Nappi

The Cave: Ron Gilbert's Double Fine Game (A Tim Schafer Production) (Not Double Fine Adventure)

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Argh... I stuck in the Time Traveler level, I have the bucket but for the rest I cannot figure out what to do.

edit: never mind I figured it out. I'm pretty sure the dino didn't react the previous time I tried that

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I really want to love this game, and it looks great, but there's SO MUCH TRAVERSAL, and that makes experimenting such a chore. Instead of having a good time trying various solutions (which apparently is only interesting if it's the correct one, since failure only results in a shrug,) I find myself constantly working to minimise traversal time, carrying objects around all the time and weighing the probability against something working against the schlep. And the minecart puzzle ...

hitting the action key whilst in the cart makes a hitting-a-switch hand motion, so I keep trying and trying to hit the switch, but the animation won't play until right after the switch, so I try to switch characters and spend so much time trying to hit the switch, and in the end I give up and go on the web and it turns out I need the shovel to hit the switch? Come on!

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There have been a few instances where I've had to look something up on the Internet because I was stuck, only to find out the way I wanted to solve the puzzle was right, I just wasn't doing it in the 'right' way. Specifically in the Time Traveler level:

I knew I had to move the stone in the prehistoric level to let the liquid drip down into the crevasse so I had one of my characters push the stone up the right side of the hill and stand in front of it. Nothing happened in the present day location. Turns out the game needs you to pull the stone up the left side of the hill and hold it there, that's what causes the well to appear.

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Yeah, that well puzzle was counter intuitive. I think I solved everything else myself, though. I've completed it with all the characters (although my achievements didn't pop - annoying!) and it's the charm and personality that allows me to look past its short-comings. Although I do wish they didn't force you to replay the bridging levels (trinket, miner, zoo, island, trinket). And that the beautiful cave paintings weren't so distorted.

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This was sweet.

This isn't really a spoiler, but I love that if you don't redeem the characters, the next trinkets you swipe to enter the cave are theirs.

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This was sweet.

This isn't really a spoiler, but I love that if you don't redeem the characters, the next trinkets you swipe to enter the cave are theirs.

There's lots of nice touches in this game.

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Started my second playthrough yesterday... ugh.. again the minecart puzzle?! I won't want to solve the same puzzles everytime

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Started my second playthrough yesterday... ugh.. again the minecart puzzle?! I won't want to solve the same puzzles everytime

Yep, I know. Being forced to solve (what I've deemed to call) the "bridging" puzzles every time is pretty annoying :(

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It also really sucks that this game only has one save, you if you want to see a characters second ending you have to play the game TWICE! Does that mean everybody also got the Zoo level too?

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It also really sucks that this game only has one save, you if you want to see a characters second ending you have to play the game TWICE! Does that mean everybody also got the Zoo level too?

As I said before, you get ALL the bridging levels: Trinket #1, minecarts, zoo, island, and trinket #2.

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It feels like I just skipped a huge part of this level. I kept heading right, and ran past this house and dog, and I couldn't enter the house in a weird way.

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Yes, that's a level for some other character (I think the Twins).

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It feels like I just skipped a huge part of this level. I kept heading right, and ran past this house and dog, and I couldn't enter the house in a weird way.

elmuerte is right, that's a section you can't get to yet (although you CAN get your character stuck on the stairs if you really want).

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I really loved the tone of this game. Totally the opposite of what I was expecting from an adventure game with the protagonists they presented. There were several moments where I was chilled by the actions my characters were doing. Sometimes it was just due to ambient sound. I also appreciated that it wasn't a lot of writing. It made the narration and dialogue feel really important when it popped up.

The control of your characters is pretty frustrating though. Walking around and jumping over pits was generally fine, although positioning most every jump at the height where it becomes a ledge grab and mantle was super annoying. But then you have the ladders and ropes. Ladders are mostly fine as you can jump to quickly ascend or descend, but ropes seem even slower, and the jump to climb up option is removed! I do love the sound the Time Traveler's hover boots make, and how it changes depending on movement speed.

As for puzzles, I found most of them to be really well thought out. I never had to resort to rubbing random objects on each other, each one felt logical, and often ideas utilizing character abilities worked just as planned.

All in all a pleasant experience.

Oh, the narrator is amazing. Reminded me of Q quite a bit. (Or discord if you roll like that)

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I have not read through all 11 pages (apologies my loved denizens of the Idlethumbsopia), I'm here to do a rather short rant about a game that I really, really wanted to enjoy. Here's what happened:

so I had the knight, and the time traveler in my party and I find a way to use the time traveler's abilities to get the dragon's treasure (the knight's quest, the first quest after entering the Cave proper), NEVER opening a certain door which leads to the progression of some ill-for-princesses fated events. Yet the game informs me that "Oh how dare I leave said door open" which allow for the cascading next events to occur... breaking the game. I just felt cheated out by the game's already dire mechanics...

This having happened, I lost all interest in playing the game, why did 'this' break it for me so bad, kind of hard to explain, but I'll give it a shot. The game is too convoluted for its own good, the only saving grace, the comedic writing and that, I'm sad to admit, is no where near enough to encourage me to trudge through it.

