There Was A Caveman

The game itself is not actually good or bad. I could say that this game just yeah your generic platformer game with a retro spice in it. Nothing is unique to be mentioned. The gameplay is just your daily action platformer game. The story is about your wife/girlfriend/lover (which one you like to call it) have went missing and it's your job to find and rescue her. But don't underestimate the game though. Like all retro games, you will die a lot in this game. Mostly recommended for a retro gamer.

I'm sorry, fans. This game sucks. I get it. You like the concept. You like retro platformers like this. You like the love story between the caveman and his dead wife, and you like the challenge. But there's a good way and a bad way to do challenge, and this game does it badly. Floaty controls, unfair level design, bad hitboxes, and punishing difficulty don't make a game fun. They make it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I'm not going to cut this game any slack because it's an indie title. This is where the big boys play, and you need to do better than this. The game is not properly optimized, and that is the failing of the developers. Gamepad support is only partial, and doesn't even work properly on all systems. The entire purpose of x-input is to make gamepad support idiot-proof, and yet somehow, this game manages to screw it up. People constantly praise how much better games were in the 8- and 16-bit days when they offered actual challenge, but a lot of designers and players don't understand that there was a lot more going on in those games than you realize or remember. It's not just a matter of making a game hard and sending you back to the beginning if you're not perfect. It's a matter of designing levels in a way that makes playing through them enjoyable, even if you're not MLGproswag360noscope. And TWaC doesn't manage to do it right. Take a closer look at games like Spelunky, Binding of Isaac, VVVVVV, Super Meat Boy, and don't dare try tell me that this game is in the same league as them. These games are the end result of spending YEARS making sure that the controls and jumping physics are spot on PERFECT. These games have earned the right to offer players a challenge. Caveman has not. Fix the controls. Make There Was a Caveman 2 and do it right. I'll happily play it. There's a lot of nice ideas here. Skulls as currency. Diminishing returns as you keep dying. Fine. But the execution is straight up bad.

This game pushes the nostalgia buttons of gamers who remember playing such games when they were kids. I will give any game that does this a thumbs up, but I will not recommend this game. It's a solid platformer, but it's just bland and boring. Someone who's fresh to the genre will not appreciate this game, because it has nothing to offer to them. Just for nostalgia sake, older more experienced gamers will pick up this game, most likely play it to the end in one sitting (~2 hours) since it's easy, predictable and short, and then forget about it. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=604744492 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=658626981 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1567119016 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3694522644 Unlocked all achievements!

Unnecessarily punishing in all the most un-fun ways: Insta-death spikes/pits in all zones, lost currency on deaths, lost max health on deaths, and whole game seemingly needing to be completed in one sitting, since no Continue option at the main menu, just 'Start Game' which restarts from Level 1. Should've refunded when I first got it, but I put it down years ago hoping to start fresh. Still just as frustrating as before. Suffered through more levels this time, but this will be the last time.

Generally speaking this is a derivative platformer with excellent, detailed pixel art work. You have seen everything in it before, but that being said, it covers a wide base of platforming ideas and never overuses any of them. +High quality pixel artwork with lots of care and work. +Above average movement options - combining the dash and double-jump means the game can through some interesting platforming at you +Good variety in enemies and bosses - derivative, but there's new stuff in nearly every section -Game is over-tuned in some sections, some enemies take too many hits and the game's difficulty curve is bizarre -Music is truly dreadful -Incredibly, unbelievably pointless upgrade/currency system. It's a small minus since it has no impact on gameplay but it's just baffling. You can save up bones to buy items, but then you die and they're gone. You can search out secrets, but then you die and they're gone. And you WILL die unless you're experienced at the game ... At which point why do you need the items, since you're not dying? Anyway if you're into somewhat hard "flavor" platformers, I think this one will give you a couple hours of enjoyment.

There Was A Caveman is a fun throwback to old platformers, where you attempt to save Cavekind! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS-mtiXKeqw First, you'll notice that the game has quite an authentic look and feel to the era it's trying to portray. The controls are quite simple. You can double jump, swing your weapon, dash, and throw different projectiles that you find. I found that the game did a very good job at shaking things up throughout. Different enemies force you to react accordingly, as well as the levels themselves having different ways of playing. Underwater levels, dark levels, or even flying on a pterodactyl all keep the game from feeling stale. As well as changing up the obstacles, you can use a variety of projectiles, which all act differently and can be used in different situations. Although, I'm very happy with the difficulty of the game, it's worth noting that I haven't found a way to get a game over screen. You just respawn from the latest checkpoint, which keeps the game from getting frustrating. You have a limited amount of health, however, if you find secret health upgrades or purchase some from the store, you can increase that limit. Once you die though, they're gone. Which drives you to play very carefully. Overall, I really liked the game! It takes a lot of elements from the good old games we enjoyed, and leaves behind the frustrating elements from some of the others.

This is a difficult platformer with some rough edges. The graphics are solid, and it contains a few clever ideas, but it's mostly just frustrating, and mostly because of its stiff and unforgiving controls. It contains a super bad usability problem where if you pause the game, pressing the jump button exits to the menu without prompting (losing any progress within the level). I lost my progress to flawed muscle memory a few times because of this. You can collect skulls to buy items, but the items are fairly useless because unless you have already played through the game and memorized every trap, you're certain to die before you get to benefit from the item. (This mostly goes for the secret hearts, as well.) On the plus side, the boss fights were all pretty interesting and fun. The music sounds randomly generated, and the sound effects click like there's some 30HZ sine wave starting in the middle of its duty cycle. I played through it to the end, but can't really recommend. Games to play instead: Super Meat Boy, Super Time Force Ultra

I was having so much fun with this game. But I came back the next day and had to start over. Not bad since i was still in the caves, hadnt made it very far. Played again, made it way farther, had hearts and other stuff, but then I paused the game for a minute to do something, unpaused and the whole thing reset my progress. Tried restarting the game and still didnt have a save file. This game does respect the player and their time at all. No working save system is a ship killer for me.

Waste of a dollar. And any game that doesnt allow for alt-f4 quitting can suck my you know what. Who are you to tell me I cant quit the game? I will force close you game. But you make it harder for zero reason.

It's the very definition of average, and it's not as challenging as the description claims. Everything from controls, to enemies, to the basic animation is just [i]okay.[/i] Run-of-the-mill. Even the music is a bunch of forgettable loops. You can imagine this game being on any disappointingly short NES cartridge. It's MEHtro. But it's still not [i]bad[/i] so cheers to the dev, I guess.