(This game looked nice in a Youtube video.)
In Cave Digger PC Edition (did not play VR) you are a miner exploring partially randomised time-attack mining "rooms" first and later advancing through a number of very linear and short worlds without time-limit but gated by ever-more expensive upgrades, say a gas mask to withstand poisonous gas. You start in an abandoned Wild West ghost town and begin your work by means of modern-day infrastructure and low-tech to modern to outrageous tools.
The game basically alternates between looting and upgrading until you make your way to one of the multiple endings. So far so normal, yet while the theme clearly goes for wacky, immensely added to by the narrator and a bit by the radio stories you get to hear later in the game, the main gameplay loop ends up being two steps too far on the grindy side, though you can decide between slightly more action grindy and more profitable grindy.
Additionally, the game happens to be pretty buggy which, to be fair, is rarely even frustrating - your status is auto-saved and strange situation are mostly recovered from by the next death. Ultimately, one not so good recovery added more than an hour to my playtime and to the judgment of "Not Recommended".
+ Multiple endings
+ Minor amount of lore
+ Good alternatives to invisible walls
+ Auto-saving plus (mostly) good disaster recover
+ Okay but repetitive voice acting, only narrator and "radio stories"
0 Main gameplay loop starts off grindy becomes less annoying with upgrades but never fun
0 Graphical design is far from beautiful but of a consistent style
0 Okay soundscape and music
- Some game design problems (progress for finished quests, drilling)
- Upgrading is expensive which would be fine if you knew what you were buying
- Lots of bugs, rarely annoying
- Crashes from time to time, prompts unclear
- Upgrades cannot be turned off
The game starts off by sending you down a mining shaft where you need to retrieve valuables from the rocky walls and put them into a loot bucket. Each descent sends you to three semi-randomised rooms where you have slightly more than 30s each to loot - loot that is not put into the bucket goes to waste (unless bugs). In between descents you are presented with the tool shop right next to the elevator. This guides you acquiring mining tools which are needed in the rest of the world as well. You will probably encounter one or more of the different endings before you eventually (and unknowingly) "purchase the train", really only its throttle. From then on you explore the long but narrow (read linear) world.
The main gameplay loop is clearly the interaction with minable rocks. Unfortunately, this is hampered by the inability to clearly aim at certain rocks, leaving you to hit surrounding rocks instead, and some rocks being slightly out of reach high or low. You have a reticle and if it is on the rock you should not hit another rock instead.
Design problem: I was immensely bored by drilling for oil after the first few quick profits. It is essentially holding the player's body hostage by requiring them to keep pressing a key to hold a bucket in place (rarely you can just stand in the right spot) while failing to entertain the player's mind. Nothing interesting happens for the next 29 seconds. Doing this multiple times in a row (for profit) quickly makes you think about things other than the game. Do not do this!
In theory, there is sort of a minigame here. The stream moves around a bit to have you adjust your bucket to catch everything but usually you can hold the bucket right to the drill point and just wait.
I also do not like when loot can be withheld from the player. This game does not disappear loot after some time but it may have loot fly all over the place, routinely happens when opening chests, or make its way into the next abyss or behind walls, or just fall through the world (1 in 5 or 6 Sheriff's reward items). On the other hand, it is often enough a hassle to get all three items out of the chest with no "Grab" prompt available and the loot magnet not helping - thank goodness for [spoiler]Chompy[/spoiler].
I really liked how the game tries to approach and recover from disastrous states. Jump down an abyss and you are set to a position a bit before your death becomes inevitable. Loose a tool and it tries to pop back into the world again occasionally, though it does not always work and may require "an ending", reacquiring the tool, restarting the game or a combination thereof. However, I never had to reset the game. There is also auto-saving, big plus.
There are some areas that kill you over time, e. g. on top of the roots of giant trees, but not if you leave them in time - very good alternative to invisible walls. This game is designed to rather have you fall to your death before running into invisible walls.
I did not like how almost nothing is explained beforehand. Most things have to be bought before you can see on-screen hints (for tools) about how to use them, or notice (or fail to notice) a difference in effect (for building upgrades). Train upgrades are mostly straight-forward.
Music and sounds are okay. There are well-separated sound effects to let you know what is happening in the world. There are well-voice-acted voice-overs but they may not mix so well into the rest of the world so you may miss things there. Not a big problem, things repeat.
The graphics are mostly serviceable, ugly but functionable and consistent on two levels. A lot of work seems to have gone into tools, the elevator, the train and overall into the different endings, not so much into everything else. That is okay.
The "areas" have a prescribed base layout (always the same) with doors that connect to loot rooms that are, I think, randomly connected. Not sure what resets them.
Hint: Try not to let go of the black key [spoiler]until you can put it into its lock. It spawns randomly in any mining rooms with minable lava rocks (black rocks with glowing lines) - I think you should see such a room on every 4th descent. I have never seen the key drop as such but seen it lying in the elevator twice - once from a room with four minable walls and once from the vault room with three minable walls. As far as I can tell the key does not show up on the scanner (in the PC Edition, apparently the VR edition shows it pretty clearly). The key is not a relic and can be mined with, e. g., dynamite.[/spoiler]
Sometimes the game just crashes or hangs up, apropos of nothing. Sounds still play, graphics do not update, five minutes are not enough to recover.
Only teleporting / using the waypoints sometimes seems to strain the system. Iirc, this was connected to only one crash/hang-up.
Small pet-peeve, upgrades cannot be turned off. The final engine pollutes the screen space with lots of light effects making it even harder to see where in the world you are. And for the purpose of one achievement, I would have liked to disable the gas mask.
EDIT: Cut hints and bugs for Steam character limit.
With the total of bugs, the crashes, the mayor annoyance around the black key and ultimately, the grindiness I cannot recommend Cave Digger PC Edition.
