Cave Quest Reviews

Fun little story to follow, puzzles to solve, worth the couple of bucks for entertainment when you don't want to engage something for a long period of time. Actually better than what I thought it would be.

I just finished playing Cave Quest 1 and 2 on my Windows 10 PC. It plays great. This is a match-3 adventure game. The Match-3 games are fun & challenging & not boring at all. You go to different locations to find items to use in other places and talk to characters. It has an excellent help button. It never left me wondering what to do next. I usually play HOAGs but I bought this because of the reviews. I loved it!

Simple match-3 adventure with fun art, music and sound effects. There is a simple storyline too as you move through the puzzles. Some hidden-object games too which I liked. Nice to have an option of timed mode or standard casual gameplay. Overall I liked it!

Among the best match-3 games I've played (if not the best). Some of the puzzles use a bit of moon-logic near the end but otherwise a fun puzzly, matchy adventure.

Nice story fun game. The only minus is the skills you use. They take a lot of time and the more you have the longer and the stronger they are also because you only have one item which is broken to use them and much later in the game you only find a second upgrade while money has more upgrade and the other stuff is useless, until one moment the game becomes grinding which takes a lot of time for very little that you have left. Best, with a discount, the game is not bad, but there is a lot of grinding at times.

Pros: -fantastic adventure concept worked into M3 mechanic -good storyline and music Cons: -relatively short game -dated graphics -a little too luck-based It's a little dated looking now because it's 12 years old as of this writing, but wow, a wonderful fusion of adventure and M3 gaming with a bit of HOG tossed in. There are currently 2 games in the Cave Quest series, but each one is a standalone adventure with a different story. In the first Cave Quest, you're helping Isabella find her lost family and the secrets behind a castle. The dialog is very well done with no typos and isn't overly contrived. You are going through a map of scenes which gradually unlock as you solve levels and need to find certain items which are placed/used in other locations. Since not all of a scene unlocks as soon as you reach it, you'll be backtracking quite a bit in the map to discover everything. The game does a great job of keeping track of your tasks in progress, which I really appreciate, as the "chore list" on the bottom left of the game screens is better than the Hint button for jogging my brain as to which location is best to backtrack to in order to do something. The M3 levels are of 3 different types: -traditional clear all tiles and drop target items off the bottom -a scrolling "find target items" along a pathway which you navigate by making matches -battle levels in which you take turns with an opponent Someone had told me that the game was easy...and maybe it is, if you play in the relaxed mode, but the timed option is actually pretty tough because the timer is very aggressive! You definitely need to use the powerups (and buy all the upgrades) to get through, and some levels are more a matter of luck than skill because if you don't get the right pieces coming in at the right time, you're just plain stuck. A couple of levels I had to restart 10 or more times to beat...and oddly, they weren't battle levels. It's not that long a game - took me only a bit over 4 hours on my first run through to complete. No Steam Achievements, but again, it's an old game. ;) If you like Cave Quest, definitely check out Cave Quest 2, which is bigger, better, and much more polished looking for another awesome adventure, albeit still somewhat luck-based in the M3 levels. I'm eagerly awaiting Cave Quest 3 which is in the works.

You know how Puzzle Quest is a match-3 RPG? A really good one, with lots of mechanics and good range of difficulty (and it's a big shame PQ2 got delisted, but nevermind) Well, this is your Match-3 Hidden Object game with some elements of match-3 combat and some generic mystery story to tie in together all the fetch quests. Overall, it's ok - the difficulty never breaks the "medium" ceiling, if you're even remotely proficient at the genre and setting up 4-5 tile matches. The readability of the tiles could use some improvement, though - the matching "gems" can be anything and are easily confused with immovable objects and quest items. Get it on sale, if you like both match-3 and hidden object point'n'clicks.

