Carl the Caveman Review

Written by: Keith Durocher Published: December 16, 2005 In 1981, a Canadian movie called Quest for Fire established a new paradigm in filmmaking when it portrayed the story of cavemen searching for a new source of fire. Not a single line of any known language is spoken, yet the tale is engaging and powerful. Along these same lines, Alawar Entertainment's Carl the Caveman illustrates the struggle of a brave little primitive questing for fungus. Again, no English is spoken, but the poignancy is no less potent for its absence. In Carl the Caveman, you play as a happy-go-lucky Neanderthal searching out the best in treasure chests and multicolored mushrooms. The landscapes Carl traverses during his quests are riddled with logic puzzles, and it's your task to sort through all the required steps to move forward to the next level. The game is a classic side-scrolling romp, although it was designed in 3D for extra visual polish. While there's a stylistic similarity to the 80's coin-operated champion called Wonderboy, Carl the Caveman tosses aside the treadmill approach for levels with platforms that need to be navigated up and down as well as left and right. Carl has few tools at his disposal, but many obstacles to overcome. His greatest weapon will be your mind. You can push massive boulders around and sometimes smack them (shoving them down gaps or smashing them apart as needed) with your trusty stone hammer, but that's about it. You can't jump, pull the huge rocks or climb surfaces. Besides these limitations, some of the obstacles with which you'll deal are spike-filled pits that need to be bridged with boulders, locked doors that require colored keys (gathering these are often a puzzle unto themselves), ogres that must be smashed with big rocks, dragons, and even mushrooms that sprout legs and run away. Some grow fangs as they come alive and chase you down. If you fall into a pit by mistake or a beastie gets you, you must restart the level. The number of times you can do this before having to restart the entire game is dependant on your life hearts. You begin with three, but more are hidden away on each level. It's important to hunt these down, as all it takes is a single tricky section of a level, and next thing you know, you're restarting from scratch. If all else fails, however, you can burn off a life, and the game will show you the steps that need to be taken to get to the next stage. This is a handy fail-safe in case you can't see the one tiny gimmick to finish things. In essence, that's about all there is to Carl the Caveman. The rest is technical, so let's get to it. Graphics: As I mentioned before, Carl the Caveman is rendered in 3D. This works to excellent effect, and the game benefits immensely from a cartoon-like approach to design. The models are simplistic, low-polygon affairs. This means performance is smooth, and should be even on lower-end graphics cards. The color palette is a rich selection of earth tones and warm shades that evoke a mid-summer afternoon. Special effects are used sparingly, but in those rare instances when they do crop up, it's a nice complement to the minimalist approach the artists at Ferocious Hamsters Team use. Ease of Use: Picking up the basics of Carl the Caveman is easy, especially with the clear and concise tutorial levels. By default, the arrow keys move Carl left and right as well as up and down (if you're on a column of air). Pressing the space bar swings your hammer. That's it. You can re-map these keys for comfort, but no matter which way you slice it, the interface is easy to learn. However, Carl can't move half-steps, and sometimes you might not have meant for him to push a boulder into a pit. These accidents can be frustrating when it means the loss of a heart and it wasn't your fault. The good news is, once you've gotten used to how sensitive the keyboard controls are, this is a rare occurrence. Gameplay: Carl is so engaging, it's easy to fall into the "just one more level" trap. Like one of those bent ring puzzles you can buy at just about any Science-&-Learning store in a mall, the sheer simplicity of Carl draws you in and holds you under its spell. Of course, it helps that the basic idea behind the game involves a caveman chasing multi-colored mushrooms that sometimes come to life and run after him. There's just something about the whole affair that makes me giggle. Difficulty: Carl the Caveman is a tiny bit imbalanced when it comes to difficulty. There are three modes you can select at the start of a game. These grade nicely: Kids levels are straight left-to-right walkthroughs, Arcade missions are a little longer and more puzzling, and Logic maps are a spectacular mass of ups, downs, hidden tricks, double-backs and multiple paths to victory. However, I sometimes found myself getting stuck on one level and repeating it over and over until I used the walkthrough solution, only to find myself breeze through the next several stages. Sound Effects: There's nothing wrong with the audio effects of Carl the Caveman. If I had to split hairs, I'd say there aren't quite enough sounds, but this is a minimalist game to begin with, and there isn't anything else to give sounds to. Perhaps a singing stone hammer? What's present is mixed well, so nothing is too quiet or too loud, and is appropriate to the action. (In other words, a crumbling stone sounds like a crumbling stone.) The cheeky mushrooms that run away from Carl sound so arrogant, you'll really want to capture them just to show them who's boss! Music: The music suffers primarily due to its scarcity. There are only two songs on repeat, and both are essentially the same song with a slightly different cadence. (The same light synthesized bass line and gentle percussion sounds are used for both tracks.) They're set a little too loud by default, but with a slight tweak, they fall into place and blend into the background. Kudos to Ferocious Hamster for including an MP3 folder into which you can copy your favorite songs; if you want a custom soundtrack, you can easily make one. Final analysis: The pace of Carl the Caveman is languid, and the game is perfect for people who like to work through a puzzle at their own speed. It might look like, and share characteristics with, side-scrolling arcade classics, but it takes a great deal stronger brain matter to master this game. As this is a fully polished and professional offering, it will take little effort to make any sequel a perfect one, as the initial offering comes so close.