There Was A Caveman Reviews

Old school platformer, reminiscent of NES and MS-DOS era. 9 = Controls are solid and tight 8 = Sound & Music is classic Retro 7 = Difficulty maybe tricky for some, but people who grew up playing retro games will fly though this. (I would have enjoyed more levels). But the Achievements for completing each level without dying adds to the length of the game. 7 = Gameplay plays a lot like Castlevania with secondary weapons, (50% knock back), and a boss at the end of every level. But you can double jump and dash (in the air)! Thank you developer I had a blast playing this game, and enjoyed every minute of it. I hope this does well (I want a sequel) It’s better than Castlevania 2!!! (As a side note, I am glad to find another Retro game that is NOT skull crushingly difficult. The recent trend of Retro developers to make games that are so hard that they Rip out your heart and feed it to you. Grates on me… Volgarr the Viking I am looking at you…)

If you’re having trouble getting this game to work with your controller, try this as a fix - Game's properties>GENERAL>Steam Input-Per Game Setting is "Forced Off" Sadly, finally being able to use my controller didn’t help make this game any more enjoyable. The controls are unpolished, as is the gameplay; the difficulty curve in TWAC is non-existent. You’re pretty much pummeled with unfair, not fun gameplay from the instant you start the game. I’ll probably watch a play through on YouTube to see the rest of the levels, because there is no way I can waste any more of my time or sanity on this game. Between the control and gameplay flaws, I would only recommend this to the most patient gamers. Everybody else should steer far clear. I gave this game more chances than any other game I have in recent memory. Sorry dev, I really did try... 🤷‍♂️

The controls are modifiable, but the jumps you have to do over and over again, just to land on a single platform is terrible, it's like the character is accelerating, but not moving upwards; let alone just that reason I'm sorry but this is not good. Keep going with the game development, but the controls are ___ ...

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.

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.

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 bullshit. 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.

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.

Alright..enough is enough. You're probably looking at this game and thinking : Well the retro art looks sweet, how bad can it be? Sadly it's pretty bad. There's no pause button. There's no in game menu to adjust sound or music. Level design is bland, poorly designed, and rage inducing. If you're using a controller - doesn't matter which one - the game regularly detects false double jumps and gets you killed. Most of the bosses and art aren't terrible, but for what this is there are a ton of better options. This game is extremely frustrating and with absolutely no payout. I really dislike leaving a negative review for a game but my final verdict is this : This game is NOT fun.

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 Unlocked all achievements!