Atari 8-Bit Game Play, Karmic Caverns

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Robert's Retro-Gaming

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Published on March 25, 2025 12:00:01 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a88bggzwP1U

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In which I play "Karmic Caverns", published in 1983 by PMI, and programmed by Len Dorfman. This is an interesting game. I almost gave up on it being more than a single screen game that is basically an endurance contest. Now, unfortunately, it is an endurance contest, but there is more than just the one screen. As far as I can tell without playing for hours on end, there are actually four screens. You can see them all if you persist past my first sign-off at about the 15 minute mark.

The game mechanics are interesting - you can only fall down and climb up (without stopping). controls are nicely implemented. The enemy movement is fairly random, but not so fast that you (mostly) can't avoid them. Sounds are decent, if minimal. Sadly, you have to earn 10,000 points on each level to progress to the next. Once I had passed four, they wrapped around to the first screen again.