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

[Acrux]

I am grown man,i do have job and other family duties

 

[Strange Fellow]

"it is not advised to save your game, an error has occurred"

These were the messages that ultimately made me give up my 4 hour playthrough. I figured I'd delete the entire game and associated folders/saves, wait a few weeks, and come back with a fresh install. That was a couple weeks ago now. When did you start the game file you're referring to?

A few days after release. That's a good point, I'm probably opening myself up to a lot of potential problems because of that. I'll do what you did.

I am grown man,i do have job and other family duties,i don't want to waste hours running around checking signs and shit.

Fuck off with this bullshit. I see it all the time on the Codex and every single time it's used to justify streamlining and dumbing down. It's the exact opposite of everything this site is supposed to stand for. If you don't like old-school gaming, go play Assassin's Creed or whatever.

 

[Artyoan]

Going to quote myself from the news thread since I know a lot of people don't look there.

Yeah, the game is great. Played about 4 hours of it before deciding to wait for the bugs to be mostly squashed before going any further. When it looks like that's the case, I'll be starting a new game and hitting it hard. Still happy to support the guy. This is exactly the type of RPG I want to see coming out, and the passion is clearly there.

A word on the difficulty discussion from earlier: the game does start to ramp up in difficulty after the tutorial area despite camping still being pretty abusable. While it's not nearly as bad as was suggested in @Tyranicon's post on the matter, the camping mechanic would still benefit from further tweaking to make it less easy to abuse. Maybe later in the game there's factors that do just that, but I kind of doubt it. Hardly a deal-breaker by any means, but it's one of those areas that could be tightened up. Besides that, there is a lot to like here. I look forward to being able to properly dig in and play the shit out of it.

This game is worth paying attention to, if not supporting. And quite frankly, it's a little concerning how little attention it's gotten around here. Brings to mind how tossed-aside excellent games like Realms of Antiquity and Nox Archaist were too.

Well, I have my eye on it. I like to do a little research before I start playing anything and seeing stuff about 'it is advised not to save your game' seems like a sign to pull the trigger at a later point in time.

 

[Jinn]

Well, I have my eye on it. I like to do a little research before I start playing anything and seeing stuff about 'it is advised not to save your game' seems like a sign to pull the trigger at a later point in time.

Like I said, I started my first game only a few days after launch, as did Strange Fellow. The issues causing that pop-up could very well be fixed by now for all I know, but I certainly don't blame you for waiting. I'll probably be starting in fresh on it again in the next week or so myself.

 

[HoboForEternity]

so how's the game these days? are the bugs squashed?

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

My review
-good mechanics
-UI is slightly annoying in parts (like not all dialogs close to Esc key), but fine really
-too much trash combat if you blunder into everything, but you can dodge with stealth
-combats are quite good with damage types, stuns, lots of spells
-low pixel count artstyle choice is annoying and hipster, but the art is fairly good at times regardless, and never bad
-I don't remember seeing a single nigger character
-don't really like the "improve skill through use" mechanic as I want to improve via finite decisions and acquisitions, not grinding. Casting spells purely to level them up feels weird
-memorising spells and switching around tomes is pretty cool

Haven't played far enough to judge the lore.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Haven't played far enough to judge the lore.

I have it on good authority that the lore is primarily found in caves, if that's your interest.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

As much as I'm in awe about the enormous speed in bugfixing I'd really love to finally delve into this fine game. I only started it for 1-2 hours right at release but with the massive influx of patches and bugfixes I decided to wait until the flood recedes. Is it save to begin the game now after all these weeks? Problem is, I decided to wait in the case of Black Geyser and now, after all the time, I don't fell the slightest urge to play it as the initial élan seems to have passed. Wouldn't want this to happen to this game too.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

It's very playable now.

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

ja I only encountered 1, maybe 2 bugs in 10 hours of play.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

Ok that sounds reassuring. I think I'll give it a serious try these days.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

ja I only encountered 1, maybe 2 bugs in 10 hours of play.

I encountered plenty more in 2.

Spoiler

With sci fi mode on.

