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Imagination is powerful. Imagination can create worlds through the utterance of a few words, and its power is limitless. Fantastical worlds have been born out of the imagination of creative writers and world builders, and they are able to share these worlds with equally imaginative readers. Such is the magic and wonder of Colossal Cave Adventure and other text-based adventure games from the 70s and 80s, and even today, the experience of imagining a fantastical world like the Colossal Cave and giving it life in just your own head can still be had today, fifty years since it was first released. In this Colossal Cave Review, though, we look at the most recent version of the game – a first-person 3D adventure game remake of the original text-based adventure and see if the magic translates well to the 3D space.
Colossal Cave Review: What is Colossal Cave?
Colossal Cave is a first-person adventure game that adapts the classic text-based adventure into the third dimension, developed and published by Cygnus Entertainment. It was released on January 19, 2023, on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, and on VR through Meta Quest 2. The game is intended to be played in VR but can also be played without a VR headset. For the purposes of this Colossal Cave Review, the ClutchPoints Editorial Team played the game on PC without a VR headset.
The original Colossal Cave Adventure inspired what we now know as the Adventure games genre, which focuses on exploration, discovery, and puzzle-solving more than combat and strategy. Future works expanded on the original adventure game and later on games inspired by Colossal Cave included more narrative elements, theatrical elements, combat, and cinematics. It is considered to be one of the most influential video games of all time and is considered to be the first well-known example of interactive fiction. Because of these distinctions, Colossal Cave Adventure is in the World Video Game Hall of Fame by The Strong and the International Center for the History of Electronic Games.
Story
Colossal Cave does not have an explicit story, as it drops you right at the start of your adventure. We imagine that you heard about stories of a colossal cave, full of undiscovered treasures. Attracted by the prospect of riches, you look for the cave, and eventually, in the middle of a forest, you find the entrance to the cave near a cabin by a stream. You spelunk to the depths below, where adventure and riches await.
Colossal Cave was inspired by the creator William Crowder's own experiences of caving at the Mammoth Cave back in the 70s, and the original version of the game had an almost one-to-one replica of the Mammoth Cave. Further improvements to the game added more fantasy elements to the game like dragons and dwarves later on, and a variant of the game by Don Woods has become the basis for most other versions of the game, including this 3D retelling.
Gameplay
As an adventure game, Colossal Cave involves a lot of walking. The primary objective of the game is to explore the Colossal Cave, discover treasure, and attempt to bring all of the treasure back to the surface, inside the cabin. Players can interact with their environment and use any items they find to interface with other objects around them. Most of the game's puzzles involve the use of these items in specific scenarios and use cases. Players will have to manage their inventory as it only has a limited capacity, so regular returns to the surface to drop off treasure is part of the work. Sometimes, events or player death could lead to a deduction from the score. As players discover treasures, locations, and experience events, they will accumulate points, and their adventure will be evaluated in the end based on their total score.
Having a maximum score means there's a right way to do everything in Colossal Cave. As such, it's almost impossible for anyone to get the maximum amount of points on their first run without consulting a guide. An optimal route and sequence of movements will lead to the maximum score. So, for first-time adventurers, the game recommends players just take on the adventure and explore freely without minding the total score.
To guide the player, a narrator speaks out some of the events and describes what you're seeing. A majority of the voice lines are actual lines from the original text adventure, which is a nice touch. The narrator will sometimes give out hints for the player, which they could choose whether or not they'd take, as taking hints will reduce the total score. Finally, the narrator will also describe what happens whenever you interact with something, similar to how the original adventure game would also describe interactions in the game.
The game has fantastic creatures like dwarves, giant snakes, and dragons, as well as breathtaking sites, which we'll leave to you to discover for yourself.
Graphics
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Perhaps the most disappointing part of the entire journey is the lackluster graphics of the game. This game would have felt dated even if it were released back in the late 90s. I remember playing Myst as a kid, another adventure game that was released in 1993, and while the graphical capabilities of today's time allow Colossal Cave to look better than that original Myst game, I still felt much more wonder and excitement exploring that world than how I feel now playing through Colossal Cave.
The beauty of the original Colossal Cave was in the writing. The descriptions of the wonders within the cave allowed players to have their imaginations race in excitement on how these fantastical places might have looked like. The resulting world that Cygnus Entertainment rendered in 3D falls short of the world that we could have made in our minds. It's not just that it falls short of what our imaginations could have fabricated, but the look and feel of what Cygnus made feel antiquated for a video game released in 2023. Simply put, the graphics don't do the caves described by Woods and Crowder any justice.
Although now there is an “official” depiction of the Colossal Cave thanks to this release, I'd still rather hear the descriptions with my eyes closed and imagine the world in my head first, before venturing onto the drab and dreary world that the game offers.
Music and Sound Design
The sense of adventure in Colossal Cave is sold by its sound design, with sound effects giving life to the otherwise dull cave that you're exploring. Environmental details are clearly communicated thanks to these sounds, letting you know about nearby bodies of water, other creatures, or danger that might be lurking somewhere. The feeling of exploring a cave is sold by echoes and of wind rushing through your face. The occasional sparkle in the background tells you that this place is indeed magical. Newly discovered sites are also sold with short musical pieces that evoke a sense of wonder and exploration.
To be honest, I would have loved playing the game as an audio-input and output experience instead, with the fantastic sound design supporting the narration and my imagination. An audiobook-type adventure that still lets me explore the world with the fantastical sights that my mind can imagine, with the interactive fiction that the text-based adventure offers, only now in an audible format.
Conclusion: A 3D Re-Imagining That Falls Short
Although we find in our Colossal Cave Review a well-programmed video game whose parts work as intended, the entire package is betrayed by the game's lackluster graphics that take away from the sense of adventure, discovery, and exploration that we could have achieved using only our imagination. This is not the Colossal Cave that I would imagine while playing the text-based adventure game, much less is it a world worth exploring at all. While I can see adventure fans having a blast in exploring the caves and challenging themselves with the task of taking away all of its treasure, as well as speedrunners who might want to score a world record with the game's challenging 100% run, it's not a world that I would recommend to a wide majority of gamers. Much more exhilarating, more interesting adventures and worlds have since been written and told since the creation of this classic, and it would benefit you more to explore those worlds instead.
Score: 5/10
Editor's Note: ClutchPoints received a PC review copy to allow us to cover this game. This copy did not, in any way, affect this Colossal Cave Review’s final score and verdict.
