Let's Play Crystal Caves HD #07: Meticulous Memorisation
101This is my first playthrough through this game. Kindly avoid posting spoilers in the comments or solutions to puzzles either in this video or future ones so as not to spoil the experience for me or those that haven’t seen the game before.
One of things that was very prevalent in the video games of the late 80s and early 90s was making a game very difficult in place of making it long. Blind jumps in platformers, 'dead man walking' situations in point and click adventure games and puzzles that can only be attempted once before you have to reload are all examples of this, forcing you to learn by trial and error what you can and can't do. Only by memorising what was to come did you stand a decent change of completing the game, a task that was far easier when you were younger. That some of those games also didn't allow you to save on top of all that was the icing atop of a rather unappetising cake.
Up until now, Crystal Caves hasn't been too bad with the need for memorisation but that's slowly changing. Already puzzles have been introduced where you can trap yourself and now the game is beginning to force you to use a multitude powerups in very specific ways. We've seen this before with the antigravity powerup but now the others are being used in the same way but this by itself isn't a bad thing. Done well, it can add a thoughtful twist to what might otherwise by a fairly humdrum level and so far, the combination of enjoyable gameplay and unlimited attempts on rather small levels has cushioned the impact of now needing memorisation for said levels. Whether that will continue is something we'll find out.
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