Caverns of Mars: Recharged review

Admirably, SneakyBox attempts to reinvigorate this early indie effort. But there’s just not enough substance in the source material to make Caverns of Mars feel truly fully Recharged. 

Launched in 1981, the Atari Program Exchange (or APX) laid down several foundations for indie game development. The initiative allowed consumers to submit their works to Atari. If the program was good enough, it was included in Atari’s quarterly catalog, earning royalties and the possibility of additional cash prizes. Long before the internet become ubiquitous, APX was one of the best ways for a non-professional programmer to achieve nationwide distribution.

One of the standout efforts was 1981’s Caverns of Mars, a fast-paced, vertically-scrolling shooter coded by high school senior, Greg Christensen. Programmed in little more than a month and a half, the game made quite an impact on Atari’s executives. Originally released on a diskette, the title received a cartridge-based port, becoming one of the few homebrew titles to become an official Atari title. Although APX would be discontinued in 1984, consumer-coded software was here to stay, helping to kick off the careers of industry notables like Jeff Minter, Chris Crawford, Fernando Herrera.

The Rare Return to Mars

Much like Minter’s recent reinvigoration of Akka Arrh, Caverns of Mars: Recharged reveals Atari starting to reach into its back catalog. Following remakes of coin-op classics like Missile Command, Centipede, Breakout, Asteroids, Black Widow, Gravitar, and Yars’ Revenge, most of the publisher’s seminal hits have been covered. While the story of Caverns of Mars’ teenage developer is well-circulated, the game itself tends to get overlooked. So do yourself a favor and play the original on the excellent Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration.  More than any of Adam Nickerson’s remakes, Caverns of Mars: Recharged injects a large amount of innovation. Tragically, there’s not quite enough modernism to maintain attentions for too long.

Although Nickerson only gets a mention in the credits, his approach toward remakes shaped Caverns of Mars: Recharged. Like previous Recharged titles, the traditional three-life system of the original game has been retooled into a single opportunity. Here, the game’s downward firing craft won’t instantly explode when colliding with the environment or foes. Instead, you’ll begin with six health pips, losing one for every blunder. Fortunately, grabbing any weapon icon also returns one unit of lost health. The side-effect of this decision is that you’ll be constating cycling through the different guns in Cavern’s arsenal.

An Armory for the Red Planet

Each of these different offensive devices offers advantages over your standard shot. Some weapons, like the shotgun, pump out a fan of short-range bullets, while lasers can effectively clear the column-like space beneath you. Other firearms provide advantages such as being able to angle your shots to the left or right. But regardless of what offensive tool you use, firing slows your decent speed and removes any environmental obstructions in your path. Yes, with Recharged you can shoot right through the landscape in each of the circuitous stages. Given that your entire ship is a hitbox, you’ll want to open up your flight path wide as possible.

Expectedly, there’s an energy limit that you’ll need to keep an eye on. Consume all your power and you’ll freefall downward, which is a death sentence unless you’re already near the bottom. Fortunately, each level has a generous number of energy tanks that can help top off your power supply. Caverns of Mars: Recharged is a bit like River Raid in reverse, and you’ll want to slow down to ensure that your fuel tanks are filled. As such, you’ll have to balance health and energy as well as speed with safety- welcome tensions that were missing from the source material.

There’s Always a Caveat  

At the end of a stage, you’re provided with a selection of three perks. Like a roguelike, you choose one of them before moving on to the next level- typically with a lingering pang of regret. Some of that remorse might stem from missed opportunities, but the majority of it is rooted in perks that also have a negative trait. Sure, that vampiric ability sounds tempting, providing a bit of power from every annihilated adversary. But the power-up also reduces your energy tank’s capacity, forcing you to frantically hunt down more on-screen foes, which puts you at risk of crashing.

While these perks can affect your ship’s health, energy management, and weaponry, they aren’t quite enough to endow Caverns of Mars: Recharged with variety. The original mixed things up with waves where you’re navigated through armadas of rocket ships and a tense ascent back upward. But Caverns doggedly sends you downward, weaving through an increasingly narrow chasm.

As with Nickerson’s Recharged titles, a healthy succession of standalone challenge stages accompanies the main campaign. While these can sporadically help make the game feel a bit richer, here they feel too similar to moments in the main game. More interesting is the trio of togglable options, where you can opt for a single health pip, reduce your ship’s falling speed, or reduce the usefulness of power-up. Each has a corresponding effect on scoring. There are also leaderboards, but at present taking a look at the standings momentarily freezes the game.

Conclusion

Caverns of Mars doesn’t quite live up to the standard set by previous Recharged releases. Fault can’t be completely blamed in the approach, with developer SneakyBox following the blueprint of previous entries. But that said, a bit more deviation in play would have helped offset tedium. Caverns of Mars: Recharged is entertaining in short doses but is a bit too simple to extend long-term appeal.

Caverns of Mars: Recharged was played on PC
with review code provided by the publisher.