Indie Game of the Week 478: Cavern of Dreams

In many ways, I am a sick man. Specifically in this case, it's because I'm right in the eye of the storm of a N64 3D platformer-athon (or a collectathon-athon if you'd prefer) taking place in June and September of this year, and yet I couldn't help but squeeze in this Indie love letter to that specific genre and era just to tide me over. Cavern of Dreams joins several other explicitly N64-coded (and animal-starring) throwbacks like Macbat 64 or Snake Pass, working not only within the confines of their collectible-heavy vaguely open-level structure but often the visuals and production chops that Nintendo's third console could muster on a good day with the wind behind it. Cavern of Dreams features the tiny dragon Fynn as he attempts to rescue his unhatched siblings from a rampaging bat artist who has distributed them all across various realms connected to the titular cave hub.

Very reminiscent of Click Clock Wood, except we're permanently locked in autumn here. No skin off my back though, since that's my favorite season. Just two more months...

Cavern of Dreams has a simplicity to it that actually belies some mechanics that take a bit more getting used to and puzzles that tend towards unorthodox solutions, drawing you into a false impression from its outwardly kid-friendly charms. As you continue to find the eggs across these levels you unlock new abilities, and the way the game is set up is that you can always 100% clear a level the first time you enter it—the exception being the hub, which becomes gradually more accessible as you acquire these power-ups including entrances to new levels—but choosing to come back later with a few more upgrades will make getting the remaining collectibles that much easier. These upgrades include abilities like a glide, a swipe for breakable walls, a horn stomp which can destroy floors and also make you bounce higher than normal, and eventually a means to shoot enemies (albeit in a pacifying manner rather than destroying them).

Your egg hunts might range from being as basic as a platforming sequence to solving riddles or using an item from the environment; the game takes after Banjo-Tooie more often than not with some of the more elaborate solutions to these challenges, which may or may not sound like your kind of thing given that game's divisive reputation. The last level in particular gets kinda surreal with both its premise and the range of tasks it lays out in front of you, and also much more troll-y with the way it drops you into different parts of the level upon failure forcing you to make your way back to where you fell. It's a game that doesn't just embrace the nostalgia of playing these genial mascot platformers with their modest attempts at 3D level design but also recreates the way they could be devious or weird in playing against your expectations, again for better or worse. If nothing else, it feels like a more accurate recreation of what many 3D platformers and their more experimental design choices actually felt like back then absent the rose-tinted glasses (as someone who is, to reiterate, playing a whole lot of mid N64 platformers this year I'm getting more of a sense of what it's putting down).

The mid-air sapient battleship level (called Mr. Kerrington for some reason) is reminiscent of Clanker's Cavern. It also employs that neat trick from Breath of the Wild where you can tilt it one way or the other to make some areas/collectibles easier to reach.

As much as I admire Cavern of Dreams for not just taking the easy route of a wholesome if not particularly memorable time of just running around collecting all kinds of colorful crap I will say that its little tricks and trials can start to grate after a while. I am someone for whom Banjo-Tooie was not an improvement over the original and while I certainly don't mind having to think occasionally in games like this there's a certain sweaty "am I supposed to be able to make this jump or am I going about this wrong?" recurring scenario that arises with games as rough and tumble as this that can lead to occasional frustration. On the other hand, the game's handful of levels are relatively svelte in their size which helps minimize the amount of "where the heck is the last one of these?" scavenger hunts that might hit something like a Banjo-Tooie or Donkey Kong 64 with their enormous levels, and always having the option to come back to a tricky level with more upgrades that might trivialize an otherwise tough challenge is a welcome ace in one's sleeve to fall back on. Its more meta elements sometimes reminded me of Psychonauts and the way it'd suddenly get real dark on you if you poked around the wrong area; not quite like one of those "cursed ROM hack" projects but sometimes approaching a similar vibe. Not enough to scare off any little ones I wouldn't think (at least no more than the obtuse puzzles might).

Cavern of Dreams has some eccentric qualities that help it stick out and stay memorable in a market of Indie throwback 3D platformers that are always going to struggle to stand out from one another, or surpass something as popular as A Hat in Time, but on the other hand the traits that distinguish it also serve to make it a confusing mess at times. Would it have been better served playing the 3D platformer paradigm perfectly straight? Not at all, since it would've otherwise vanished without a trace in a sea of Super Mario 64 imitators, but at the same time I can't fullheartedly commend all its quirks and pitfalls. Pitfalls, in this case, like hiding collectibles behind invisible walls or requiring you to leave the current level to an earlier one to fetch a specific item you need (and to not accidentally drop it along the way by accidentally pressing the attack button). In its efforts to provide something a bit divergent from its contemporaries but entirely within the contours of the idiosyncratic game design philosophy exhibited by many of those N64 platformers, it can feel like you're getting too much of the bad along with the good.

How dedicated to providing an authentic N64 experience is this game? Well, there's this blur filter right here that makes everything barely legible. Just needs a fog slider that also secretly lowers draw distance and it's like we're right back in 1997.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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