Cavern of Dreams places you in control of Flynn, a young dragon. Your mission is to explore a strange, colorful environment in pursuit of your siblings, who have been stolen by an unknown evil. This includes traversing 3D settings, figuring out how to get to new places, and learning new skills as you go. If you enjoy old-school 3D platforming games like Banjo-Kazooie and others from the Nintendo 64 era, you should keep Cavern of Dreams on your radar. Although it is fresh and new, this colorful game resembles classic platforming games - for better or worse.

We are greeted by Sage, the fairy-like creature residing in Cavern of Dreams, as soon as we can directly manage our small dragon after a short cutscene. She invites us to go through a brief tutorial and then offers us our first ability. After a quick chat, we can immediately enter the first world and complete practically all available worlds 100%, as long as we think carefully about the puzzles located there. You can obviously complete the puzzles there with the next ability in some circumstances, but it can also be avoided if you use your head and explore for alternatives. The narrative is sparse, focusing more on exploration and unraveling the puzzles scattered throughout its game world. It carries a lot of rewards when it comes to figuring things out. The worlds are small and intimate, more in line with the original Banjo-Kazooie rather than the bloated latter-day N64 platformers.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3055678989

The nicest part is that it's a game that you can recommend to everyone, regardless of age. You don't get hurt, you fall down in places, but you're set back down where you came out before, and so on. There is no blood, and the mechanics are relatively simple, making it ideal for families. You can also discover items other than your siblings or eggs on your adventure. Every world contains encyclopedia cards that provide further information on objects and/or foes. Furthermore, you come across mushrooms everywhere that you can collect and feed to your younger upcoming siblings, who should also grow big and strong, right? They even give you something after you have fed the little ones the required quantity of mushrooms, but you can find out for yourself what that is.

The game's design that I liked the most was how accommodating it was to my curiosity. Poking around corners, exploring the whole cavern, attempting to get the most out of my glides, and experimenting with in-game fruits nearly always resulted in some sort of prize or entry to a new location. You can even collect stuff in one world and carry it over to another one and I loved how different tasks would fold back and interlink to one another, like when I met a turtle who had lost his fish food, only to find the box of it halfway across the level at the end of a birdhouse platforming section. When I returned the box to him, he thanked me by feeding the fish in the pond, which gave me way to another new location in the previous Next Fest Demo. That kind of interlinking design reminded me a lot of Banjo-Kazooie's Treasure Trove Cove. Why am I talking about the demo here? Not to spoil any actual content in the game, because that's what puzzles and finding out ist all about.




Cavern of Dreams is being created by the solo developer Tyler McMaster, who works under Bynine Studio. While it inevitably lacks the funding or polish of some of its indie peers like Yooka-Laylee and Super Lucky's Tale, the passion and admiration for the Nintendo 64 era of gaming is on exhibit here. You enter a mysterious realm, are warmly welcomed, the worlds all feel rational, open and filled with lots of secrets, and you just want to explore. Sure, some gameplay difficulties and settings aren't saved when you restart the game, but who cares when the foundation is so incredibly good? The only issue is that the journey is over way too quickly.

