Game Review: The Caves Of Doom (Amstrad, Mastertronic)

A First For Me…

The Caves of Doom marks a significant moment with the CPC for me as it was one of the first two games I owned besides the infamous 12 pack that came with my Amstrad CPC 464 (the other being Mr Freeze by Firebird).

The Aim Of The Game

This game was written by Robert Sansom, one of only two games he wrote for the CPC (The Quest for the Magical Talisman being the other, both for Mr. Chip Software, later Magnetic Fields of Lotus Turbo Challenge fame). The game sees you exploring the planet of Doom, where you are captured and sent deep into the Caves of Doom, from which you must escape! However, it is easier said than done. Each room is filled with booby traps which you must get past to get through the 25 rooms of the caves, to get back to the surface and find your space rocket and escape, never to return to the planet of Doom again.

The game starts with a nice title screen (but more on that later) but instead of the usual option of starting the game and control options, you get options for a Screen Editor plus the option to load and save creations, but I’ll go into that a bit later too.

Exploring And Escaping The Caves Of Doom

You start the game with ELEVEN LIVES, and believe me, you’ll need each and every one of them. You also have a jetpack, using which will use up fuel, which you top up by collecting what looks like milk bottles.

Each and every room has something determined to rob you of your lives, be it bushes, guards that looks like Mandarins (would that be allowed today?), spikes, darts(?), frogs, aliens and skeletons that home in on you. Getting past the Mandarin guards are the easiest, as they move on a fixed path, which if you observe, you’ll find out the best way to get past them. You must be very careful as even the slightest pixel out of place will result in the soon to be very familiar popping sound, indicating a loss of one of your lives. Thankfully, in the non-skeleton rooms, there are safe sections which you can take a rest, which doesn’t drain your fuel.

Beam Me Up!

On occasion, you will come across barriers of different colours, which you will need the keys to get through. Thankfully, besides the skeletons, none of the other enemies can follow you through. In two rooms, there are cubes with what looks like TV interference which will teleport you to another room. In theory, you COULD use it to take you from the bottom of the caves to the top, which will lead you to the exit, but escaping to your rocket without keys won’t be that easy, although there is part of a bigger key in that area you must collect which allows you to get through the final yellow door.

When you make it to your space rocket and escape, the game doesn’t end but takes you back to the first screen, where you have to do it all again!

The Screen Designer

The screen designer is a nice touch. Back in the day, when I got so fed up of losing, I used to use it once or twice to create a path up to the exit! Hey – I was only 7 at the time! Sadly, I’ve never heard of anyone who have shared their creations.

While you can change the rooms and what’s in the room, you can’t change the bad guys though, so when it comes to the non-skeleton baddie, it is worth making a note of where the bad guys are, these days, you could use a screenshot map to help you with enemy placements.

Graphics And Sound

The loading screen is just a page of MODE 1 text, but when you finish loading the game, you are greeted with a nice colour MODE 0 screen, of the game title flashing several colours and the room represents the room on the surface where your space rocket is.

The in-game graphics are also MODE 0 and are all very nice. The scenery is great while you can recognise the difference with each enemy, and you can tell great effort has been taken in creating these. Sadly, the skeletons blend in with scenery they fly through but that’s a minor quibble. Each key is one of six different colours. Sadly, in the status area, the dark blue key blends in, but like the skeleton, that’s a minor quibble.

The main sound effect you’re going to hear in the game is a hissing sound of your jetpack, in addition to the pop/bang sound when you lose a life. There is also a sound effect for a gun type trap and a very nice rocket sound for when your rocket takes off. While these sounds may seem primitive, they add to the thrill of the game.

Overall

Never mind The Caves of Doom, this should be called The Caves of Death as no matter how good a game player you are, you’re not going to finish the game without losing a certain number of lives! But what sort of game would it be if it was that easy? The game is beautiful looking with basic sound effects, and the screen editor gives it extra value for money.

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You know what we think but why not share your thoughts on this game! Let us know what you think of it in the comments below, or add your own score using the slider in the summary box at the top of the review!

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