Free [Windows] Cave Lander

Jezla

Member
CAVE LANDER: A LUNAR LANDING GAME
by
Jezla


Fly the lander through the caves to land on the target pad before your fuel runs out. Avoid hazards such as falling rocks, gas jets, and lava. Land too hard and you'll damage your lander, stranding it in the cave. Points are awarded each mission based on the amount of fuel remaining in your lander. Earn awards for each mission based on points and precision landing. Medals are awarded for completing challenges throughout the game.

Controls

Use the arrow keys or W-A-D to control the Lander. In sticky control mode, use numbers 1-0 to set thrust level.

Press Escape to pause the game.
Press Z to capture and save a screen shot to Users/<your_name>/AppData/Local/Cave Lander/Screens.

Download Cave Lander
[itch.io]

[GAMEJOLT]


This game has been several months in the making, and represents a big step in that it's an original creation, rather than a clone or copy. I'd like to express my gratitude to the members of this community for all their support and assistance. Happy Landings!

Note to play testers: If you've downloaded a copy of Cave Lander during alpha or beta testing, to ensure proper recording of your awards, delete the Cave Lander folder located in Users/<your name>/AppData/Local.
 
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Ianuarius

Guest
Graphics
The art style was very nice. I like the fact that it's all tied together so well and that you don't rotate pixels. The only minor thing that bugged me here was the explosion that didn't look like it belonged in the game. Easily fixed, though.

Audio
Sound effects were there. Nothing annoying but nothing to write home about, either. The music on the other hand seemed to vary quite a bit an had a nice vibe to it. Very impressive!

Gameplay
I remember playing a game like this about 16 years ago that was on one of those demo cd-roms for windows 95. I wasn't a big fan back then and I gotta say that the idea hasn't grown on me since. That's just me. What would've made it more enjoyable for me is giving the player a bit more impact. I understand that the idea is that you have very little control and that you have to balance out every move really carefully. However, many times I let the craft fall down fast and then had to hold the W key down for many seconds to get the craft to do what I wanted it to do again. This gets really frustrating because you already know what you want to do, but you're just waiting for the craft to catch up with your thinking.

Other than that, the one thing that always bothered me with games like these was the fact that you have to be so pixel perfect with the landings. Again, I understand that that's the idea of the game. I'm just saying that when you've cleared the whole level and then mess up the landing by one pixel, it get's frustrating super fast. Maybe the difficulty of the game could consist of purely maneuvering the craft through incresingly more chaotic obstacles. The landing part should in my opinion be way easier.

Functionality
I don't know where the screenshots went. I tried taking three of them but can't find them anywhere.

Overall
Very nice little game. I wish the levels could be completed faster so you can concentrate on doing better and see more of them. I urge others to try it out, too.
 

Jezla

Member
Thanks for the review! The screen shots taken in-game are saved to your Users/<your_user_name>/AppData/Local/Cave Lander/screens folder. I will update the controls description to state this; it's easy to forget that not everyone is familiar with where GM:S saves application files.

In regards to the landings, it's less about pixel-perfect precision and more about velocity. If you land at to high a velocity, you'll hit the pad with more force than the lander can handle. While the game is designed to be played on the hardest difficulty setting, the normal (default) and easy difficulty settings are more forgiving of hard landings. To change the difficulty, click on the "?" button in the lower right of the main menu.

Thanks for playing!
 
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Scooter

Guest
Looks cool from the video! Downloading it now.

Update: It's really hard! Still stuck on level 1 - I keep damaging the lander. Haha. I'll give it another shot later when I have some time.

2nd Update: Up to level three now I got the hang of it. I like it!
 
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Lander

Guest
This really fun. For me the controls took a bit for me to get used to. But the graphics are awesome! The music is decent! and One of the reasons I started to play this is because it has my name in it!
 
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SarbjitGrewal

Guest
Overall gaming experience is good. I have not found any screenshot option in this game or either i wont be able to recognize the option of screenshot.

Thank You,
Sarbjit Grewal
 

Jezla

Member
@SarbjitGrewal , thanks for playing! If you press the 'Z' key during the game, a screenshot will be saved in your 'Users/<username>/AppData/Local/Cave Lander/Screens' folder.
 

NazGhuL

NazTaiL
Eh! Nice game you made! Beat it in around 20-25 minutes. I'm quite familiar with those kind of control ( ;) ) and I enjoyed getting to the platform. The rotating levels are unforgiven but what is a game without a challenge!
Graphics are well chosen, music is a little bit overwhelming but that did not stoped me to play. I would have take 25 more levels. :D

Nice job.
\m/
 
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