Wow I can't believe this was released. The first was one of my favorite games on this platform and this one is improved in every way. I still can't believe it's free with only one iap for 99 which was a no brainer to purchase. Everybody needs to give this a shot. Amazing game!!
Thanks so much Fastbridge! Yeah we only put in 1 iAP and its totally not necessary to beating the game, it just helps speed the upgrades along, and gives people that are having troubles with the difficulty a little boost. We love all the people that give our games a shot, and wanted to make the game completely free again this time because of that However, if you do like it and have some fun, you can totally buy the iAP and our soundtrack on Bandcamp to help us continue to make more games like this in the future (no pressure though, we are just happy to have people playing the game).
Secret Hey if anyone finds the secret in the starting level (Cally's Backyard) post about it here! Would love to see if anyone finds it
Thanks for the tip! I'll try finding it. Hopefully whoever posts the secret uses the spoiler bars! Found it! Don't know how to cover the answer so I'll let someone else do it.
Yay!!! we love the old SNES games with little hidden secrets that you would have NO idea about unless you spent some time in them. Figured a hint here would help people try and find it. Thanks for playing Anotherkellydown!!!
Finally got round to playing this, I have a bad habit of putting the games I'm most excited about into a folder to play later whilst I work through the "lesser" games. It does build up the anticipation for it though and this game definitely deserves it! I remember very little of the original and I never got round to playing unfortunately but that's something I definitely intend to correct. I certainly remember that the visual style wasn't as nice as this; the sprites have oodles (which is a scientific term) of personality and everything has been clearly given a lot of attention. The soundtrack is great as well. Though I usually prefer a more retro chiptune accompaniment, the current choice still suits the tone perfectly. The controls are pretty solid for me, despite the occasional trouble with double jumping. Some simple jumps can feel a pixel too high, which can break the flow of the platforming if you have to stop by the ledge and perfect the double-jump timing. Aside from this minor complaint, it handles without trouble; weapon-switching, both attack commands and directional movement played fluidly. Gameplay-wise, it fits beautifully into the malnourished genre of brutal platformer. You will die a lot (or at least I do, I make no apologies for being a bit "special") be it from a bat gnawing at your head or an unintentional dive into a pitfall. You'll always be making progress though; between the fairly implemented checkpoints and the leveling of your firearms it stops short of frustrating and instead lands in comfortably satisfying. One thing that sells it to me the most are the secrets - you can barely move without catching a glimpse of a crystal out of reach or a passage well beyond your means to enter. It screams replayability and hints at revisiting old areas with new skills, or at least a guide of some sort. If collectibles excite you more than they reasonably should (of which I am guilty) then it's a dream game. Chuck in solid platforming, lovely designs and a payment scheme that's been plucked from the dreams of every iOS gamer then you'd be silly not to give it a download at least. There have been some minor bugs during gameplay such as loot falling through floors, enemies getting stuck on scenery and music not playing but it never destroys the enjoyment, just the immersion somewhat. It's easily forgiven once you take the size of the developer in to account and the positives of now having a publisher making changes along the way to make it more "mainstream". All in all, it was worth the wait and I'm off to download the original for when I finish this!
Hello everyone! I'm the lead artist for Cally's Caves 2 and I'd like to thank everyone for playing our game I'm lovin' these reviews <3
we are totally going to get some quotes from that if that's ok with you Pete! Anyone else have any reviews/thoughts/feedback?
