Small and cozy collectathon game bogged down by unenjoyable hazard interactions and wonky controls.

If Fynn at their slowest moved just a little faster then the wind would not be such a soul-sucking environmental hazard. But precise platforming with wind is hair-pulling at times and upgrades do nothing to make wind enjoyable to work with. Water and swimming can also be painful, especially when gaining speed.

Could also do with some sfx rework. Sound effects are loud loud compared to normal gameplay.

kind of a derivative retro 3D platformer that has some cool texture/environment work and a few memorable moments (the second stage was cool, the final boss battle was a neat idea) but ultimately just washed over me. i don't want to be too mean on this one because i think it's like a first time developer who i'm sure will have the ability to do more interesting things in the future and there were times i was genuinely surprised by things in the game. but it never felt like it cohered into a particularly distinctive experience. at no point did i ever felt like it exists for a purpose other than to call back to some old N64 games. my brain kept trying to imagine another version of this game that was more interesting to me. there was kind of a void there in the center that there is with a lot of these nostalgia games that was hard for me to ignore.

Usually I enjoy these smaller sized Nintendo 64 style collectathons and Cavern of Dreams is no exception. It didn't do anything in particular that blew me away, but it's a solid all-around "one of those." I enjoyed how gathering each egg usually required some exploration or solving some puzzle rather than just gathering in the overworld, but some did feel obtuse enough that they were difficult to discover organically. It's an enjoyable little platformer and does an excellent job at capturing the aesthetics of the Nintendo 64 era.