The Cave Impressions

Well, it's definitely a Ron Gilbert game. I've been stuck on the first puzzle for half an hour.

The game starts off with minimal information. The cave itself narrates the intro to the game, saying that all the characters have come seeking... something... within its depths. The screen then goes to a campfire with the seven playable characters around it: The Knight, The Hillbilly, The Time-Traveler, The Scientist, The Adventurer, The Twins, and The Monk. The only on screen instructions are to move the character selection left and right between the seven.

Eventually I figured out that you don't need to confirm your character selection and can just start running around with the character you've highlighted. There are also four action buttons, Jump, Pickup/Drop, Interact, and Special Power. Each character has a special power for you to use at various times during your exploration. You pick your three characters by way of a precarious bridge over a precipice that's "not safe for more than two people" so as soon as your third sets foot on it it collapses and they all fall very far down into the pit.

My chosen three were The Adventurer, The Twins, and The Hillbilly. First we went through some sort of simulacrum of a carnival which was something from the Hillbilly's past, then an in-between puzzle dealing with collecting mine carts for an ornery prospector. Now I'm in the latter section of stealing a golden sarcophagus from a pyramid which is from the Adventurer's past. I felt like the puzzles in the carnival were much more up front about their solutions, at least compared to the pyramid. Maybe it's just that all three of my characters are now trapped in a couple different rooms and I'm at a complete loss as to how to move forward.

I know that Ron Gilbert's design philosophy is to never have unwinnable situations in his adventure games-unlike other adventure games by Sierra in the early 90s where you could die from taking too long to make a decision-so I doubt that I'm permanently stuck.

Anyway after a couple hours of play time the game has grown on me. I'll definitely play it again, and it seems like that's the idea as there are eight collectible "Cave Paintings" that give vignettes of the characters' back stories, but you only collect cave paintings of the characters you're actively playing rather than the other four. So I'll have to play through two more times after this one with the other characters.

My only complaint is the default keymapping: both WASD and the arrow keys move the characters around and the action keys are bound to Q, E, C, and Spacebar. Also, switching between characters is done by the 1, 2, and 3 keys. Unless you're a touch-typist and you have muscle memory for the difference between Q and 1 or E and 3, you'll accidentally switch characters when you don't mean to fairly often. With a controller it's better laid out: Left Analog moves you around; Left, Up, and Right on the D-Pad switch between characters; A is Jump, B is Pick Up/Drop, X is Interact, and Y is Special Power.

For $15 I'd say it's worth the price, of course you can get it on sale if you wait. It's been 75% off on the last 3 Summer & Winter Steam Sales, so you could get it for as little as $3.74 if you wait. I'd say it's definitely worth it for that price.

April Game Purchases

Here are the games I bought in April.

Humble Intergalactic Bundle

• Space Hulk Ascension
• Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity
• Planetary Annihilation TITANS
• Rebel Galaxy
• Galactic Civilizations 3
• Offworld Trading Company

Humble Wild Frontier Bundle

• Gods Will Be Watching
• Ice Lakes
• FRONTIERS
• Hard West
• Renowned Explorers: International Society
• Slime Rancher

The Intergalactic Bundle was $15 and the Wild Frontier bundle was $13 and between the two the only game I already had was Spintires from the Wild Frontier bundle.

So, $28 for $280 of games at retail.