 

[barricade]

i'm almost like 10 hours into this game, only encountered one bug (that got fixed in like 20min after i contacted the developper). game is fantastic so far, most mechanics are great, especially the way you learn spells. combats also are now more challenging than they used to be. the only gripe i have with this game at the moment is the keyword dialogue system.

 

[Kalarion]

I'm about 20 hours in, I just got the graveyard key from the zombie-spawning hillock thinger, whatever it is. I can tell from the note in her grave who the librarian is, but haven't discovered it in-game yet.

I think BING XI LAO hit on most of the relevant points, I just want to chime in.

TLDR; it's great, you should buy it and play. There's some really annoying shit and it's janky af. Most of it should be easy to fix.

The Good
- It's just fucking fun. I'm trying to remember the last time I enjoyed exploring a world like this, and I'm coming up blank for the moment. The Exiles, maybe? It really nails the feeling of someone plopped into the middle of a situation he doesn't understand, slowly unraveling what's going on. I have a genuine appreciation of a huge scope of history. It's really cool, I never thought I'd play a game that could make me do more than roll my eyes "like bro, this world is like, so deep bro, it's like, historical bro, too much bro wow". But this one's done it so far.
- Exploration is amazing. There's always some new branch of the eponymous caves opening up, some new stretch of overworld to explore, some new crypt that you just figured out how to get into. One thing I really enjoy (and am frustrated by, more on this later) are how exploration is tied into the world's history and its cosmology. Certain areas, passages, doors, treasures etc are tied to things like which of four moons is shining, their alignment with each other, etc. Others are tied to interaction with different objects, sometimes in completely different zones. Books and notes found ingame may mention areas you can later find and explore. Each character has a special exploration-related ability. In practice so far only one of them has a big gameplay effect, but the others are convenient in various cases.
- The minimap is well-done for the most part (more on this later too...). It gives exactly the level of detail needed to jog your memory when something you've just seen/read starts to bug you, "man didn't I see something earlier related to that while exploring...?". There's also an auto-(not fast-)travel option and auto-marking of gathering spots. Convenient without being popamole.
- Combat. 6 man party, facing anything from 4 to a dozen creatures, nicely sized combat map, tons of skills, fights can be unexpectedly deadly. You can set your party's formation, with position making a small difference (modifying initiative depending on where the char is set). Each char also has 2-3 unique combat skills that can gain an evolved form.
- Character development, for the most part (more on this later three...). You pick your stats at the beginning, they don't change except through special events or temporary buffs (usually from camping). There are a dozen universal skills, then each ability and spell is a skill on its own. Levelups give skill points, and occasionally trait points (passive bonuses) and ability points (active skills). Nice and crunchy.
- The keyword-based dialogue system. There, I said it.

