Ahhh, remember retro platformers? Jumping between platforms, bonking enemies (not in the Aussie way), and collecting skulls? This is one of those games. Except you are a caveman, who's lover turned to bones, so you feel the urge in your loincloth to go whack some critters with a club and collect their skulls to find a new girl.

Just about everything wants to kill you. Even the terrain. And I don't just mean the spikes.

There's retro artstyle, and there's chunky pixel style. I recently stated that I like chunky pixels. And I do! I also like it when they're colourful. Everything in this game is murky and muted.

Even the hearts and blood splatters.

This game is not a joy to play as is and sapping all the colour out of the world makes it feel like we are entering that Carebear episode called Drab City. But without the lovecraftian elements. Bland. And you too will be wanting to return to the forest of feelings.

This game has nothing to do with Care Bears or Lovecraft for as much as I played. I was just that underwhelmed that a terrible cartoon from my childhood felt better.

The main aim here is to get a new woman. I think. The game starts with you holding hands such a long time with one that she turns to bones. Good Job!

Better go get another one.

Unfortunately while you can jump really high you also slide around on every surface with such momentum that it feels like you are playing on an ice level. Even when in the caves. Or the Forest. Or the treetops. Or under the sea... Actually, no. Under water you move like you do in every other underwater level. Bonus bullshit for you.

To add to these woes, sometimes spikes mean a loss of all your health, while other times it is just 1 HP. Oh, you can find or buy more hearts with all the skulls of critters you have killed. But should you die, well, you are back to the three you started with. So much for progression.

Despite all these complaints I will give it points for having very short levels. Die and Die again. The respawn point is very close, and I never got a total wipe and reset. This is at least one improvement over many platformers of old.

And there's a lot of variety. Even in the little bits I managed to play through. New mechanics are easy to pick up (though this may be 37 years of gaming (would be more, I only started playing when I was 2).

Each new feature just stays long enough to entertain and frustrate before it moves on. I had a few laughs at some 'gotchas' traps and enemy threats. I yelled at some pterosaurs what start bee-lining you as soon as they are in the viewport, even though you are not ready to deal with them.

There Was A Caveman is not a good game. It has all the rights ideas to be a good game, and with a bunch of revisions would be a far better one. But just the floaty controls alone put me off playing and recommending it to others.

Game Acquisition: Bundle Stars (Diamond 1)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 16 April 2021
PC Used: Scorptec Master-RTX2070 2019 MK1

OS: Windows XP
Processor: Intel® Pentium 4
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Graphics: 128MB
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 100 MB available space