[h1] Don't assume your dreams are just fantasy. If you can imagine a world, believe in it... and dive in.[/h1] [table] [tr] [th]Pros[/th] [th]Cons[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]✔️ Open-ended structure; Players can tackle five varied levels as they want including three smaller ones. Every level can also be completed without any ability.[/td] [td]❌ There are no graphics options, and nothing can be modified in terms of resolution, framerate, or even V-Sync. Changes to in-game settings are not currently saved and must be redone when you resume the game. This will most likely be fixed in the next update though.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]✔️ A wonderful length experience with varied worlds, riddles, and collectibles. You can also obtain tips from previously collected eggs about where you can discover another of your siblings.[/td] [td]❌ The ground pound ability is fantastic at first, but it may quickly become frustrating. That means you'll tail whip in front of you, and if you're close to a wall, you'll occasionally be bounced off of it instead of doing a ground pound.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]✔️ There are several puzzles and abilities to discover and unlock. When you have all of them, you will be able to find the majority of the secrets.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]✔️ Every song matches the theme of the individual worlds, but also manages to diversify the soundtrack as to not feel too similar to other titles of its genre. The Cavern OST near Sage is just god-like for example.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]✔️ Family-friendly; ideal for smaller children, especially because you can't take damage or die in this game.[/td] [/tr] [/table] [h1] Additional Info: [/h1] [table] [tr] [th]Content & Replay Value[/th] [th]Cavern of Dreams took me 8.1 hours to complete 100% blind, and I could have finished the playthrough about three hours less if I hadn't collected everything offered. In theory, you can deduct one hour because I was just flying about solving riddles, but not collecting anything. I don't see any reason to replay the game, unless you want to revisit the story again in the future or tackle all achievements[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Mode[/td] [td]Single Player Only[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Controller Recommended?[/td] [td]Yes[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Is it worth buying?[/td] [td]Yes[/td] [/tr] [/table] [h1] In-Depth [/h1] [h3] Story, Gameplay, Collectibles & Design [/h3] Cavern of Dreams places you in control of Flynn, a young dragon. Your mission is to explore a strange, colorful environment in pursuit of your siblings, who have been stolen by an unknown evil. This includes traversing 3D settings, figuring out how to get to new places, and learning new skills as you go. If you enjoy old-school 3D platforming games like Banjo-Kazooie and others from the Nintendo 64 era, you should keep Cavern of Dreams on your radar. Although it is fresh and new, this colorful game resembles classic platforming games - for better or worse. We are greeted by Sage, the fairy-like creature residing in Cavern of Dreams, as soon as we can directly manage our small dragon after a short cutscene. She invites us to go through a brief tutorial and then offers us our first ability. After a quick chat, we can immediately enter the first world and complete practically all available worlds 100%, as long as we think carefully about the puzzles located there. You can obviously complete the puzzles there with the next ability in some circumstances, but it can also be avoided if you use your head and explore for alternatives. The narrative is sparse, focusing more on exploration and unraveling the puzzles scattered throughout its game world. It carries a lot of rewards when it comes to figuring things out. The worlds are small and intimate, more in line with the original Banjo-Kazooie rather than the bloated latter-day N64 platformers. https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3055678989 The nicest part is that it's a game that you can recommend to everyone, regardless of age. You don't get hurt, you fall down in places, but you're set back down where you came out before, and so on. There is no blood, and the mechanics are relatively simple, making it ideal for families. You can also discover items other than your siblings or eggs on your adventure. Every world contains encyclopedia cards that provide further information on objects and/or foes. Furthermore, you come across mushrooms everywhere that you can collect and feed to your younger upcoming siblings, who should also grow big and strong, right? They even give you something after you have fed the little ones the required quantity of mushrooms, but you can find out for yourself what that is. The game's design that I liked the most was how accommodating it was to my curiosity. Poking around corners, exploring the whole cavern, attempting to get the most out of my glides, and experimenting with in-game fruits nearly always resulted in some sort of prize or entry to a new location. You can even collect stuff in one world and carry it over to another one and I loved how different tasks would fold back and interlink to one another, like when I met a turtle who had lost his fish food, only to find the box of it halfway across the level at the end of a birdhouse platforming section. When I returned the box to him, he thanked me by feeding the fish in the pond, which gave me way to another new location in the previous Next Fest Demo. That kind of interlinking design reminded me a lot of Banjo-Kazooie's Treasure Trove Cove. Why am I talking about the demo here? Not to spoil any actual content in the game, because that's what puzzles and finding out ist all about. [h3] My Specs [/h3] [code]CPU: i9 9900k GPU: RTX 2080 Ti RAM: DDR4 32 GB RAM OS: Win10 Resolution: 1440p @144hz [/code] [h3] Conclusion [/h3] Cavern of Dreams is being created by the solo developer Tyler McMaster, who works under Bynine Studio. While it inevitably lacks the funding or polish of some of its indie peers like Yooka-Laylee and Super Lucky's Tale, the passion and admiration for the Nintendo 64 era of gaming is on exhibit here. You enter a mysterious realm, are warmly welcomed, the worlds all feel rational, open and filled with lots of secrets, and you just want to explore. Sure, some gameplay difficulties and settings aren't saved when you restart the game, but who cares when the foundation is so incredibly good? The only issue is that the journey is over way too quickly. [h2] Final Verdict: 9/10 - Superb 😍 [/h2]