:tdown:

cheers.

(ps. sorry for the bad engrish, its A) not my first language and B) I'm down two tequila shots and a light beer before lunch, yes its that kind of Wednesday)

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I can't get myself to paly it a second time knowing I'll have to redo some of the same levels again.

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I've got the same problem. I have a second playthrough stuck on the minecart level. I'm waiting until I've forgotten enough about it before I can continue. But that will probably take a very long while :/

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Finished my first play through. Disappointed overall. :( Not a bad game by any means, just mediocre. You can see Ron Gilbert's genius design somewhere in there, but for the most part it's unrealized potential.

A few seemingly minor changes would have made a big difference overall. The iffy platforming didn't bother me too much, but the amount of traversal and back-tracking did. I wish the inventory was shared between the three characters. Not only would it make for less back-tracking, but the puzzles could potentially be more interesting. (The ol' use-an-object-you-had-to-pick-up-for-an-earlier-puzzle trick would work). I wish there was a little more dialogue... not "examine everything" dialogue, but our narrator (who is voiced and written really well) could definitely interject more often. As toblix mentioned, some dialogue or animation for wrong solutions would be great.

There are bigger issues though: the aforementioned clunky platforming. The character-specific abilities don't play a big role at all. The story and characters seem interesting, but I felt the game never developed any of it. If you missed the cave paintings, most it would feel completely arbitrary. The opening narration seemed so promising, but I don't think it ended up delivering.

Though it got frustrating, I did enjoy my play-through overall, but not enough to go back a second time.

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I've completed it with every character, and some with good endings, too, but I was pretty annoyed that my achievements for doing so didn't pop. Kind of a kick in the teeth for those of us who did want to go back through it again.

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I still haven't finished my first playthrough and I'm not sure I ever will. I really want to like this game, but I just can't. There are some things that I do like about it. The writing and some of the details, such as characters in the past in the Time Traveler's section appearing as skeletons at the corresponding location in the future, are really good. I particularly like the Twin's section. But actually playing the game is preventing me from really enjoying it. My gripes are the same as everyone else's (too much traversal, platforming isn't smooth, ropes/ladders, etc). It reminds me of a comment from the developer commentary on Portal (or Portal 2, I forget). They talked about a joke they wanted to put in, but they decided it would be too much work for the player for too small a joke so they left it out. I feel like that's what happened here, unfortunately it's an entire game and not one small part. Not that the jokes are bad, but I'm not sure they're good enough for me to want to do it all again... and again... and again.

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I've made it through with all 7 characters at least once now and overall I enjoyed the game. My second and third play-through's were pretty quick since I had the common puzzles memorized and got better with the controls. I think all the work Double Fine has done with 2 Player Productions to show case all of the talent they have there is paying off. I'm starting to see little pieces of their games where I can be pretty sure I know who had a hand in creating them. As an example, when I first dropped into The Adventurer's area and saw the hieroglyphics, I immediately thought they looked like Scott Campbell's artwork. I get a lot of enjoyment out of things like that.

One thing I have always liked about Ron Gilbert's characters like Guybrush and DeathSpank is the way they are constantly making silly or sarcastic commentary throughout the game. The Cave kind of takes a similar role, but you don't seem to hear from him nearly as often Ron's other characters. I thought the dialog and voice acting for that character was really well done and would have loved to have heard more from it. It's also awesome that they worked so hard to get the game on as many platforms as possible at launch. I'm sure that was no small feat.

Nitpicks: The only time I felt like the back tracking was more excessive than any other adventure game was in the miner area. That is probably the weakest of all the areas because the puzzles don't seem to be particularly difficult, just time consuming. The mouse controls do need some work, because they do not feel natural at all. During my second play through I switched to just using the keyboard exclusively and it felt better, but in the end I played it out with a gamepad. Some people were annoyed with the Steam achievement bugs and the weird resizing of the cave painting art, but I'm sure those will get fixed up in a patch.

While I don't think it is Ron's or Double Fine's best work, it's still a decent game in its own right. If Double Fine releases any DLC with more characters or puzzle areas (or both!), I'll pick it up and run through it again.

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I wouldn't say I had a bad time when I played this through with my brother, but overall I'm disappointed. There are some glaring design issues. We spent a lot of time just going back and forth. At times the only challenge was the fiddliness of the controls and the inventory restrictions. Oh, and the co-op is miserable. There's just nothing done in the way of camera reacting to two players or anything. Would have killed for split-screen. And no online play. Seemed lazy.

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Top tip: You can skip the Zoo section if you have The Monk: Just use his powers on the Hot Dog Machine - Praise The Lord! (If only there was something similar for the Mine and Desert Island sections.)

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turns out I need

the shovel

to hit

the switch

[in the minecart section] Come on!

You've just not watched enough Indiana Jones, my friend :-)

But yeah; damn was i pleased that I was carrying the right items with me.

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Finished my second playthrough (monk, twins, hillbilly). I chose all good endings. So I haven't played the scientist yet, and I haven't seen the alternate endings for the past 6 characters. I'm not really interested in playing the same segments a third time.

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