One of the first games I remember playing was King’s Quest III: To Heir is Human. Why, it’s Roberta Williams diegetically inserted into this game! Seamless! I Don’t Tell You What That Decision Is In This Section, But Bare With Me. One decision that the Williams’ felt had to be overwritten. But there is one thing the game doesn’t preserve. It’s all just a holdover from the original game, intended to preserve it with just a fresh coat of paint and some quality of life improvements like auto-mapping. Naturally, you have no idea who you are or how you came to be near the cave. Of course your goal (spoilers: stack shiny stuff in a well house) is never explained to you. Sure, the vibe’s a gormless pastiche of fantasy tropes. So everything that doesn’t work about Colossal Cave must be understood in that context. They sought access to the original designers’ source code and notes to reproduce it faithfully. Roberta Williams explicitly mentions this in interviews about the game. The goal was to treat the original game as a historical document. Helpfully, there is a tv with a mini-documentary right at the start. To be clear, these are not bugs but design decisions from the original game. The pirate I mentioned before is required to complete the game, but they only show up randomly after five minutes have passed in game. Enemies can randomly appear and kill you at any time with no way for you to prevent it (though the chances of you dying are small, they always have a chance). Throughout the cave, some exits just don’t work the first or fifth time you try to use them. ![]() Your inventory is tiny and has to be carefully managed. There is a section of the cave you have to randomly choose a route to escape. Its Colossal Cave‘s biggest strength and also its biggest weakness. But I’ve not yet discussed the gameplay, which is, of course, the main event here. So far, I’ve probably not painted you an amazing picture of the game. But if you are coming to an adventure game expecting a compelling story, which would be a generally fair expectation from the genre, you will not find it here. I don’t necessarily have a problem with this, and I’ll explain why in a bit. It’s threadbare to the point that in my first draft, I barely mentioned it. There are some dwarves and other fantasy creatures strewn about, but no exploration of what they are doing in the cave or their relationship with each other. You wander into the area of the cave and stumble on a well-house, then find a cave. But when an over-dramatic pirate steps from the shadows to steal my stuff and then vanishes in a puff of smoke, any subtleness to the experience is a bit undercut.Īrrrr…It’s drivin’ me nuts! Story-wise, There Is Just Nothing Here I could understand that if the intent was to capture the authentic lonely feeling of spelunking. Some rooms have music, but most just have a vague ambiance, and sound effects are only serviceable. At many points in the cave, it appeared light enough to see by ambient sources, but when I turned off the lantern it plunged me into pitch darkness regardless. So you’re incentivized to try and conserve it. You are given a lantern, and the game makes it clear it will run out. ![]() The descriptions in the narrative also don’t often match up with what you can see. Just fine in an indie game like this is perfectly acceptable. They may have been going for stylized, but they didn’t hit that goal. The few people and creatures you meet are a bit crude. Most of the areas appear to be based on actual caves, which is in keeping with the original, but the colors are fairly dull. ![]() First, the sound and graphics are acceptable. ![]() So the answer is yes, but with some severe caveats. Ok, I Won’t Keep You Waiting Colossal Cave is…įine. But in 2023, should you really bother to play a game from so deep in gaming’s past? Let’s find out! Over the years, Roberta has publicly stated that the Colossal Cave Adventure was a massive inspiration to her, so it’s no surprise they would revisit it. It is available now for Mac, Oculus Quest, Meta Quest, Meta Quest 2, PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S. Cygnus is run by Roberta and Ken Williams, most famously the creators of the King’s Quest series of games by Sierra On-Line. Colossal Cave by Cygnus Entertainment is a redux of what is widely considered the first text-based adventure game designed by Will Crowther and Don Woods in the late seventies.
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