Thank you Adam D. Smith for providing us with a review code!

It’s interesting that my first 2021 game is retro-themed. Seems like the classics are hard to let go. Developed mostly by a single man, Lost Caves is a 2D retro platformer created by Adam D. Smith (also listed in-game as ADSentertainment). Lost Caves stars Michael Miner as he explores for lost gold. As he explores the mines, it collapses, causing him to be stuck inside. The good news is that he’ll be able to plunder all of its treasures—that is if he stays alive long enough to secure them.

In true retro fashion, you’re simply thrown into the game and you’re left to find out how the controls function yourself. Adam recommends that a controller is best used, although I didn’t experience any troubles with keyboard functionality. The controls are easy to grasp as the only things to do are move, jump, attack with your pickaxe, and open chests. The only reason that comes to mind as to why controllers are commended is that in some areas, Micheal uses the light on his helmet to navigate dark areas. The light itself has eight-directional movement controlled the same way as movement is, and in my experience playing, was best controlled with a D-pad or control stick. Even so, all button prompts are displayed with a keyboard in mind whether a controller is plugged in or not. Whatever method you use, the controls are sharp and responsive—as expected of a platformer.

As stated previously, the main goal of Lost Caves is to collect treasure in an “open-world adventure-styled” method with a hub world to connect the areas. People who have played The Great Cave Offensive subgame of Kirby Super Star will be very familiar with Lost Caves’ structure. Each piece of treasure collected in Lost Caves has specific numerical values. The easier the treasure can be obtained, the lesser value it has, and the opposite holds. There are five different rankings, ranging from copper to diamond and each rank unlocks a new area for you. Defeated enemies also drop gold coins, which contribute negligibly to your rank, as well as currency that can be used to permanently upgrade your health.

With a simple premise and control scheme, one would think that the levels are simple too. On the contrary, the levels can get pretty complex. Some of the hardest treasures to obtain require knowledge of enemy placement, how Micheal interacts with certain objects, and finding cracks within the walls to unveil secrets. All the stages feel different from each other and in some of them, you can either bait enemies to press switches or bounce on invulnerable enemies Ducktales/Shovel Knight style to cross bottomless pits. I enjoy the complexity of the levels and that there are multiple methods or paths to deal with situations. It's always easy to backtrack and take a new path to collect any treasures missed, and every area (with the exception of the final area) loops back to its beginning.

The 2D sprites are a mix of 8-bit and 16-bit. The 16-bit sprites mostly consist of background art, some terrain, and certain enemies, while the 8-bit sprites are of the other enemies and treasure. I feel for the most part that the 8-bit sprites clash with the 16-bit ones since they both consist of the same resolution. It’s really easy to tell them apart. In motion, the mix of both can make it somewhat difficult to focus on certain aspects. This comes to the biggest issue—when you browse through the treasure menu that shows the treasures collected, they are enlarged and look messy. The cave colors consist of mostly browns, but there are temples colored blue and silver to spice up the pallet every once in a while.

In terms of music, I think it is pretty solid. There are a few tracks in the game, with the soundtracks taking more inspiration from the 16-bit era than the 8-bit era. It’s both energetic and mysterious. The sound effects for swinging the pickaxe, jumping, and enemies are crisp and distinct.

Lost Caves isn’t a particularly buggy game, and the few glitches I found I had to go out of my way to experience them. A few strange interactions with enemies or traps can cause them to lock up. There is one softlock that happened, but it requires specific interaction with a specific enemy in a specific place. Unless you’re simply messing around, it should never happen in normal gameplay. Overall, they are all minor. When I experienced the softlock, a simple quit and re-entry took care of it. How saving works is that the game saves with either each transition into a new stage or interaction with a special pillar, so I barely lost progress when the softlock happened. The save system also acts as the checkpoint system so make sure you save whenever you can.

As for moral warnings or concerns, there are a few. Many of the enemies that you face are pretty supernatural, such as skeleton creatures, flying skeleton heads, slimes, and a weird floating eye called a speyeker. Some of the traps are stained in blood. At first, I thought it was rust due to some of it being more of a dull red color, but considering the context, it’s safe to say it is blood. Strangely, none of the creatures when attacked draw any blood and are dispatched in a cartoon-like fashion. In the options menu exists an option to toggle the blood on or off. Michael himself only tumbles off-stage when all lives are lost.

For about $6, you’ll get anywhere between two to five hours of gameplay, depending on how long it takes for you to complete all the treasures. It’s pretty surprising just how much variety Adam Smith was able to to put into a rather simple premise. I was left pleasantly surprised with Lost Caves. The biggest concern with the game from a moral standpoint is probably its violent imagery but is very tame outside of it. If you or another person are fans of retro platformers that are not too easy but not too hard, Lost Caves is a great choice.