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Genre: Adventure
Format: Download or DVD
Developer: Kheops Studio, TOTM Studio
Mac Publisher: Coladia Games
System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.4, 1.6GHz Intel or PowerPC processor, 512MB RAM
Review Computer: 2GHz 20” Intel Core Duo iMac, 1GB RAM, 256MB ATI Radeon X1600
Network Feature: No
Processor Compatibility: Universal
Price: $39.90
ESRB Rating: 3+
Availability: Out now
Official Website: www.coladiagames.com

I’m going to give the developers of this game some credit, for they’ve overcome two major hurdles with the release of Secret of the Lost Cavern for the Macintosh. First, they actually got an adventure game out on the Mac. Of course, it’s nearly three years behind the PC version, but I don’t care! If a game was good in 2006, it’s good in 2009. PC gamers like to waive timeliness in our face, but know what? Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in 1967, and if you make fun of someone for buying it in 2009, you need to be slapped.

Of course, that isn’t to say Secret of the Lost Cavern is the Sgt. Pepper’s of Mac gaming. That would be crazy (or, specifically, that would be Full Throttle). But it is unique for adventure games, which brings me to my second accolade for the game; it’s an adventure game that has nothing to do with the Pyramids or Atlantis. Did you even know there can be adventures that aren’t in Atlantis or Egypt? Yeah, I’d forgotten too, yet here we are in the Paleolithic period painting walls and making tools.

I single out painting walls and making tools, because that’s the ends and the means of the game. As central character Arok, your goal is to paint walls. To get there, you’ll be making a bunch of tools and doing stuff with them. Sound boring? Then dude, you’re in the wrong review. This is an adventure game, and in the gaming world, “adventure” is short for “banging your head against a wall trying to solve a puzzle until you either a.) cheat and find a walkthrough, or b.) are awakened in the middle of the night by an answer so obvious that you put yourself back to sleep by banging your head against the wall.”

Arok is a 15-year-old cavekid who sets out on an adventure to find Klem, a shaman and artist who fascinated Arok when he was younger with his painting and sorcery skills. Years later, Arok seeks Klem so he can learn his ways, and wouldn’t you just know his journey would be fraught with bears, the need to catch a fish, and a dude who won’t help make tools until someone brews him some tea.

But see, that’s the beauty of adventure games, and this one in particular. Adventure gamers (and we’re a dedicated lot) will tell you that the puzzle is all that matters. Whether you’re assembling the ingredients for tea or trying to defuse a bomb, you’re still just solving a puzzle. So, if the puzzles work, by and large, the game works. Unfortunately, the puzzles don’t always work in Secret of the Lost Cavern.

As I played through the game, I was surprised at how many of them could be solved by trial and error. Click around the screen long enough, and eventually you’ll assemble your paint materials the proper way or align the cave paintings in a fluid manner. Also, the answers to many of the puzzles are included in the game’s built-in encyclopedia. This is fine from an educational perspective, as you’ll learn a lot about life in the Paleolithic period and about the Lascaux Cave in particular. But from a gaming standpoint, I’d rather not have to read in order to solve the puzzles unless the reading is woven directly into the game. Otherwise, it just seems like work. Or worse, like school.

Aside from that, there’s only one design element that I felt hurt Secret of the Lost Cavern; although the game is set 15,000 years B.C., the characters all talk as if they’re from 2009 A.D. Now, of course you can’t have a game where everyone just shouts out “Oongtutu ugh ugh!” all the time, but some attention to period in the voice acting could’ve helped to maintain the illusion.

The graphics, on the other hand, do a great job of setting the time and location. They’re quite lush and gorgeously colored in the way that only adventure games seem to get right. The lighting and ambient sound effects are quite detailed, making this a great game to play in a darkened, quiet room (playing through adventure games is not entirely unlike reading a good book, after all). Even better, there are continuous animations that help bring the landscape to life in a natural, unobtrusive way: soaring birds, grazing horses and such. PC gamers have been seeing this sort of thing in adventure games for quite some time now, but considering the glut of such games on the Mac, it feels fresh to us.

Also, although you do zap from point to point to get through the game, you’re given 360 degree views of the hot spots. A lot of the puzzle solving centers around you searching each of these areas for tools and other interactive elements (indicated by the traditional cursor change), and some actually require action. After you’ve put your spear together and blocked off the river so you can catch a fish, for example, you actually then have to physcially spear the fish.

All of this comes together in a manner that builds to a decent finish, but those seeking more than good puzzles may feel let down. The story never gets all that interesting, and the game is over a bit too quickly. For $24.99, it would be well worth it. But Secret of the Lost Cavern is selling for a whopping $39.90 for either the download or the DVD version, and that’s just crazy, especially when you consider an iPhone version is in the works, which will undoubtedly contain similar graphics and puzzles for at least $30 less.

So, if you’re an adventure gamer who’s unsure about the investment, grab the free demo. If you’re not an adventure gamer, bypass this one altogether; there’s just not enough here to hold your interest for very long…unless you’re into flint and tea.