Just rocky wandering from one room to the next, and trying to puzzle out the obscure answer to why the bluebird near the entrance keeps flying away from us.įrom what I’ve seen so far, I think Colossal Cave Adventure will be a nostalgia trip many will want to go on. Simply translating the original text of Colossal Cave into a space you can move in still leaves it feeling a touch empty – where once our brains filled in the spaces between the cavernous halls, now we’re tied closely to one person’s specific vision of those halls, but without creative license or addition. Almost four decades of video game history have resulted in far more advances in design and technology than the mere introduction of actual tree models and voice actors. My primary criticism of this rendition of Colossal Cave Adventure, then, is that it may be almost too faithful to its own original ideas. I’m told this may be added back in later, which would be extremely welcome as I experienced some significant vertigo on the second go-around This even may come down to accessibility mechanics – my original playthrough at GDC in VR had snap turns, but they had been removed at Gamescom. There are a few small creative touches, like the trash of previous adventurers littering the entrance, the new imaginings of dwarves doing some slightly new activities or the catlike way a dragon moves, but everything I’ve been told leads me to believe this will be as 100% faithful a recreation as possible. It’s a lovely way to honor the original Colossal Cave and the spirit of exploration it invoked, even as that narration has been translated to a visual format.Īnd as far as I’m told, if you remember how to get every single treasure, you’ll likely get them all here too with little trouble. Aiming your Look icon at anything and selecting will get you the familiar, now gently voice-acted narration describing both what you’re seeing and often adding extra context clues. Just make sure you don’t actually throw any of your items off a cliff, as they’ll be gone forever.ĭespite the new format, this is still entirely the Colossal Cave Adventure that fans of the original will remember, with all the text intact thus far. There’s no sensible way anyone could carry everything otherwise, and it’s a pleasant nod to the era that came directly out of games like Colossal Cave. Colossal Cave is absolutely chocked with stuff, as item interactions make up the core of its puzzles. But after just a few moments in the cave, I’m sold on the more traditional adventure game system of icons – an eye to look and hear the narration for something, a hand to interact, and an inventory of all my junk. Hand tracking seemed that it would have been a natural fit for Colossal Cave Adventure, and yet everything is entirely aim and button presses. As someone who only rarely drags out her Valve Index anymore, moments like these remind me what I love about the technology.Īt first, I was a bit uncertain about the controls. A single blue bird perches gracefully on a branch as a beam of sunlight peeks in through the cave ceiling, close enough I can almost touch him. Deep chasms stretch into infinity beneath my feet as I slide along a narrow rock wall bats flap anxiously overhead. The Switch version appears to be running well and offers a very enticing portable option, but of the two, the VR version is understandably the more visually impressive in the way VR is able to depict the intimidating nature of the Colossal Cave itself. I’ve now had the chance to play the earliest snippet of Colossal Cave Adventure at both GDC and now at Gamescom, with two hands-on previews in VR on the Meta Quest 2 and one hands-off preview on the Nintendo Switch, for which it was just announced. While a few software houses tried to bring Adventure to the CPC, this is the best version.So what does it mean to remake Colossal Cave in 2022? Text-based adventures have largely fallen by the wayside, so Roberta Williams and her husband Ken Williams are tackling the adventure most notably by visualizing it for the first time. It won’t win prizes for originality, but the atmosphere and feel of the game hold up to this day. Clear and well thought out puzzles with a built-in transportation system that’s light years ahead of its time, Colossal Adventure is a faithful retelling of a landmark game. There’s a reason the original Adventure took off and it’s all in the gameplay. Retrospectively branded the first in the Middle-earth trilogy, Colossal Adventure was originally a text-only adventure but was later re-released with added graphics as part of the Jewels of Darkness compilation. Based on the original Adventure by Will Crowther and Don Woods, Level 9’s take on the game still has your nameless protagonist on an underground search for treasures, but has expanded the game world significantly.
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