Morris Cave by Caramelo Game Studios

My one-sentence summary: Morris Cave is a bare-bones platformer that may not be the (admittedly small) price of admission.

Next, the developer’s pitch: “Help Morris find the way out of this cave as quickly as possible. Every level, a new challenge! Defeat the monsters and don’t get caught by the traps hidden in the darkness.“

What Worked For Me:

The game is, for the most part, fully functional.
The game is quite inexpensive to purchase. Even at full price, it only costs $1 USD.
For those that prefer an unforgiving game, Morris Cave may be a good choice. Though the main character (MC) has infinite lives, they can only take 3 hits before having to restart the level they’re on. The game does have nominal check-pointing by way of sconces, but they’re so few and far between I often found I beat levels with the 3 hits provided or not at all.

What Didn’t:

The game has no accessibility options. In other words, the controls cannot be remapped, the darkness/brightness cannot be adjusted in game, and menuing requires a mouse (meaning you need at least two input devices to play the game).
The game’s inputs are wacky on controller. D-Pad is disabled, Y is jump, and A is “shoot.” This wouldn’t be an issue if the controls could be remapped, but they can’t.
The enemy variety is minuscule; there’s a fireball, a 2-hit fireball, a skeleton warrior, a snake, and an archer. That’s it. (For those wondering, no, you don’t get to fight the horned skull that appears in the game’s marketing materials.) I regularly found the levels themselves to be more difficult than any of the enemies, especially with how far the MC’s projectile shoots.
The game is really dark, both with its liberal use of black background and a limited field of view. I found this more annoying than scary, especially as it meant certain traps and obstacles really faded into the background. Thus, beating the levels was often an exercise in memorization and “taking it slow” rather than improvisation.
I wasn’t impressed by the ending. For more details, please see the “spoiler discussion” below.
The music is inoffensive at best. It tries to go for a “spooky” atmosphere, but the music is on too short of a loop to do any better than “not actively annoying” in my book.
(nit-pick) There’s no level select screen, even after beating the game.
(nit-pick) I had to beat the final level twice for the last achievement to be added to my list.

Conclusion:

Unless you’re really hurting for a new platformer to play, I’d probably skip Morris Cave. I generally found the moment-to-moment game-play more frustrating than fun, especially with all of the small but significant issues I ran into. While I commend the developer’s desire to say something, I found the narrative too clunky and the “message” too haphazardly inserted to really get much out of it. In short, I suggest you tread carefully in Morris Cave.

Check it out here.