Full from leftovers and bored out of my feeble mind, I did what I always do: scoured the Internet for free, no-nonsense videogames. You know, substance over style. Indie games and the like. That sort of thing.
Thankfully, the hunt was off to a great start once I remembered that IGF's student entries were still relatively fresh, and just begged to be lovingly inspected. Many of the more intriguing games aren't available in a playable form yet, which is admirable.
One game in particular, Cave, both scratched my "hmm, that looks interesting" itch and offered itself up as a download. Score! It's an exploration game in which you play as a boy and a girl, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. There's more to it than that, obviously, but the less I reveal, the better.
Since your sight is extremely limited, and Cave is presented in such a minimalistic way, you often have no idea where you're headed, or how to get back to where you came from and risk trying a different path; I say that as a compliment. Cave knows it's a game about exploring, and it embraces that fact.
Without spoiling anything, I'll say this: damn. More specifically: unless there is only a single ending, and it's an unpleasant one at that, I need to run through the game a second time. Here's the download page again (PC and Mac). Try it out.
Contest:
5:00 AM on 11.28.2009
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A little bit?! I guess thats what I get for having the speakers turned up even for crappy sounds.
SPOILARZ
Is that the games ending? You leave with the girl and then the darkness closes around that other girl?
Anywho, that was really good :D
Nice to hear some of you found an alternate ending. =)
I suppose I got the "good" ending, where both the girl and boy leave the cave. I got it by jumping to my death on the spikes as the boy, after seeing the girl jump to her death on the spikes. Apparently they where both alive and well in the end...
ALSO SPOILERS (garnered from Projectexodus' post):
But in all seriousness, a very enjoyable little experience, even if getting the good ending involves (metaphorically, since the whole scene was supposed to be a mindscrew) killing yourself for a girl you've known for three months. x:
Minor quibbles aside, something about the game feels very genuine, in a human sort of way. Even in the face of the girl being slower than molasses and the boy jumping really awkwardly, it didn't ever come up frustrating, always just interesting.
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