The Bad
- The UI is a mess. Sometimes mousing over something pops a tooltip. Sometimes it doesn't. How do you tell which is which? Fuck if I know. Tooltips themselves are sometimes sparse to the point of uselessness. Hotkeys don't always work as expected; "I", for instance, doesn't necessarily open the inventory. It opens the char screen of the last selected character. If you were currently on the inventory, it goes there. If you were looking at spells, it goes there instead. What? Why? The current position of the moons is displayed, which is important (see the exploration section, above). But which moon is which is difficult to figure out.
- Instructions/mechanics explanations are not well-documented. There are some tutorial hints available. Stats get a bare-bones explanation. Items reference stats/skills/effects with zero context. An item has an enchantment "Flanking: 5". What? Does that mean a bonus when flanking? A bonus to some flanking skill? Is it resistance to flanking? How exactly do skills work? Sometimes it's explained adequately, most times not. Is Survival (affects camping somehow?) only useful for the lead character when setting up camp? Or does everyone benefit? What does Survival do for camping? Music? Tend Wounds? What does the Chilled effect do? Why do I get an icon over my char when casting Resist spells, but not En-spells (this one is annoying af, since En-spells can wear off)? And on and on. For a game this mechanics-heavy, there really needs to be some kind of consistent in-game documentation. I don't care if it's done via extensive tooltips or an in-game manual or what, it just needs to be available.
- The combat map is kind of a mess. It has a lot of tile graphics that don't clearly convey their effect. There's a tree on the map. Does it affect LOS? Sometimes. Can I move through it? Well, it depends. Your char will try to go around it during movement. Otoh usually you can move directly on top of it if you click it (this is hilarious when you move on top of, say, a wall). Why? Who knows. This means that, no matter what the tiles look like, the entire map is effectively open as far as movement is concerned. No possibility to setup chokepoints etc, except using characters as blockers. Many's the time I tried to target something I thought was clearly in sight, only to be told by the game it wasn't. Do characters or enemies affect LOS? Maybe. There have been times I couldn't target and the only thing I could think of that blocked was another character, yet normally I can fire through them etc. Wtf?
- One very specific gripe (related to documentation I guess). It took me awhile to figure out how auto-travel works. That should be explained somewhere.
- Camping is in general very badly explained and doesn't work as advertised. You have roles that can be set, including keeping watch for enemies, but in practice there's no need because enemies can't initiate combat while you're in camp. They just sit there right next to you and wait for you to rest up, full hp/mp, and break camp. You can set someone to tend wounds, but what does that do? You can also have someone play music, which I finally figured out gives random stat bonuses (no idea how they're determined). It is effectively a free refill mechanic. Not good as it is.
- There needs to be some way to store lore obtained. The game already gives you a Codex, it should be used to keep track of what you've read so far. Or, it should allow you to take your own notes. There should be at least a basic explanation of the lunar cycle given its importance to exploration. Normally for stuff like this I'd just keep my own notes in Notepad++ or w/e, but that can't really be done in this game because it auto-minimizes every time you click outside the window. Leaving fullscreen causes wonky window resizing that can't later be fixed (selecting the option to go back to fullscreen doesn't work).
- "Learn by doing" in a game with this many skills sucks, especially since (as Bing Xi Lao pointed out) spells are locked behind grimoires, each with their own progression paths to learn all their spells (on its own a really fun mechanic).

The Ugly
- The inventory is an absolute nightmare. You can auto-sort by specific selectable item type (weapon, armor etc). Great! Except oh wait all that does is bring that one item type to the top of the inventory, and everything else is left a huge unsorted mess. Further sorts just place the newly selected item type up top. To get anything like a decent sort, you have to mentally decide for yourself what order you'd like every item type to show in, and then click them all. Then you do some adventuring, sell old shit, drink pots etc, everything is a mess again and you've got to do that mental arithmetic and re-click the sorts. Again. And again. And again. Bags have space for storage. Great again! Except oh wait if you put anything in a bag it effectively ceases to exist in the game world, unless you take it out again. Want to turn in items for a quest that are in a backpack? Won't work, take it out first. God help you if you've forgotten you had the required item in a backpack in the first place . Pick up a stackable item that's in a backpack in your inventory? It goes to the main inventory. Want to stack it yourself? Pull it out of the backpack, because you can't auto-stack inside a storage container, period. Pull it out to main, stack in main, place back in storage. Repeat ad nauseum. In a game where you only deal with maybe a dozen items at a time this probably isn't a big deal, but in this game you can expect to be juggling 100+ items all the time. So those storage containers are kinda necessary to help you keep everything organized. This needs fixing, badly.
- In-combat pathfinding is atrocious. Pro-tip: never ever ever ever ever click-to-attack for ranged attacks if you're outside of range. Click to move to a space in attack range first, then click to attack. Otherwise it's a 50/50 gamble whether the pathfinding will make sense. I frequently got one of my characters killed learning that lesson, as she would walk to within a space of her target before firing, sometimes going in front of my fighters. For melee it's also a gamble, just not usually as painful. Which is not to say I don't get at least 2-3 instances per session of my melee character wandering aimlessly, using up all movement points, and ending 3 spaces away from any enemies, when all I wanted was for the fucker to walk one space diagonal and whack something .
- Crafting. I have all these materials I've picked up. I have a skill specifically for crafting. And yet, the only place I can actually do it is at the alchemy station in Kalindraur, for potions. Everything else is done by proxy through various NPCs. The effects of crafts themselves are very poorly explained and don't encourage risk-taking. Using Iron on a weapon increases its max damage. Silver makes the weapon more effective against the undead. Cool! But if I use Iron on a weapon either already Silver, or turned to Silver by my crafting, does it change the weapon back to Iron? Fuck if I know, and I'm very leery of trying considering it takes a shitload of the given metal and ores don't respawn. Enchanting makes no sense at all to me. It uses Manatite, great. How do I add an enchantment? If I "intensify", does that just give a +1? Change the effect? I have no idea, and again, I'm very leery about experimentation given scarcity. Why can't I modify equipped items? Given the nightmare that is the inventory, it is very aggravating to have to take all the equipment off, modify it, then re-equip it. This badly needs a change.

