OUR REVIEW

Speleology for amateurs

The Cave

potholers in Caves

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You have always wanted to be a speleologist? You learned to dive in freezing water? Have learned to spot when carbon monoxide is satiating the air instead of oxygen? You love narrow gorges and dark gaps? Then this is the right place for you!

The Cave is a game for 2-5 speleologist who explore the underground universe of a large cave system. At the start of the game there is only a cave entry with a few starting shafts or ducts - their number varies from three in case of two speleologists to six shafts for five speleologists. Each player stuffs his backpack with necessary equipment. There are rubber rafts, photographic equipment, oxygen tanks, ropes and food rations. You can even take along a tent to set up a camp with equipment somewhere in the depths of the mountain.

The game itself comprises cave tiles, a lot of equipment markers, many, many markers which you acquire for overcoming obstacles and other feats, player boards and figurines for speleologists and camp tents.

The Cave tiles are divided into four groups of tiles, according to their backsides. For each number of players you randomly remove some cave tiles. The remaining cave tiles are introduced into the game one after the other and their random grouping results in a game that remains challenging all the time. The tiles show different kinds of passages and crossings, and there are a number of obstacles in the shafts. There are three levels of shaft constrictions, called squeezes, and there are water areas, landmarks and abysses. To be able to cross all those obstacles you should have the respective equipment with you. This is the purpose of the player boards.

At the start of the game you put equipment on your player board. But take card, there is limited space available, a mechanism that reminds one of Bakong. You should carry a good variety of things, space is limited and don't forget that a speleologist is human and needs to eat sometimes. The longer such an explorer stays away from cave entry or camp the more space is taken up by food in the backpack. The more food the less equipment. The less equipment the fewer opportunities to explore the cave. Thus the filling of your backpack is the first obstacle or challenge in the game. Food, Rope and oxygen tanks are really used up when used and so the backpack empties in the course of the game. A raft in your backpack offers a great variety of opportunities to cross water. As can be expected, you can use photographic equipment more than once. That's something, for sure, as you only need one space in the backpack for the photo equipment and one for the raft. And yet some players leave both those things behind in the camp. There is a separate area on the player board representing stores in a camp set up in the cave system. But those stores must be fetched from the entry and taken to the camp….

The second purpose of the player board is to couple actions with action points (AP), just as we have seen it in the classic Tikal. In his turn a player has 5 AP which he can allocate anyway he wants. To explore the cave you must place tiles. To place a cave tile costs you 1 AP and you must be positioned at the edge of a tile that you have explored already. You draw a cave tile from the stack and place it in congruency with your position. Reminds one of Carcassonne, somehow. Doesn't it?  If you cannot place the tile you take a Blind Alley tile and place this instead. To enter a new cave tile costs you yet another AP. For obstacles you have to pay a surcharge, but as a compensation the first player to overcome an obstacle is rewarded with a marker that scores victory points at the end of the game.

Water can be crossed with a raft. The raft can be inflated, used, deflated and repacked into the backpack. This complete procedure costs you only one additional AP. (What a pity that you passed on bringing the boat). But, should you want to acquire the water obstacle reward for the lake you need to dive and for this you need oxygen tanks. The price for using them is 2 AP and spending one oxygen tank. How nice that they come in a double pack! You can also dive to cross water, if you did not bring your raft in your backpack, just divesting you of another 2 AP surcharge and one oxygen tank.

Landmarks (Ötzi's skeleton or other such things) should be photographed. IF you did not bring photo equipment it is usually not worth your while to enter such a tile. And again only the first one to do so is rewarded and takes the marker, but pays 1 AP surcharge. Well, taking pictures in the dark of a cave takes time, and you need suitable equipment. And no, your mobile phone, even if it is the latest model, does not suffice at all. After taking pictures of sundry bones and such things the respective tile is treated as an empty shaft tile.

Constrictions also cost action points, if you want to enter such a tile - between one and three of them, depending on the level of constriction. All have to pay that want to pass, but only the first to do so acquires the marker. And the shaft remains a squeeze until the end of his life. Häh? I'm sure the shaft is not alive!

A final kind of obstacle is provided by precipices or descents. The shaft keeps falling by 25 m. When you have turned up and placed a descent, you need a rope and one AP surcharge to climb down the precipice. As a reward you get the rope marker from the tile and you mark the depth that you have reached. On the next entry of this tile the rope is already in place and the tile is only entered to advance or to reach a new level of depth. From time to time you connect higher and lower levels within the cave system. Oh, and by the way, on such a connection you need to use ropes for going down and for going up.

Each marker that you collected during the game earns you victory points at the end of the game, in relation to the number of surcharge action points that you had to spend, between 2 and 5. There is also a scoring of majorities in markers of certain categories (water, rope, picture, constriction).

A basic requirement to score points is to be able to make your way out of the cave system again. At the end you should not be too far from the exit. After placing the last cave tile or of a blind alley tile instead of a cave tile you have exactly three rounds in which you must make it to the cave entry. When a player does not manage to reach the entry he is considered to be lost in the caves and his markers are not scored. This final part of the game can take time, because nobody wants to speed up the end. This was the point where the thrill level suddenly took a drop. All players simply bided their time, nobody dared to go too far into the caves …

The Cave plays very differently in each new game. We have also tried to work in "double harness". When a single player draws the necessary tiles he can win. If he did not have the luck of the draw the teams of two players were more successful. But in the second half of the game even such team mates must find their own route.

Monika Dillingeróva

Players: 2-5

Age: 10+

Time: 90+

Designer: Adam Kałuza

Artist: Jarek Nocoň

Price: ca. 30 Euro

Publisher: Pegasus Spiele 2013

Web: www.pegasus.de

Genre: Tile placement, collecting

Users: With friends

Version: de

Rules: de en it pl

In-game text:

Comments:

Good mix of well-known standard mechanisms

Topic nicely implemented

Offers a new challenge with each new game

Compares to:

Carcassonne, Tikal, Bakong and others

Other editions:

Rebel.pl, uplay.it

My rating: 5

Monika Dillingeróva:

A thrilling game with friends that plays differently each time and offers a different challenge each time

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0