Buy There Was a Caveman

The game itself is not actually good or bad. I could say that this game just yeah your generic platformer game with a retro spice in it.
Nothing is unique to be mentioned.
The gameplay is just your daily action platformer game.
The story is about your wife/girlfriend/lover (which one you like to call it) have went missing and it's your job to find and rescue her.
But don't underestimate the game though. Like all retro games, you will die a lot in this game.

Mostly recommended for a retro gamer.

This game pushes the nostalgia buttons of gamers who remember playing such games when they were kids. I will give any game that does this a thumbs up, but I will not recommend this game. It's a solid platformer, but it's just bland and boring. Someone who's fresh to the genre will not appreciate this game, because it has nothing to offer to them. Just for nostalgia sake, older more experienced gamers will pick up this game, most likely play it to the end in one sitting (~2 hours) since it's easy, predictable and short, and then forget about it. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=604744492 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=658626981 Unlocked all achievements!

There Was A Caveman is a fun throwback to old platformers, where you attempt to save Cavekind!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS-mtiXKeqw
First, you'll notice that the game has quite an authentic look and feel to the era it's trying to portray.
The controls are quite simple. You can double jump, swing your weapon, dash, and throw different projectiles that you find.

I found that the game did a very good job at shaking things up throughout. Different enemies force you to react accordingly, as well as the levels themselves having different ways of playing. Underwater levels, dark levels, or even flying on a pterodactyl all keep the game from feeling stale. As well as changing up the obstacles, you can use a variety of projectiles, which all act differently and can be used in different situations.

Although, I'm very happy with the difficulty of the game, it's worth noting that I haven't found a way to get a game over screen. You just respawn from the latest checkpoint, which keeps the game from getting frustrating. You have a limited amount of health, however, if you find secret health upgrades or purchase some from the store, you can increase that limit. Once you die though, they're gone. Which drives you to play very carefully.

Overall, I really liked the game! It takes a lot of elements from the good old games we enjoyed, and leaves behind the frustrating elements from some of the others.

Developer: Nauris Amatnieks
Publisher: Nauris Amatnieks
Release Date: October 8th, 2015

Let’s take it straight from the store page:

The world has been overrun by dinosaurs. The last living caveman, is left alone in his cave, with every other living thing he knew dead. But he does not want to give up the world to these ferocious beasts. So with what little hope he has left, he will venture out of his caves, to find the only thing, that could save the world as he knows it - A female specimen to rebuild the cavemen civilization. But doing that won't be easy as the world is full of these dangerous creatures and other deadly hazards

The things one does for love … amirite?

Pretty retro. Pretty oldschool. Pretty good. Pretty hard.
For the sake of this review we’re going to call our caveman Chuck. Pretty dope name!
Chuck’s starting with just three hearts. Whenever he gets hit he loses one heart and there are two ways to replenish health. The first one is by finding a red heart, which are pretty rare. The other way is by finding or purchasing a golden heart which will not only full heal Chuck but also give him another heart container.

So anyway. Chuck’s able to do certain things such as:
The Chuck Smash! He’ll just smashes stuff with his mace. The dude’s pretty hard core after all!
The Chuck Leap! Like a bird he jumps into the air and, if you don’t mind me saying, he looks rather fabulous in mid air. You’re wondering why? Well I’ll get later into it.
Last but not least is the Chuck Dash! Chuck’s using his caveman power to dash a short distance be it while running or jumping, that’s how awesome Chuck is!
I mean afterall he’s the last living caveman so it’s safe to say that Chuck’s the real og in this game.

But that’s not all! Chuck’s even able to use the bones of his enemies, well the bones that are lying around to be exact, to throw them at everyone that dares to stand in his way. But bones are not the only thing that he’ll be flinging at his foes. Stones and other various things are at your disposal to make short work of your enemies.

Whenever you kill an enemy he’ll drop some skulls and those are basically your currency. Again just goes to show how bad ♥♥♥ Chuck truly is. He even uses the skulls of the enemies he’s slain to buy himself throwing weapons or even a golden heart.
To sum it up there’s a lot of stuff going on in this game.

Let’s talk about the world.
Every level in there’s a caveman is unique and offers you a new challenge. And how unique they are!
You’ll fight your way through caves, forest the inside of a dinosaur and you’ll even have to beat the afterlife! Only Chuck could face such challenges for he is the last living caveman and a real badass! Hell the guy’s even able to breath underwater and fight against a giant octopus!

There’s just one thing that bothers me or well did bother me the first few minutes when I was playing and that was the sound you make when you jump. I don’t know why but I found it really irritating and that’s pretty much the only thing that I didn’t like. Other than that the music and the sound effects are solid and remind us of the, what I like to call, golden age of gaming, the NES/SNES era.
Another positive aspect is that every level sounds different. Some effects did sound to me like they’re being reused but to be completely honest it didn’t bother me.

Onto the best part of the game. The best thing about There Was A Caveman is by far the art style of the game. The pixel art looks just incredibly good and I love how much detail went into Chuck. Remember earlier when I talked about how fabulous he looks while jumping? That’s because his hair and his manly beard are even animated. This just shows how much love and detail has been put into making this game.

