I first heard about Cave Story probably about 6 months ago, and everyone was ranting and raving about how good it was - So I downloaded it, played it for 15 minutes, couldn’t work out what was so great about it and deleted it.

Then Matt from loose Leaf Games told me that it was one of the best recent gaming experiences he’s had. So I decided to give it another whirl.

Matt was right, I was wrong - Cave Story is *THE AWESOME* I didn’t even get out of the first cave the first time I tried it , but it soon picks up as a simply amazing adventure/platform game that is unapologetically retro to the days of 16 bit.

The controls are a little confusing at first so I’ll post them here. Press Z to jump and X to shoot (once you find the gun) and press the down arrowkey to interact with objects. You can also shoot in the up and down directions by holding that direction and firing. Run the DoConfig.exe to see some of the other controls.

It reminds me alot of two games I was rather fond of in my youth. Wonder Boy in Monster Land and Lord of the Sword.

Cave Story was developed entirely by one guy and took 5 years as he was just working on it part time. So I guess a sequel is a long way off? - Wikipedia has a good entry on Cave Story if you’d like to know more about the game.

It’s a small download at only 1 mb and will probably run on almost any computer you have lying around. You can read more about Cave Story and download the game from the Acid-Play website (which features quite a few freeware games) here.