My complaints notwithstanding I'm having a great time, more to follow as I get farther.

LoreMaster do you still read this thread? I hope so, you deserve huge props for what you've made.

 

[Replicante]

is there a hotkey for delaying turn in battle I do wonder?

 

[Kalarion]

Not really. You can skip your turn completely. Or you can delay the current char's turn by one spot in the turn order. This comes close, but it only works as an actual turn delay if you have no one else that's delaying. There is no proper "wait" command.

 

[Kalarion]

LoreMaster continues to work on the game. Some updates:
- Camping now risks an ambush if there are monsters nearby. It also has expanded waiting options, related to moon phase. Huge incline.
- There's a bare-bones in-game explanation for the way the moons and their phases work. Figuring out the specifics has been a lot of fun, so fun (for me at least) that I'm not going to spoil it ITT .
- The window doesn't auto-minimize anymore. This might seem small but it's very helpful when I have to take my own notes, it allows me to take screenshots and look at the game screen while writing stuff.
- Stealth is no longer auto-avoid, monsters can still initiate combat if they hit your party (previously while in stealth you didn't fight ever).

Other observations:
- It turns out new Traits are unlocked by gaining specific knowledge about each monster in the game. You get one Trait unlock per monster. Very cool system, very frustrating that I had to read about it on Caves of Lore's Steam discussions.

Still janky, still fun. I took a long break but I'm trying to finish the game now, I'll have more to say once I've beaten it.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

very frustrating that I had to read about it on Caves of Lore's Steam discussions.

Could have sworn the in-game help explains this somewhere. FYI none of the abilities are super game changing except perhaps the mana regen ones, and they're just nice to have.

 

[Falksi]

LoreMaster continues to work on the game. Some updates:
- Camping now risks an ambush if there are monsters nearby. It also has expanded waiting options, related to moon phase. Huge incline.
- There's a bare-bones in-game explanation for the way the moons and their phases work. Figuring out the specifics has been a lot of fun, so fun (for me at least) that I'm not going to spoil it ITT .
- The window doesn't auto-minimize anymore. This might seem small but it's very helpful when I have to take my own notes, it allows me to take screenshots and look at the game screen while writing stuff.
- Stealth is no longer auto-avoid, monsters can still initiate combat if they hit your party (previously while in stealth you didn't fight ever).

Other observations:
- It turns out new Traits are unlocked by gaining specific knowledge about each monster in the game. You get one Trait unlock per monster. Very cool system, very frustrating that I had to read about it on Caves of Lore's Steam discussions.

Still janky, still fun. I took a long break but I'm trying to finish the game now, I'll have more to say once I've beaten it.

Nice.

I assume he's still working on it further still?

I really love the look of this game, but want to play it when it's at it's peak, not whilst it's still on it's way there.

 

[LoreMaster]

LoreMaster do you still read this thread?

I do still read this!. I really like your summary. I think you were off on just a few minor things that really come down to one of the big issues that I need to address: which is that I don't explain anything. I am absolutely still working on the game. The points you bring up are well known to me, and I am going through them one by one. I have a massive list of things to improve or add. As a solo dev I have to split time between my full time job, a second side hustle and family w/kids. I'm the kind of person that tends to get in over my head, but also the kind that doesn't give up. Healthy criticism is really important, and I'm glad you are enjoying the game despite the bad and ugly.