I have to say that I have two favorite levels in the game. The first being the afterlife level (rip) and the second being the gut leven aka the inside of the dinosaur.
Those two levels really caught me off guard and I found them to be the most interesting looking and packed with small details.
Overall I really enjoy the look of There Was A Caveman and it’s awesome to see yet another great looking pixel art game on steam

Kudos to Nauris Amatnieks for putting himself into the game .. winking.
Really liked this little detail.

I have been lucky enough to get a Review Key for There Was A Caveman in order to write a blunt and honest to God Review. Just as usual.

There Was A Caveman is a solid pixel art game and a great addition on steam and to the genre. The plattforming is well done and you find yourself dying numerous times because you were unable to make this one precise jump so you’ll have refrain from biting into your controller. Or well I know that I had to stop me from doing so more than once.
You can do nothing wrong with buying this game. Really nothing. It’s quite enjoyable, despite the game trying it’s best to literally ♥♥♥♥ you off, and a solid purchase.

No drama, Just Reviews.

- Neku

I find neoretro platformers to be like pizzas; they have the same basic ingredients and can be found everywhere, but I never tire of them, and would be loath to turn one down unless it lay solidly within the "salted cardboard" zone (or "Cheetahmen" zone, as the case may be). If I am allowed to indulge in delicious foods in my afterlife (rather than the maggot and feces stew I hear they serve in hell), I will probably eat pizza every day for fifty mortal years. Some people don't like pizza that much, but I don't care about those people, nor their disgusting tastes.

Now, viewed through my paradigm of platformer-as-pizza, There was a Caveman is a scrumptious artisanal pie with all one would expect from such: a savory strata of gourmet cheese that strikes a perfect chewy-to-gooey ratio; toppings including locally grown mushrooms, crunchy bell peppers and freshly caught shrimp; organic Genovese basil; tangy, yet not overly salty, sauce that bespeaks of the heirloom tomato that birthed it; and a buttery, hand-kneaded crust that would be delicious bereft of all else. Undoubtedly, it is a pizza, and you can easily imagine its primary flavors before you bite, but it's a superb specimen of its kind and a true delight for the pizza-lover.

Speaking less obliquely, one might say that the game plays smoothly, has a consistently high framerate on fullscreen, provides intense yet fair challenge, and exhibits finely etched hitboxes (I tested them on the pendulum grubs in the forest -- you can safely stand in the trajectory of their short swing until they actually touch you). I could also talk about the wonderful consistency of the jocular pixel-Prehistoria aesthetic.

But I'd rather just see it as a damned fine pizza, served up by a lovelorn Cro-Magnon.

Generally speaking this is a derivative platformer with excellent, detailed pixel art work. You have seen everything in it before, but that being said, it covers a wide base of platforming ideas and never overuses any of them.

+High quality pixel artwork with lots of care and work.
+Above average movement options - combining the dash and double-jump means the game can through some interesting platforming at you
+Good variety in enemies and bosses - derivative, but there's new stuff in nearly every section
-Game is over-tuned in some sections, some enemies take too many hits and the game's difficulty curve is bizarre
-Music is truly dreadful
-Incredibly, unbelievably pointless upgrade/currency system. It's a small minus since it has no impact on gameplay but it's just baffling. You can save up bones to buy items, but then you die and they're gone. You can search out secrets, but then you die and they're gone. And you WILL die unless you're experienced at the game ... At which point why do you need the items, since you're not dying?

Anyway if you're into somewhat hard "flavor" platformers, I think this one will give you a couple hours of enjoyment.

+ pixelart style
+ retro feeling
+ gameplay
- music (although its still retro)
- short

game is not as hard as some comments suggest.
mechanics are fluid, for me there were no jump issues (played it with controller)
the game itself is developed by a single person, this alone deserves all of my respect!
i really hope a second part is in development. coz this has alot of potential!

The unfortunate love story of a lonely caveman, quite a nice old school plateformer, in its pure form. The game is pretty basic, but the chemistry works if you're fan of retro graphics and controls.

This is a difficult platformer with some rough edges. The graphics are solid, and it contains a few clever ideas, but it's mostly just frustrating, and mostly because of its stiff and unforgiving controls. It contains a super bad usability problem where if you pause the game, pressing the jump button exits to the menu without prompting (losing any progress within the level). I lost my progress to flawed muscle memory a few times because of this. You can collect skulls to buy items, but the items are fairly useless because unless you have already played through the game and memorized every trap, you're certain to die before you get to benefit from the item. (This mostly goes for the secret hearts, as well.) On the plus side, the boss fights were all pretty interesting and fun. The music sounds randomly generated, and the sound effects click like there's some 30HZ sine wave starting in the middle of its duty cycle. I played through it to the end, but can't really recommend.

Games to play instead: Super Meat Boy, Super Time Force Ultra

Clubbing dinosaurs to get laid? Why not! Gameplay is fun (you got double jumps, a dash that can also be used in air and the game mixes things up with climbing, flying, bouncing etc.). The game play from the first min just as you expect it from the trailer, which is a good thing!

The difficulty is very challenging, if you think you can rush through the game, think again!

PS: Remember the high praised and announced next gen fish AI in Black Ops, which didn't work in the final game? This game here doesn't even advertise it, but it has a Butterfly AI, which makes them fly away as soon as you brutal stinking caveman come close to them, and as soon as you go away, they return to do their butterfly thingys.