I’m always excited to see a Double Fine game pop up in this list. They are one of my favourite studios just based on the strength of their writing and humour alone. The interesting paradox of Double Fine, however, is that, however much I enjoy their writing, the games usually fall a bit flat in their actual gameplay elements. Broken Age had a compelling world and structure, but fell too hard into the negative tropes of point and clicks. Brutal Legend had an outstanding world and writing, but fell completely flat with its RTS elements. I love Double Fine, but it’s always a hedged love, of knowing I will enjoy the game until I get too bogged down in the mechanics for the writing and world to continue carrying me along.

I’m feeling judged already.

The Cave is a puzzle-platformer. You play as a group of three characters exploring a cave. Like most Double Fine games, however, this is no ordinary cave. It is instead a cave that narrates the various characters’ journeys as they explore less of a cave, and more of a venture through their own psyches. Each of the three characters in the group has their own section of the cave to explore and their own story to tell.

The characters progress through their stories through a combination of puzzle-solving and platforming. Both elements are fairly simple and straightforward, with characters using various items they find in a level to unlock new areas and progress through the level. The puzzles are less logic puzzles and more application of items puzzles, but they are generally easy to understand and solve. In some ways, this ease of solving them makes the game feel like the puzzles themselves are not the point, but instead, that the process of moving through the stories is the point. However, if this were the case, I’d expect the stories to be compelling in and of themselves, and pull the player forward on their own merits. As good as the individual line writing is, the stories themselves and the story as a whole aren’t strong enough to be that compulsion.

The cave is beautiful, though.

It’s worth considering why the various elements of the game aren’t compelling enough to really drive the player forward. The player plays as a group of three characters, chosen from a larger group at the outset. Each character has their own abilities and their own story, and helps solve the problems the group faces in their own unique way. In my playthrough, for example, I used the adventurer, the time traveler, and the hillbilly. The adventure can swing from certain ledges, the hillbilly can breathe underwater, and the time traveler can teleport (some abilities are just better than others). Levels are solved through the use both of these special abilities, and through the liberal application of teamwork.

It cannot be understated how impressive it actually is that the levels are engaging with a wide variety of abilities. The time traveler’s teleport ability should break traditional puzzles, but in The Cave, that ability tends to augment puzzle-solving rather than completely circumventing it. It isn’t enough to just be able to teleport around a barrier. The player has to navigate a delicate dance of teleporting with the realities of needing multiple people and multiple items on the other side of whatever barrier the group is facing. The same is true of other abilities. The level design does an excellent job not only of mitigating the more powerful abilities, but not feeling arbitrary in how it does so. It invites the player to use these abilities, but still presents a puzzle on the other side.

The cave art is also fun.

In needing to accommodate a variety of abilities, though, the puzzles also have to be built to be solved without these abilities. While there are specialised levels designed around specific characters’ abilities, the more general levels must necessarily be simpler because they can’t assume any particular combination of characters. The ultimate outcome of this is that the core gameplay element - the puzzles - are overly simple, because they don’t know what abilities the player will or will not have access to. Coupled with this, level navigation outside the specific character levels is also very simple, and must be repeated for every character in the group. This translates into the same area being slowly traversed at least three times as each individual character makes their way through it. At some point, clever though the narration is, and fun though the world may be, the mechanics themselves become tedious.

It is a very fun world, though.

Similarly, the combination of characters makes it difficult for there to be a cohesive overall story. Instead, it becomes the story of these three adventurers, and each of their individual narratives. Their stories are told partly through cave art found throughout the cave, and partly through their individual levels. However, because the cave art is hidden, it’s entirely possible to reach a character’s level before their narrative has been explored through the art. I reached the hillbilly’s level, for example, well before his story was explored through the cave art. This meant I had no real context for any of bits of the level I was encountering, nor did it feel like he necessarily had development or resolution to his arc. The level was well-done, and I had fun, but there was no narrative satisfaction to it. These were just the actions that were taken to continue the exploration of the cave.

I’m never one to say no to treasure, though.

It’s this play with the traditional mechanics of the genre that are both The Cave’s strength and its undoing. Telling a story with three protagonists who must work together to solve puzzles is compelling and interesting, and it allows for fun and interesting combinations. However, the variability of those protagonists and needing to plan around their individual nuances also means that puzzle design has to be simplified. This results in simple puzzles that become tedious to navigate. Telling three discrete stories also makes it difficult to have cohesion or a single narrative thread. It leads to stories being told out of order and incompletely.

I can’t really condemn The Cave, though. Flawed though its mechanics and storytelling may be, its humour and the strength of its writing, like with most Double Fine games, keep me hooked and enjoying myself. It has a unique look and feel to it that match perfectly with its sense of humour and writing. Flawed though it may be, it is still a fun little game, at least until the mechanics become too tedious.

Developer: Double Fine Productions

Genre: Puzzle, Platform

Year: 2013

Country: United States

Language: English

Play Time: 4-5 Hours

Youtube: https://youtu.be/u0sHz6TxE2Q