bats or undead, yet be careful about getting outnumbered in tight spots. Manoeuvrability is the key towards success in this title. Always be on the move and keep an eye out for secret level sections that may lead to trasure chests. You’ll need all the gems and coins you can find in Cave Brawlers. Health, Mana (lightning bolt symbol) and better weapons, all can be traded at conveniently placed stores which all seem to be operated by another anachronistic fellow, sporting a top hat and handlebar moustache. He’s not a snake oil salesman but he bears a striking resemblance to the logo used by developer Samuel Arminana. We shall regard it as his cameo in this case. There are many out of place elements for both the narrative and the level design. I’m willing to consider them as part of the game’s charm since it definitely tried to separate itself from a generic formula of a hack and slash/platformer hybrid. [h1]Graphics[/h1] Oh, you mean that you already knew that this is a Unity Engine project just by looking at it? Why, you’re getting better at this than I am. Indeed, it’s the vanilla engine for indie games by now, but you wanna know something else? I don’t mind it one bit. Unity offers so much versatility and accessibility, that I might create a video game as well someday. Back to Cave Brawlers, its 8-Bit structure may not leave room for a lot of detail but it still manages to compensate that with some nice animation sprites for random objects and events. Once again, you can admire these when outside danger zones that involve combat. Watching clouds pass by, flies buzzing around or flowers shifting in the wind, I have to admit that I wished for more peaceful sections to this game. NPC interaction is strictly text-based. [h1]Audio[/h1] Which brings us to the sound department. No voice acting, few sounds in between and a soundtrack that forced me to mute it altogether and just listen to my own playlists. So yeah, not much to listen to but then again my expectations weren’t very high to begin with. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] The aforementioned control scheme is Cave Brawlers' Achilles heel. Truth be told, I don’t recall of many titles that might have that defining weak point. And yet so is the case for the title I’m writing about today. You’ll be missing ledges or dashing in the wrong diorection, more often than encountering foes in your travels. At least there are plenty of save points in the form of interactive torches. But that’s no excuse for the clunky manner in which Soldier jumps or has to direct his attacks by mindlessly whacking that sword or axe until whatever’s in front of him rolls over and dies. It wasn’t fun in the early Elder Scrolls games and it sure as hell isn’t fun now in the “modern” 2D titles that still rely on such combat maneuvers. Just take my advice and stick to the ranged option as soon as you can access it. The crossbow controls are superior even to the magical attacks that should be reserved for the occasional boss fight. Indeed, there are bosses in Cave Brawlers but don’t expect something even near the challenge of the ones featured in the Dark Souls series. Those will probably remain the hallmark of hair-pulling difficulty in the foreseeable future. Instead, just consider the bosses as a worthy distraction from the braindead AI that seems to define all other minions you shall face. There are fortunate cases of turret sections and on-rails sequences that shall have you riding a hot air balloon while shooting at anything that dares to stop you. So I can’t really accuse this game of not featuring the right amount of gameplay diversity but it’s still a shame that you can’t enjoy them more often. The plaforming levels are subpar and just bring the entire game down to a rating that almost forces me to stop recommending it. [h1]Verdict[/h1] And yet I won’t do it. Just be patient and the game shall become far more entertaining after its first half an hour of pathetic platform jumping. It seems to actually reward patience, since the NPCs constantly break the 4th wall in commending your efforts in the best way they can. I might consider Cave Brawlers a bit on the overpriced side, yet that’s not an issue if you’ll pick it up during a Seasonal Sale or when bundled. Aftwards, you’ll have few excuses not to give it a fair shot at amusing you as well. [h1]Strong Points[/h1] + Steam Achievements. + Humorous even when it’s not intentional. + Interesting story with an adequate challenge. [h1]Weak Points[/h1] - Occasionally unresponsive in-game store menus. - Limited sound selection. - No Steam Trading Cards. - Clunky control scheme. [b]Rating 60/100 [/b] [quote]This review was submitted for [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ReviewExperts#]ReviewExperts[/url], through the generous contribution of [url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/danielbink]Daniel - DNB Media[/url].[/quote]

Interesting stories with enough challenges

Не удобное управление, унылый и скучный гемплей и никакой сюжет 1.2 из 5

playing the game when this popped up Subscribe Like this game? subscribe and recieve updates from the game! how about NO entered the shop and i didnt have money to buy anything so it wouldn't let me leave, only way i found to get out was restarting 0/10

