I love rogue games and have quite a few of them. Temped to buy but my brain is telling me I have enough of them. What is so good about this one? How does it differ from the others?
Some unique features of Cavern include alley/neutral NPCs, secret rooms, randomized equiptment stats, and different status ailments (i.e. parasites that latch to you). The developer indicated wells with random status effects and split off side dungeons are coming in a future update. The gameplay is tap based and accessible but challenging (which is not uncommon for roguelikes). I'm also a member of the "too many roguelikes, not enough time" club but have found myself sinking a bit of the time I do have into Cavern.
ios 6 required sounds good, but have some devices at ios 5.11. so since it only support ios 6+ will wait on buying.
Damn, just got an iTunes card for my birthday and missed the sale oh well I'll probably end up getting it sooner or later at full price, been on the list a while
If I enjoyed 9th Dawn, I'm guessing I'll like this? Also one concern, more of slight annoyance for me: one thing I didn't like about 9th Dawn was that your character didn't actually attack. Yes you could direct an attack, but the actual sprite didn't have any animations depicting sword strikes, etc. Is it the same with Cavern?
Thread for the game: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=38113&highlight=Cavern In the video there's little to no animation on the characters. Less animation than 9th Dawn. As for the games, they are similar looking on the surface but different gameplay. Cavern is a Rogue-like meaning everything is turn based. You take a step, the enemies take a step, etc. 9th Dawn was an action rpg so enemies could keep moving around even if you stopped. Cavern has randomly generated dungeons where as 9th Dawn had a specific plot with specific maps that didn't change game to game.
This ^^ is why such good games are drowning in a sea of App Store freemium crap. Don't be such a cheapskate!
Just before this sale Cavern was updated with new monsters, fountains/altars that give random status effects, ability to raise skeleton minions, and monsters that chase you to the next level, etc. You can even recycle the bones of your enemies for gold. Despite both having RPG elements Cavern and 9th Dawn are fairly different. 9th Dawn has dual stick shooter controls with continuous action. Cavern has tap based movements that's continuous until enemies show up then becomes turn based. Cavern is played in portrait mode with randomized environments, making you restart from the beginning with each death (in roguelike tradition) so many of the mechanics are different from 9th dawn. I prefer Cavern over 9th Dawn because Cavern is more difficult and encourages exploration (there are even secret rooms). Cavern also has a cool feature of friendly NPCs fighting with you. Cavern has attack animations. For example, you can see your character move their pike towards the enemy with each strike. The recent update includes a "new animation system for smoother and more detailed animations" (I noticed a newer slight gore effect on enemy death).
I think the reason the appstore is the way it is has to do with developers seeing the big payday by creating addictive freemium games that people will keep pumping money into through IAP. If those games failed then no one would make them. But they sit atop the charts for top-grossing games which attracts others to following suit. Plus with anyone able to be a dev for a small fee, the market is over run with games. I have more than I'll ever play already without spending another $1. If folks that aren't sure about a game wait for a $0.99 sale, at least they are willing to buy the game. More power to em. No sense in putting them down. They aren't the reason freemium is such an attractive way to develop. It's the people that actually play freemium games and dump money into em. EDIT: I did buy this game
Gosh dang this game is great. It's rogue like but the maps are fixed until you die. So you go deeper into the cave. The animations are not much more advanced than what is shown in the video. Still, that doesn't bother me. Definitely get this if it interests you at all. Yes I'm a huge fan of 9th dawn. And I think fans of that would like this too.
I bought this, played it for 30-40 mins and decided I don't like it, so deleted. Shame as I love rogue games
Wow. What didn't you like? I've put hours into the same game (as in I haven died and am level16) and it just keeps getting better and better. I carry a few scrolls to warp back to town to sell off and recycle what I don't need and upgrade what might be useful. I keep only the best geAr and stay stocked up on potions. I think I'm near the endgame but it has me thinking if I finish the main quest that I'll play again with a different class. At this point I prefer the giant open world of 9th Dawn. Buuuuut, this is scratching the itch quite a bit and I'm loving this game so much it's silly. And I'm not even a big fan of rogue-likes.
The odd thing is I can't really put my finger on what I disliked, it just didn't grab me and even after 10-15 mins the game felt like a chore and not fun, whereas 9th Dawn held me gripped.
That's cool, I was just curious. Hours in and it's eaten all of my game time this weekend. At first I thought it was a little too hard but the third game is where everything clicked and I nearly finished the endgame before finally getting killed.
I have this game for a long time now, was an instant purchase back then. But... did I just witness an Undeadcow statue? Wow, now he's featured in 3 games.
This game is so great. I bought it a few days ago while it was in promotion. I first started with a warrior who died pretty quickly. Then I have tried a wizard who died a bit further than the warrior. At last the adventurer was the good shot. I have managed to beat the game with it, though I have been lucky a few times by surviving with only a few HP left. Spoiler The end of the game when you have to go back to town from down below is simply masochist. Stack healing, blessing and invulnerability before you pick the Mystery Object. That's all I have to say. That and don't drop the Mystery Object to try to warp out to town, it'll make things worse, or try it if it is that or death. I'll try to beat it again with the two other classes, but not sure my heart will stand that pressure once more ... I would love to see more about this game.
I deleted it never having gotten much further than the third floor. Although I knew it was a rogue type game, I did get tired of feeling I wasn't making progress having to continually start over. Yes, I realize that what rogue games are. I just moved on.
