Caves of Lore - turn-based pixel art RPG inspired by classics

[OSK]

jrpg style combat

This is considered jRPG combat? When I think jRPG combat I think of two groups of opponents standing in lines facing each other, only running forward to attack and then returning to said line. This game has a grid!

You'll get a four man party.

You get a party of 6!

 

[Abu Antar]

Yes, I don't know why I said 4.

It feels jrpg-y to me. Lots of encounters, and you can use the same tactic a lot of the time.

 

[OSK]

It feels jrpg-y to me. Lots of encounters, and you can use the same tactic a lot of the time.

There's surprisingly a lot of spells and abilities, but the learn-by-doing mechanic definitely pushes you towards repeating the same tactics again and again.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

It feels jrpg-y to me. Lots of encounters, and you can use the same tactic a lot of the time.

There's surprisingly a lot of spells and abilities, but the learn-by-doing mechanic definitely pushes you towards repeating the same tactics again and again.

Unless you're a 20Mind mage who can learn abilities with ease I probably could've maxed out 3-4 schools of magic if I tried for that.

 

[Baron Tahn]

It feels like the older grid based rpgs than a jrpg, to me. The early stuff that inspired the whole jrpg genre, indeed. Ultima and some of the gold box titles.

The thing this game truly does well though and I think makes it stand out is the exploration, which is a bit castlevania, really. Was surprised how addictive and fun it was.

Ive discovered that I cant handle the bullshit from newer titles with lots of dialogue and v/o. Maybe its just the terrible writing, maybe its because Im a cranky old fuck - but I was fine with the ye olden days where they gave you a paragraph or two to set the scene and then let you loose to explore - Might&Magic etc. Even with v/o those games wouldnt be overly wordy.

Pages and pages of trash tier creative writing 101 just melts my brain and kills any interest I have these days. Show, dont tell - less is more, etc etc

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I forgot about this game. It looks fun. Reading comments here that its about exploration and combat only are major positives.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

The exploration really is the highlight of this game, I truly had fun with it. Absolutely no handholding, feels really satisfying when you figure out a secret, new techniques keep popping up as you continue the game which you can then use to unlock things you previously missed, etc.

I can't say anything else in the game is great per se, but it does its job which let's the exploration swoop in and take it to the next level.

 

[Ladonna]

I forgot about this game. It looks fun. Reading comments here that its about exploration and combat only are major positives.

The only people that I have seen say they DON'T like this game have been those saying they just can't handle the graphics. Pretty much everyone else has found plenty of things about it that they love.

I enjoyed pretty much everything about it, except sometimes the amount of combat was a drag. Sometimes. And this is always something that effects me in games negatively, even if the system is fun (which it is in CoL).

And as I am discovering reading the thread, there are ways to mitigate this. Will have to remember this for next playthrough.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

The only people that I have seen say they DON'T like this game have been those saying they just can't handle the graphics.

This was something I thought I couldn't get over, especially since (like I said earlier in the thread), girlfriend LOVED the graphics and thought it was cute. Not once have we agreed and I go all codex sperg on her when she starts talking graphics, but the rest of the game was so fun that within the hour I managed to ignore it. Even so, I could appreciate the non-human designs, it was just the human sprites which I found pretty bad, maybe the only truly bad thing in the entire game overall.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

On another note, did anyone focus on the lore/story? I stopped reading books because the whole moons/Gods thing didn't hook me and wondering if it would've been worth it. I still skimmed through them in case I caught something to help with a secret but didn't care enough to get truly involved in fully understanding the lore behind moons and backstory.

 

[OSK]

On another note, did anyone focus on the lore/story?

I read everything I came across, but I didn't find all the books and notes (there's an achievement for that). I found the lore/story serviceable, but it didn't hook me in either. It does it's job, but I don't think it's going to wow anyone. That said, there are quite a few secrets that can be found in the notes/books. Mostly words that you need to speak in the correct location.

On achievements, twelve of my top twenty rarest achievements on Steam are now from this game:

 

[Ladonna]

On another note, did anyone focus on the lore/story? I stopped reading books because the whole moons/Gods thing didn't hook me and wondering if it would've been worth it. I still skimmed through them in case I caught something to help with a secret but didn't care enough to get truly involved in fully understanding the lore behind moons and backstory.

Not really. I read the odd one that interested me, skimmed the others to see if there was anything directly game related to secrets, etc.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

On another note, did anyone focus on the lore/story?

I read everything I came across, but I didn't find all the books and notes (there's an achievement for that). I found the lore/story serviceable, but it didn't hook me in either. It does it's job, but I don't think it's going to wow anyone. That said, there are quite a few secrets that can be found in the notes/books. Mostly words that you need to speak in the correct location.

On achievements, twelve of my top twenty rarest achievements on Steam are now from this game:
View attachment 47109

Agreed on the secrets, I just didn't love the game enough to 100% it.

I did get one fucked up secret which I doubt even a minority of people got, a whisper secret near the scapin village if you know what I'm talking about (but that one didn't require reading a book). Maybe it was obvious to most but I felt 200IQ finding that one.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

4/6 most rare achievements in my showcase are from this game too, seems weird the % is so low..

 

[Grampy_Bone]

The game has some dope secrets to find but you can also farm ore and stack your basic chain armor to invincibility at the smith.

As for the lore

Spoiler

The ending was something about the townspeople being sucked into another dimension so shadow creatures could feed off their nightmares or something. It was mildly interesting but ended with a lame cliffhanger. Still, it's always nice playing a game where the writer knows when to shut up.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

The game has some dope secrets to find but you can also farm ore and stack your basic chain armor to invincibility at the smith.

