Caveblazers

Digital box cover.

Caveblazers is a fantasy-themed platform action game developed by Rupeck Games and published by The Yogscast for Windows on 2017-05-24. It was later ported to the Switch. The game is a platformer Rogue-like with heavy emphasis on combat. Dungeons are procedurally generated, weapons and items are distributed randomly, and there all sorts of different occurrences that may happen as you play. The game bills itself as "permadeath," but, since it can be completed in less than an hour, I don't consider it as such. Each time you play, additional aspects of the game are unlocked.

Personal

I got this as part of a Humble Bundle. The lovely pixel art from the trailer enticed me to play, and the random, but ever-growing collection of unlockables kept me interested. I beat the main story (i.e., rescued the women) on 2020-07-19, the again the next day. My personal strategy is to prefer weapons and bonuses that increase health like the Crimson Blade and Lifeleech Bow over more powerful ones. Since health is always in extreme short supply, the life gain usually keeps me alive a lot longer.

Status

I own this game on Steam and have beaten the normal game four times. I have uncovered 4 of the 5 relics and unlocked 11 achievements.

Review

6	8	6	6	9

Best Version: Windows

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• There is a very large assortment of weapons, items, and magical artifacts that keep the game interesting for quite a while.
• I like how there are many different perks which better accommodate different play styles.
• Although there are your expected bats, slimes, and orcs, much of the game's bestiary is unique, which gives the game more color.
• The five relics, each with a hidden entrance that must be discovered, and an interesting puzzle to overcome, add extra replay value.
• The AI-controlled NPCs are pretty great. They occasionally take useful items, but, the amount of damage they sponge up in combat more than makes up for it. And, they can be turned off if you don't like them.
• The daily challenge adds a lot of interesting variation the game that you don't see otherwise.

Bad

• The game is too hard. I'm an adequate platform gamer, but it still took me just shy of 100 attempts to complete the normal game. I had almost given up a couple times. A big reason for winning is just playing enough times until you get some lucky draws, and that's not very satisfying.
• I find most of the the magical items to be not very unhelpful, primarily because there isn't a reminder of when they have finished charging so I often forget to use them. Knowing this, I favor those magical items which have an affect that you don't need to activate, but that takes away a lot of the fun of the game.
• Most of the usable items are too hard to use. When you're in the heat of a boss battle, trying to dig through your inventory to find a stun sphere will just get you killed.
• Some of the relics are hidden in ways that are too abstract to find on your own. For example, one of them requires you to drop inventory items on a slightly odd-looking tile without any indication doing so would be beneficial.
• I would have preferred to see the maps generated more procedurally than randomly. Like, they would award specific items that would work well together and against upcoming bosses. They wouldn't generate altars until you had something to use on them, etc.
• I found the end boss to be easier than some of the other bosses.
• Too many of the unlockables are just clothing options that don't affect the game at all.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Box Art

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  Steam.

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  Virtual box.

Videos

Trailer.

Links