Recently I got a chance to play some Cavern Kings by Vine. I am going to go ahead and do something that I hate doing but will then “flesh out” that comment a bit more. At first glance the game seems to be extremely similar to Risk of Rain which is published by Chucklefish. Cavern Kings is listed as a Action, Casual, Indie game. The game has features of a Rogue-Lite style game as RoR was. Now the game is of course an Early Access game so many of the things I touch on are subject to change and ARE NOT reflections of the final product.
Cavern Kings while listed as a casual game seems to be a very hardcore game. It currently has no Multiplayer and that is one of the things I feel made Risk of Rain a popular and successful game. Don’t get me wrong the gameplay of both of these games are fantastic. The store page for Cavern Kings does list Online MP as an upcoming feature so I think that will really push this game further along. The biggest difference that I can see in the current game are that different classes in RoR play well different where from what I have played of the starting character and the character I unlocked were that they have no activate-able abilities and only have a passive. The starting character being Jack, says he is a jack of all trades. Doesn’t really help much. Then Misha, which gets more attack speed as they lose health. Where in RoR each character was entirely different.
Then in Risk of Rain you have fairly large levels with statues, events, and shops to spend any currency you find. Where Cavern Kings has a 1 map large screen and you dig/delve below into the next map. Layouts are different and you have different biomes. Such as snow biomes where you slide, underwater biomes where you move slowly but you have infinite jump, and move faster when jumping, then what appears to be the regular grassland biome. You can occasionally find a crate to destroy which can have health packs, power-ups, or gyms in them after you destroy them. Cavern Kings does have gems that you collect from the mobs you kill, and you can spend them on chests to unlock them to get power-ups.
Power-ups work the same way as in RoR. It seemed power-ups varied the deeper you went. Having multiples of the same power-up meant you had that many working at once. At one point I in a playthrough I had 11 of the missle powerup. Just lots and lots of explosions. Many explosions and it was a beautiful thing. I could use hear beethoven playing in my head as my missiles and attacks destroyed any and all of the things….
As you progress through the levels you get a few different events, very few. I fought a mecha worm and an eyeball boss of some sorts. Ive had to dig into hardcore blocks to break and sometimes I would get minions to kill that had keys and would have to get the key to the lock in order to get to the next level. Now the big thing here when advancing levels your timed basically as once your on a level to long a giant wall of drills starts pressing down towards you destroying all in it’s way. Touching it is instant death. So you farm while you can, and move on. There is often strategy to be had in using the wall of death moving ever so gloomily toward you.
The weapons… When you first start up the game you get to pick a character. You only have one character at first which is Jack. You also get to see any statues you’ve earned. Basically in game rewards/achievements, and of course… Your melee weapon/dig tool. I’ve come across three. A shovel, a jackhammer, and a pressure hammer or something. My favorite is the shovel, I don’t care for the jackhammer because it seems weak in damage and was just annoying to use. The pressure hammer was even worse however you could use it as an extra jump or a way to move faster across a level. I often found the pressure hammer got my killed more than it did help me. Then once you dig to your first level you get your weapon. A nail gun which is this games machine gun, a rail gun, and a saw-blade launcher or so it looked. The saw-blade and nail gun were great but I hate… hate…hated the rail-gun. It knocks you back when you use it and fires slowly. It does however have a longer reach than the other 2 and has piercing damage. It doesn’t fit my play style well though but I can see how others could use it.
The deepest I made it was floor 18 so far in my few hours of play. I have really enjoyed the game and haven’t come across any bugs that I am aware of. My biggest issue with the game is that there is no options for the game and there is no control scheme setup or even anything that tells you what the buttons are. So I really hope that is something Vine brings to us before the final release of the game. I went into this game with no idea what it really was. I saw the art style and was like this looks awesome. When I got into the game I was a little weary of whether or not I was going to like it as all I could think of was Risk Of Rain… Risk of Rain, but as I played it really set itself apart so I applaud Vine on that. I cannot wait to see where this game takes us as it goes through development!
We give this game a Drastik Measure 8.2/10
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