Cave Bad (Switch, $1.99)

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Cave Bad logo

Cave Bad is an overhead dungeon crawler with ROGUE elements.  Cave Bad is fun but very, very, VERY short.  Run through the mazes, defeat the bosses, and the game ends.  The game is FUN, but over much too quickly — each dungeon floor appears to consist of just 10 or so standard rooms, with a power-up room, shop room, and boss room.  Beat the boss and you can advance to the next floor.  Do this five times and the game ends.

Cave Bad - gameplay

While the basic gameplay (reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda or The Binding of Isaac) is quite fun, there just isn’t much to it.  Levels are randomly generated, but there isn’t much reason to go back once you finish the game.

It’s possible to extend the gameplay a bit by going “out of bounds” — bomb  any wall at the edge of the map to find endless (?) caverns of randomly generated monsters, as well as special items numbered 1 through 5.  Collect all five to face a bonus boss — and then the game ends.

Cave Bad isn’t bad — just short.  I’d hesitate to suggest it at any price above $2.00.

Cave Bad — $4.99 MSRP on the Nintendo eShop.

By Pandia Indie Studio, published by eastasiasoft.  Available on the Switch, PS4, PS5, and Xbox One.

 

 

The Wizard’s Back…

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So there was a MINOR hiatus here at Wizard Needs Food, but all is mostly back to normal…

Now, back to reviewing the obscure and esoteric!

Ant-Gravity: Tiny’s Adventure ($1.00)

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For some reason, Black Friday sales on the eShop resulted in FEWER games being dirt cheap, and so we’re up to a full DOLLAR for Ant-Gravity: Tiny’s Adventure.

Ant-Gravity, by QUByte Game Studio, is a simple platformer with a twist — you can press the L or R buttons to rotate the stage around yourself.  Tapping a shoulder button rotates the entire stage 90 degrees.  All you have to do is reach the exit by walking, jumping, and rotating the screen.  The game also allows you to use motion controls to rotate the stage — shake the Joycon left or right to rotate the screen.

While the screen rotation is different, the basic gameplay is very generic — I was tired of it before finishing the first stage.  It has a different little gimmick, but it’s still a tired platformer at heart.

Ant-Gravity: Tiny’s Adventure: $1.00 on the eShop.

Ludo Mania ($0.04)

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Ludo Mania, by Baltoro Games, lets you play ludo (a.k.a. “pachisi”/Parcheesi) with three other people or computer players.  All the standard options are there, so if you really want to play Parchisi, it’s only four cents!

Four different variations are available, each with slightly different rules — but nothing that is really out of the ordinary.  The game does include full instructions for playing each variant, which is nice.

Ludo Mania does have a few glaring design flaws, such as:

  • There is no way to speed up turns.  The rolling/movement mechanic is fairly slow, and you can’t speed up the movement animations.  This means that a lot of time is spent waiting for the game to slowly move pieces around the board.
  • There is no touch screen support.
  • In multiplayer, all controllers do exactly the same thing.  To roll, you need to press the A button.  No matter who’s turn it is, pressing A on any controller rolls the dice.

There really isn’t much reason to play this on the Switch.  It’s cheap, and it basically works… so, in a way, this is really one of the better “dirt cheap” games I’ve played on the Switch.

Ludo Mania : 4 cents on the Nintendo eShop.

Seeders Puzzle Reboot ($0.09)

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Seeders is a physics puzzle game, fairly simply in its style and gameplay, but not the worst thing you could buy for 9 cents.  You must make your way through many simply environmental puzzles, pushing blocks onto switches, hopping over spikes, and generally trying to get from point A to B.  Nothing is really “new” in Seeders, but if you’re looking for a simple little obstacle puzzle game, you might enjoy it.  It’s sort of a side scrolling, more action-based game that seems inspired by titles like Sokoban, Chip’s Challenge, and the like.

The graphical style is very, very simple.  While there is a bit of “very retro PC” charm to it, it’s worth noting that your character rolls around on his skateboard without any real animation.

There is a two player mode, which I didn’t try.  I must also confess that I didn’t really stick with this game for that long — I only through about 1/8th of story mode, if I’m reading the level descriptions correctly.  The game just wasn’t that fun, but I could see it being more interesting to those with a penchant for old PC puzzle games.

Seeders: Puzzle Reboot: 9 cents on the Nintendo eShop.

Gurgamoth ($ .09 )

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Gurgamoth, by Galvanic Games, is a multiplayer party battle game.  It rather reminds me of the Streetpass battle mode found in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS:  hold a button to dash across the stage, ramming into your opponents.  Knock them into obstacles to lower their strength — if they get hit too many times, they die.

That’s really all there is to this game — it’s a multiplayer battle game.  You can play it in single player mode with bots, but there really isn’t any point.  In some ways, Gurgamoth feels more like a bonus battle mode you’d find included within another game.

Gurgamoth is a good 9 cent game for a group, but you probably won’t play it for very long.

Gurgamoth: 9 cents on the Nintendo eShop. MSRP: $9.99

Earthworms ( $ 0.01 )

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Earthworms logo

Let’s start our exploration of the eShop with the cheapest title available — Earthworms, at the grand total of one cent!

Earthworms is a point & click adventure by Polish developer All Those Moments.  Help detective Daniel White as he struggles to discover the secrets lurking behind every corner of a mysterious country village…

To be perfectly frank, I never quite finished the demo for this title.  The demo was much longer than I expected, and I found myself stuck at a weird little puzzle.  The game is odd, to say the very least, but it is a weirdly interesting little adventure… with giant, worm-ish tentacle thingies lurking about.

Explore the village.  Collect items.  Confusedly wander about the entire map, clicking on every pixel until you find something new.  Ah, point & click adventures…

Earthworms: 1 cent on the Nintendo eShop. MSRP: $7.99