Review: The Enchanted Cave

The Enchanted Cave
Flash, PC/Mac
Play The Enchanted Cave on Kongregate

The Enchanted Cave is a short flash based game that combines random dungeons, random level ups, and random loot in a way that is both engaging and entertaining over the 2 hour life of the game.

The Enchanted Cave is essentially a Diablo style dungeon crawler, possibly related even closer to the more recent Torchlight.  You are a simple character facing a 100 floor dungeon.  Each floor is randomly generated each time you play, meaning that every game is guaranteed to be different.  The combat is very simple, and resolves itself automatically.  Simply walk into an enemy, and you each pound on the other until one is dead.  Later, the game introduces spells, but these never play a large role.

What keeps the game interesting is the progression system.  It is impossible to clear all 100 floors in one go, however every time you leave the cave, most of your loot stays behind.  The few exceptions are called "artifacts" and they are found in special gold chests.  Additionally, you keep any gold you have earned, as well as any stat boosts.  As one might expect, dying means you lose everything, including any held artifacts or stat gains.  Therefore, a bit of tension works in from balancing the need to go one more floor, and possibly find that new artifact, versus the desire to just get out safely, and try again.

While this all sounds very typical, it is the way the game handles these mechanics that makes it so enjoyable.  First of all, combat is very simple.  It resolves itself in one or two rounds, meaning you can easily fight through a horde of enemies.  Also, the combat is predictable enough to allow you to take some risks, but has just enough of a random element to make you think twice about fighting that last monster.  I have bemoaned games such as the "My Pet Protector" series, for the auto combat is lengthy (30+ rounds of misses) and entirely unpredictable (one fight you win in one round, the next you lose in one round).

In addition to the balanced and quick combat, the progression is handled nicely.  You find enough artifacts and stat boosts to make each trip successful despite the random nature of the dungeons.  There is a point when you hit floor 40 that you reach a critical mass and can zoom all the way to 80 without stopping, but generally it takes two to four trips to hit the next checkpoint (every 9 levels is a shop, and you can re-enter the dungeon at the shop ten levels prior).

My complaints with this game are few.  The first time you play, you are utterly lost, the game has only minimal instructions, and no tutorial.  Also, the first time I went in, I went 12 floors without finding the item necessary to escape and save my progress, and died.  Otherwise, however, it was almost always in one of the first two chests I opened.  Since stat boosts are random, you have no control over how your character develops, even though the weapons and armor allow for some interesting customization.  The spells are pretty useless, and explained terribly.  Pro-tip: Despite the in-game instructions saying otherwise, you DO keep spells if you safely exit the dungeon.

The graphics are simple but clear, the music is nice unobtrusive, and the sound effects are well done.  The game controls fine, and has achievements.  My only gripe is that even after finishing the game, I don't have some of the achievements simply because the item required never was randomly generated.  I suppose that also brings up my last complaint, that many of the game mechanics are never used.  You can plan attack strategies based on the mobs strengths and weaknesses, but it never really matters, since simply attacking is generally fine.

Still, the game has worthwhile Kongregate badges and will last about 2 hours to clear.  It took me exactly 200 floors of exploring to clear the game, in other words I played each floor twice in order to be strong enough to win.  There is an achievement for exploring 300 floors, and I doubt I will go back to get it.

This game gets my highest recommendation.