+1 million Pete is one of the most kind helpful people I've ever known. The world could do with more people like him. He's a nerd though #
That would be amazing, of course that's ok! Thank you for the offer Thank you all for your kind words (even Cloudpuff ) reminds me why I love doing all this
djstout - we are looking into that now!!! we are almost at 2000 people on our gamecenter leaderboards now, thanks everyone for the support
Allright! It took me longer than I expected, but I finally managed to 100% (I guess?!) this game a few hours ago, so now I feel capable of posting a little critique: First off, I really like your pricing mechanic. I downloaded the game for free, played a little, decided it was worth the extra buck and so paid for the IAP (although I wish it was possible to un-equip the upgrades). Before, the ads were wonderfully unobtrusive. Concerning the game itself: The character art is great. I love the player sprite and most of the enemies, even though a few (including some bosses) feel a little bit uninspired / could have used more work. The sound is nice and fitting to the setting, although a bit repetitive at times. The controls are alright, although I sometimes pressed buttons I didn't mean to press, so an option to configure those would be nice. What especially irked me was the "Swap Weapon" button - with just a few weapons, it's still easy to switch to the one you want, but once you collected all of them, cycling through them becomes rather tedious. In the heat of battle, it often occurred that I clicked the button just one too many times, so I had to go through all the weapons again. Implementing swipe-gestures could help (right for previous weapon, left for the next one), as might a separate weapon menu screen, where you can select your weapon at your own pace. Speaking of menus, the map screen is tough to handle. For one, entering this menu screen will warp you to the beginning of the current room - this isn't explained properly so when I checked out this menu at the end of a hard room I was quite perplexed to be back at the beginning. Additionally, I found it really hard to navigate through rooms with the GPS function - it's nice to be able to revisit every room you conquered, but the lack of detail makes it harder than it should be. Boss rooms for example should be visually distinct and bigger icons for smaller screens would be appreciated. And something a little more resembling a map would also help greatly with navigation - for example, you could add a background layer with the visual details of the respective areas behind the corresponding map icons, so that players would no where the lava levels etc. started / ended. All in all, your game reminds me a lot of Random Heroes, set in the realm of Devious Dungeon. Not a bad thing per se, but it felt like oftentimes, you added room upon room, just for the sake of it. I guess I would've rather liked a few less rooms, each with a little more attention to detail. For example, most (certainly not all) of the "breakable walls" that require special weapons look out of place and like they were just placed arbitrarily. Here, a more "organic" approach would have been nice: walls that look like they belong and have a purpose. Those walls lead me to the last part of my rambling: exploration. I played through pretty much all the levels multiple times, eager to reach every nook and cranny. My goal was to max out all my stats and weapons and to collect some fine treasure and achievements in the process. I succeeded in the completion, but the whole treasure part felt a bit lackluster. Once I had access to every place in the game it became abundantly clear that there was nothing to be found that I had not already seen in every previous level. Since there are only three kinds of "coins" and all are introduced in the first few screens, there is no shortage of currency (right now, I'm sitting on more than 1mil coins with nothing to spend them on). In a few of the early rooms it is possible to quickly grind A LOT of money and purchase many essential upgrades in the store. Being OP so early in the game makes the pacing somewhat strange, as you still die a lot from unlucky hits but the 50 or so bucks you lose each time are mere peanuts once you get the coin multipliers. What I'm trying to say here is this: the exploration is a nice aspect of the game but it does not feel rewarding. When you get a new piece of equipment late in the game, then remember that there was an obstacle in an earlier level that you might now be able to overcome, only to find one lousy gem, it just does not make it worthwhile. Hidden collectibles (and a tracker therefore on the map screen) might make for much more replayability and nicer exploration. Whew, that was a lot more rambling than I planned for! If my comment seems too negative, I deeply apologize, as I think that this is a really fun game that greatly improves upon the (already solid) first part. To make one thing absolutely clear: I wouldn't have paid a buck if I didn't have to and then spent an entire day trying to perfectly clear a bad game. But I think that between the four stars this game deserves right now and the five stars it could very well earn easily still lies a long way and I hope that my comment has shed a little light on what I think might be part of this way. Greetings, and I wish you (the devs) heaps of fun and success with your game.
That is some really great feedback D4rgolf! I completely agree with all of your points and I definitely won't make any excuses or anything, I think all of your points are valid. Hopefully we will do a Cally's Caves 3 (or another platformer) at some point in the future and we can build on the solid foundation, but iron out some more of those details later on... We are especially happy that you found the pricing model fine, and the ads unobtrusive. We specifically wanted to make the game completely free, so people could play through the whole thing, and if they found it deserving, buy the iAP or soundtrack on Bandcamp. It means a lot to know that we did right on that stuff. Thanks again for 100%ing the game, giving us amazing feedback, and helping support our future in games. This is only our second game! So hopefully we can impress you with what we do in the future. Cheers, Jordan
Oh wow it's finally out! I finished the first one. I'll check it out later and maybe come back with a gameplay vid.
Please do! we've already seen a few gameplay videos and stuff pop up, it's so cool to be able to see people playing the game. can't wait to see what you post Echoen, and nice to have you back again for part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL1oy7o-rtE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL1OjPWpvp4
Hey everyone, sorry to double post, but I just wanted to share this review that we got http://appadvice.com/review/quickadvice-callys-caves-2/ Hopefully we will have one on Toucharcade soon, but who knows! Either way we are grateful for the community and chance to interact with everyone.
I'd second most of what D4rgolf says but major bug bear at the moment is missing the bats once they've been hit by poisoned bullets. On some of the screens when there's a green tinge to the background I've found myself hitting one in the distance which then flies towards me and because it blends into the background I don't see it till it hits me. Good fun game tho and well worth the price to remove ads but I'd rather be able to turn off poisoned bullets too