As for the lore

Spoiler

The ending was something about the townspeople being sucked into another dimension so shadow creatures could feed off their nightmares or something. It was mildly interesting but ended with a lame cliffhanger. Still, it's always nice playing a game where the writer knows when to shut up.

I appreciate an explanation about the ending because I was lost, mostly because it featured 2 characters talking for half of it which I never recruited lol One of them being the bard in the Town Hall when you first escape the cave, the other being

Spoiler

the person you need to decalcify

which I never did.

I was slightly disappointed with the ending because I didn't get a final boss fight which I prepped for but also didn't get to see the weird thing that

Spoiler

you randomly stumble upon which talks about the harvest

. Maybe I missed more dialogue with that thing but I never saw it again after I got to name it.

 

[Modron]

On achievements, twelve of my top twenty rarest achievements on Steam are now from this game:

Happens a lot when achievements are added a year (or years) after the fact.

 

[gogis]

The game has most unbearable, puzzling UI ever. Tutorial was so retarded I've disabled it immediately. Fastest refund in my history, by far. I was so angry, I wonder why developers make enticing games I most likely love and then program such retarded UI

 

[Yosharian]

I enjoyed pretty much everything about it, except sometimes the amount of combat was a drag. Sometimes.

Yeah there's way too much combat, and activating certain abilities at the start of each battle becomes extremely repetitive.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Thankfully most of the thrash combat is avoidable with stealth mechanic.

 

[Yosharian]

Thankfully most of the thrash combat is avoidable with stealth mechanic.

I mean yes but then you aren't leveling up your abilities

 

[Covenant]

Went back to this to see if the UI had improved since I last played, and it's decent enough, but man, what is with the developer's aversion to giving the player information? You try and disarm a trap: 'Failed'. Okay, so what were the consequences of me failing? Where's the message log to tell me 'Guy B got hit for 20 damage, and now he's poisoned'? And where's some indication of how close I was to success/failure? I've put literally every skillpoint I've ever had into disarming/picking locks. Did I fail to open this random cupboard twice in a row because the guy who lives here is secretly an archmage and he's used epic magic to lock his staff of power inside, or did I just roll a 1 consecutively? What's this next spell that you're apparently going to unlock? Sorry, we're not going to tell you that on the Spells menu, you have to go back to your inventory and look at your spellbook again. It's minor stuff, but there's a lot of it, and games made 20 years ago had better QoL features than this.

Other than that, combat's not bad, though there's too much of it, and too many fights so far have devolved into 'Poison/burn something and keep it perma-stunned'. Exploration is neat, but I dislike the 'Keep casting your Arcane Sight spell over and over' gimmick, and there's too much trash to find/sort through. Camping also seems pretty pointless, but I may be missing something there; I can't find the 'tiredness meter' option that it talks about in preferences (has it been removed?), and without that, there doesn't seem to be much point to stress about who's healing, who's playing music, etc, because recovery has always happened quickly and without any interruption.

I can tell it's a good game and I'm going to finish it at some point, but I get the impression that what the creator brings to the table would likely be immeasurably improved if he were to work with others instead of doing it all solo.

 

[Tyranicon]

I can tell it's a good game and I'm going to finish it at some point, but I get the impression that what the creator brings to the table would likely be immeasurably improved if he were to work with others instead of doing it all solo.

That's always going to be the double-edged sword of solodev, you lack the expertise of others, but you also don't gain their faults either.

That being said, a lot of solodevs can benefit from contractors every once in a while.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

I enjoyed the lack of direction for the most part, made me pay attention and try to discover. Although, it could use a little more. I was trying to figure something out when I unlocked Decalcify and it completely slipped my mind I had it, so I never decalcified the companion but he showed up talking in the final stage.

 

[Yosharian]

Went back to this to see if the UI had improved since I last played, and it's decent enough, but man, what is with the developer's aversion to giving the player information? You try and disarm a trap: 'Failed'. Okay, so what were the consequences of me failing? Where's the message log to tell me 'Guy B got hit for 20 damage, and now he's poisoned'? And where's some indication of how close I was to success/failure? I've put literally every skillpoint I've ever had into disarming/picking locks. Did I fail to open this random cupboard twice in a row because the guy who lives here is secretly an archmage and he's used epic magic to lock his staff of power inside, or did I just roll a 1 consecutively? What's this next spell that you're apparently going to unlock? Sorry, we're not going to tell you that on the Spells menu, you have to go back to your inventory and look at your spellbook again. It's minor stuff, but there's a lot of it, and games made 20 years ago had better QoL features than this.

Other than that, combat's not bad, though there's too much of it, and too many fights so far have devolved into 'Poison/burn something and keep it perma-stunned'. Exploration is neat, but I dislike the 'Keep casting your Arcane Sight spell over and over' gimmick, and there's too much trash to find/sort through. Camping also seems pretty pointless, but I may be missing something there; I can't find the 'tiredness meter' option that it talks about in preferences (has it been removed?), and without that, there doesn't seem to be much point to stress about who's healing, who's playing music, etc, because recovery has always happened quickly and without any interruption.

I can tell it's a good game and I'm going to finish it at some point, but I get the impression that what the creator brings to the table would likely be immeasurably improved if he were to work with others instead of doing it all solo.

Pretty much how I feel also

I will point out that Music camping buffs can get pretty good