Lately, a lot more of my time has been taken up by controller support than I would have like, but once that is done I am going to dive into an in-game instruction manual, and of course addressing many of the others issues you mentioned.

Also, a GoG release is coming real soon.

If you have any specific questions or issues I am more that happy to address them here.

 

[Kalarion]

Ok, I still hate the inventory system.

But I did a huge amount of crawling (basically the entire Athenaeum > Bleak Halls system, for those who are playing), came back with like 9 pages of stuff. It was exhausting just looking at it every time I opened the inventory, I hated it. But the feeling I had on finally buckling down and sorting all of it, and realizing I'd completed two sets of Unique armor that I could instantly plop onto my fighter and rogue, in addition to a bunch of other upgrades (some huge) for other chars, was... well it's hard to describe.

Also I'd like to retract most of my criticism of the moon rune system. It turns out reading the runes properly gets an in-game explanation later in the game, in addition to a helper spell/skill that makes it somewhat less painful. That turns it from aggravating (because I thought I'd just have to muddle through and brute-force the understanding on my own with no explanation) to even more cool (it gives a big incentive to go re-exploring old areas, and the feeling of everything clicking into place was great). And it's worth it, moon rune treasure is by far the best you can get, so each new find was awesome.

It still asks you to waste a lot of time waiting on lunar alignments, but I'm not really sure how to "fix" that without losing the desired feeling. Also I'd like some information to be displayed while mousing over the astrolabe, even if it's only something like the current time or a key to which moon is which.

Monster respawns were greatly reduced, another huge incline. I'd like to see a little less combat overall, just because you get flooded with it right now and I feel like the majority of the joy of this game is in exploring and the small interactions with the environment. Too much combat breaks you out of that. Although don't get me wrong combat is fun (if janky), especially when you run into new stuff.

 

[LoreMaster]

Ok, I still hate the inventory system.

But I did a huge amount of crawling (basically the entire Athenaeum > Bleak Halls system, for those who are playing), came back with like 9 pages of stuff. It was exhausting just looking at it every time I opened the inventory, I hated it. But the feeling I had on finally buckling down and sorting all of it, and realizing I'd completed two sets of Unique armor that I could instantly plop onto my fighter and rogue, in addition to a bunch of other upgrades (some huge) for other chars, was... well it's hard to describe.

Also I'd like to retract most of my criticism of the moon rune system. It turns out reading the runes properly gets an in-game explanation later in the game, in addition to a helper spell/skill that makes it somewhat less painful. That turns it from aggravating (because I thought I'd just have to muddle through and brute-force the understanding on my own with no explanation) to even more cool (it gives a big incentive to go re-exploring old areas, and the feeling of everything clicking into place was great). And it's worth it, moon rune treasure is by far the best you can get, so each new find was awesome.

It still asks you to waste a lot of time waiting on lunar alignments, but I'm not really sure how to "fix" that without losing the desired feeling. Also I'd like some information to be displayed while mousing over the astrolabe, even if it's only something like the current time or a key to which moon is which.

Monster respawns were greatly reduced, another huge incline. I'd like to see a little less combat overall, just because you get flooded with it right now and I feel like the majority of the joy of this game is in exploring and the small interactions with the environment. Too much combat breaks you out of that. Although don't get me wrong combat is fun (if janky), especially when you run into new stuff.

Good feedback. I'll be using your critiques to make improvements going forward.

 

[Infinitron]

Coming to GOG: https://af.gog.com/game/caves_of_lore?as=1649904300

 

[LoreMaster]

Coming to GOG: https://af.gog.com/game/caves_of_lore?as=1649904300

The release date will be Monday, May 22nd.

 

[Tacgnol]

I've been playing this a little bit, not a great deal to add to what Kalarion has mentioned as that seems pretty spot on.

I gather this was very buggy at release, but I've not really noticed any outright issues yet so it seems as though most of these issues have been resolved.

Overall it seems a good game with some frustrations (that the dev still seems to be tweaking and working on). Also, I'm not normally a huge fan of pixel art, but it's quite charming in this game.