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[h1] What is Cave Brawlers [/h1] Cave Brawlers is a comedic hack and slash game. The game, built on unity, features you as a warrior who traverses the land to slay evil and do good. Starting in the dance club of the kingdom, your city is assaulted and the villagers taken. You'll venture to nearby caves to save them but that is only the start of your adventure. [h1] What Do You Do In Cave Brawlers? [/h1] The core gameplay will revolve around movement. Left and right, as well as jump. You can do a dash left or right which is quite useful (and required, for much of the platforming). You'll vanquish foes, open chests, buy gear, and challenge bosses. Your weapons determine the damage you do, as well as the speed at which you attack. [h1] What Should I Know About Cave Brawlers? [/h1] Well, first that it's not my personal cup of tea. The controls range from "I feel like my character is grinding against everything he touches" to "how long can I float for before it's a power?". The timing of your attacks feels delayed, foes feel simple and the sense of humor is simply not mine. I get it, the pot kingdom is ruled by the lettuce king, who listens to loud music and implores you to "find yourself". Some of the jokes worked (like the air traffic controller guiding your hot air balloon to the ground) but overall it just flopped for me. The graphics are rough. Like, they seem like they were done in MS paint. That's not the worst, but as an artist, it shows a big lack of understanding in how things like trees work, or how people look sitting down. It works, but it's not easy to watch. Sound is bad. The volumes aren't equalized, I had some popping on some effects and just across the board the sound only served to irritate instead of inform. A well designed game will utilize sound to provide cues, and avoid sounding repetitive. Cave Brawlers does neither. The music is pretty ok, being able to be put on repeat without becoming too boring. Honestly it was probably the highlight for me. Partway through the game, I received a pop up asking me if I wanted to sign up for their mailing list mid game. Not in a menu, or in a launcher but during play. This is a big design no-no for me. It says it draws inspiration from Shovel Knight, Castle Crashers, and Wonder Boy but nothing in this game other than how it is presented would otherwise indicate that. It lacks the graphical stylings, sound design, gameplay, or narrative of those games. [h1] So You Do Not Recommend Cave Brawlers? [/h1] For myself, no, I cannot recommend it. For someone looking for a light game that isn't too challenging or too easy, with a sense of humor that appeals to them (again, if one night stands and marijuana existing count as jokes to you, then it might strike gold but for me it simply fell flat) then the game might be for you. But for myself? The games it was inspire by is a much better list and more. Castle Crashers had fantastic hand drawn art and multiplayer. Wonder Boy had an undeniably cool world and game progression. Shovel Knight mastered the balance between playable and too hard elegantly, and had an authentically retro art style. **HOWEVER** those games were made by teams of talented individuals over the course of years with backing from investors. So while I will compared this game to those in terms of quality, I would be remiss if I did not mention that this game was likely made entirely by one person which is a difficult task. It's likely this was a task of love and all my critiquing does not erase that fact. This is not a game trying to steal your money, it's a labor of love.

Cave Brawlers is a very poorly made 2D retro pixel platformer (sigh) with a few minigames thrown in, so at least this isn't a simple matter of someone copying and pasting junk onto a basic Unity platformer pack. Of course, with such a lacklustre technical implementation, all the work that went into this tongue-in-cheek comedy dungeon platformer brawler is completely wasted. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals. The developers didn't design the game for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at 1080p, a very low resolution that became mainstream back in 2006 and became obsolete when 4K entered the mainstream in 2014. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts. To make matters worse, there's no mouse input, despite this being sold on PC as if it were a PC game. This is unacceptable and somewhat insulting to PC gamers. It's a good demonstration of the poor attitude the developer has towards PC gamers, and this attitude has resulted in yet another defect in this game. While this is on PC, it has all the hallmarks and deficiencies of a console game, from the clunkier than needed control scheme to the less than cutting edge graphics. There's 10's of thousands of PC games on Steam, and PC gamers deserve only the best. This might not appeal to many gamers due to the lack of PC-centric design. It's unclear why this game was never accepted on the video game console appliances it seems to have been designed for. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. Cave Brawlers didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for re-entering the building you start out in, trivial to get, but less than 39 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game. The poor quality of this game is also reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 2 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. Cave Brawlers has the farcical price of around $5 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.

Sorry but it's really broken, sometimes controls don't work, sometimes enemies are broken, or you can't just attack anymore, whether for the hitboxes or for the clunky controls. I tried 5 times to avoid certain bugs, I had to restart the game from the beginning.

[list][*][b][h1]Morlan's shorts:[/h1][/b][/list] While there's some fun to be had here, mostly because of the silly-comedic parts and the bad-ness factor (feeling like a total amateurish project which the developer just published for the fun of it) I can't see the redeeming values that would justify it's totally overblown price.. This [b]should be in the <1 coin department[/b] and even then you should know that it's more making fun out of games than being a properly playable one.. [b]Also VERY important: Messages popping up in the middle of the gameplay to ask you to subscribe/like/whateverTFK are not cool nor fun in any playing environment. DON'T do that! Similarly, achievements of the type "Subscribe to channel" follow the same rules. This game does both. Not cool.[/b] [b]Don't waste more time reading lengthy reviews.. time is of the essence![/b]

这样一款游戏，不想给好评，看商店里面什么的感觉还可以，可惜不知道是我太菜了，还是这个游戏的关卡设定太辣鸡了。对不起，这个游戏，我连第一关都不过去，真特么难，说真的让我体验到当时全境封锁开荒的感觉了，这点做的非常好。不推荐购买，喜加一那无所谓。