A Dinosaur Walks Into a Club – Come out swinging with primordial platforming in There Was a Caveman

You are the last living caveman in a world surrounded by dinosaurs. As incredible as hanging out with dinosaurs could be you’re  bound to get lonely. Turns out they’re not the friendliest roommates, either. You decide to quest forward in hopes of finding another living person but that will be tricky. Spike filled caves, creatures large and small, and other treacherous encounters are going to slow you down.

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There Was a Caveman feels as throwback as you’d expect from seeing a screenshot. Your caveman can jump, double jump, smash stuff with a club, throw collected objects, and even a dash mechanic that keeps popping up in recent platformers. The sprites are somewhere between Atari and NES but have a charm about them.

Throughout the environment you’ll have to jump spike pits, run from boulders, and drop down to various cave structures or lava pits. There are lots of different enemies to face in this level including smaller turtle-like crawlers, rock-barfing larger dinosaurs, and even an acid-spitting dino boss.

The boss is fairly challenging. As mentioned there is an acid spit attack in addition a head smash that sends stalactites dropping on your head. What’s interesting is you can club his acid spit away to allow yourself a better position on screen to avoid the imminent stalactite drops.

It took many tries to kill the boss but something about the game kept me determined enough to smash his dinosaur face. he game shows a lot of potential and influence even in its early stage. Everyone has a different impression of platformers and during the demo I sensed inspiration from Mega Man and Castlevania. When I first heard it was a caveman platformer my brain immediately assumed Joe & Mac but this game doesn’t feel like that series at all.

For more information and to check out the game’s progress on the developer’s blog and Steam Greenlight page. You can download the demo at Gamejolt and you can donate to the game at IndieGoGo.

There was a Caveman will be released for PC April 2015.