What...? This is actually pretty darn fun Match-3 game!!! I normally play these to take my mind off things or just because. Yeah. That's enough of a reason. First, it has really, really cool music! Unexpected! Second, I haven't been bored for a second. I expect to be bored from time to time when I get stuck... But nah. You go from different places and the game rules while staying the same, what you do is different. There is a little bit of Hidden Object / Point and Click and Exploration. You also get these cool power ups! Especially the little adorable froggy... Who gets costumes... I found myself at a point where I bought the wrong upgrade, but NEVER fear! The hint system told me to go to this cave... and you can "mine" it for money! They thought of everything!!! Oh... And you think you get used to the gems? And then they add a new one or change... So your eyes don't get tired at looking at the same things over and over again. I was supposed to come back to this game from time to time and ended up beating the entire thing... I think the game has some kind of magical spell upon it. Just a heads up: If you name your "Player", and misspell it or something, don't delete it right away. It causes the game to crash... It's obvious... The game has no where to connect to... So just make the right "Player" name and then delete the other one if you'd like. Also offers two different modes for two different kinds of players. It was so epic... Thank you so much!!! :D :> =)

Very cute game, $4.99, but I would wait for a sale. Fun match 3 game with the usual increasing level of difficulty (but nothing too hard) and some basic point and click find, combine, use objects type of play. Fairly short, my seven plus hours reflect breaks for food and house chores. xD No cards, achievements, or much replay value. 7.5/10

[b]march 2024 edit:[/b] price got bumped to $10 for no reason, only recommended on sale now. [b]cave quest[/b] is one of the more involved match-3 offerings, with turn-based battles, hidden object scenes and other stuff on top of the usual power-ups and whatnot. I was looking forward to playing it, but as is typical with expectations, they were shattered as soon as I started the game. thankfully, after the initial disappointment things got a lot better. turns out, [b]language is detected automatically based on your operating system with no way to change it in the game[/b]. I hate it when devs cut corners like this, but the last time regional windows settings caused problems was in the 90s with some lucasarts titles. until recently, that is, on multiple occasions. all those languages are already in the game, how about adding a fucking button to change it to whatever I want? failing that, I just edited [i]default.cfg[/i] in the game's folder to only include the language I wanted, but I shouldn't have to do that. the other unpleasant surprise was the [b]lack of widescreen support[/b], but despite saying 2019 in the credits, it first came out in 2011. looks pretty good otherwise, audio is fine too, with [b]some excellent music[/b]. there are separate volume settings and windowed mode with a resizable window, but [b]can't turn off match hints[/b] and they appear quite fast. the unvoiced story is centered around isabella and her quest to find her awol family. her brother went to the mountains to look for spirits of the non-alcoholic, dead people's remains variety, and her folks followed. isabella is joined by mike, a budget indiana jones, supposedly her boyfriend or something, and events take weirder and weirder turns as things unfold. as for the game itself, [u]relaxed[/u] and [u]timed[/u] modes are available, you can switch between them any time, the latter offers more money for unused time. I hate timers, so went with relaxed and had to do a bit of grinding near the end (not to unlock everything but simply to progress) because I kept forgetting to use the hourglass for a resource boost. [b]levels can't be replayed[/b], always moving forward (not necessarily in a linear fashion), but there's a spot where you can mine gold repeatedly. match-3 levels are what you'd expect and you can keep matching while animations are playing. to go with the spelunking theme, paths have to be cleared for our heroes so they can reach the exit, chains have to be broken to free people, and so on. good variety, actually, with two of my least favorites also making an appearance (bring stuff to the bottom and regrowing vines). [b]power-ups[/b] are the usual assortment, not created by matching many tiles, but mostly bought, then upgraded, and they need to be charged between uses by matching stuff. the occasional [b]battle against monsters[/b] is turn-based, concentrating on matching red tiles to deplete the enemy's health, green tiles to heal yourself, and blue to create a shield. matching 4 or more tiles here grants an extra move, and of course everything applies to the monsters as well. to break up monotony even more, [b]the adventure map offers some light puzzling, hidden object elements and more story bits between levels[/b]. I can always do without hidden object scenes, but they're not too bad here, the cursor even changes to a grabby hand over a goal item, and there's a hint button if need be. plus all sorts of things can be interacted with and somebody's bound to comment on them, which is neat. certain technical shortcomings aside, it's [b]excellent stuff, one of the best in the genre[/b]. I almost completed it in a single session, shouldn't take more than [b]about 5 hours[/b].