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.
Published: Nov 28, 2009 05:00 am