Dabbling with… CAVE! CAVE! DEUS VIDET

The fifth episode of a short series on games I discovered at EGX Rezzed 2015.

I don’t know what this is. Well, that’s unfair. I know what it is. It’s a visual novel. Actually, they call it AN ART-FI EPISODIC VISUAL NOVEL inspired by the works of Jheronimus Bosch.

I mean, I sat down and had a go. I just had a go, that’s all. My usual CYOA BULLSHIT filters kicked in. Oh look. Branching narrative. CHOICE. Try not to yawn, now, not in front of the Italian developer, dear. It has this earnest tone, that it is ART and you DO NOT UNDERSTAND ART DO YOU.

I had to choose which of several identical looking hands looked closest to mine. I could choose one or declare my annoyance that, well, they’re all the same, aren’t they? I chose annoyance. The developer had little time for my tone. After whittering on about destiny, the game told me the hands were not the same, look again.

The hands were different after all.

And it went on like this – but then I played a fighting game? And then there was EMO GIRL. And a magician? What happened to that developer/player relationship? I didn’t understand.

But I was smirking at the screen even though I hadn’t the faintest idea what I was playing.

I don’t know what CAVE! CAVE! DEUS VIDET (We Are Müesli, 2014) is about and I was sort of speechless when I spoke to developer Matteo Pozzi afterwards. I just liked it, I can’t say any more than that. It trolls the player in a way not totally unlike The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe, 2013), but that is a rather poor comparison to make as this is an entirely different beast. Maybe the work of Pippin Barr is a better touchstone? Or perhaps we should leave it free of boring this-meets-that descriptions? It is what it is.

Here is a trailer for the game.

Now I didn’t like all of it. I felt the fighting segment went on a little too long, for one thing. But I was baffled and I want to be baffled some more.

Episode 0 is free to download and Episode 1 is currently on Steam Greenlight.

On the developer: We Are Müesli is Matteo Pozzi and Claudia Molinari, a self-professed Indie Couple. They gave a talk about what it means to be an Indie Couple at GDC Europe 2014. Sadly, the duo just lost their cat Patata this week.

All Episodes

• TRI – a first-person puzzler
• The Marvellous Miss Take – polished 2D heist/stealth game
• DEEP – deep breathing meditation in VR
• Her Story – explore video footage of police interviews to solve a mystery
• CAVE! CAVE! DEUS VIDET – art-fi visual novel in which I understood nothing that was going on
• One One One Two Three – minimalist card game that plays out in minutes
• Aerobat – incredible 2D shooter, I can’t rate it highly enough
• Screencheat – wonderful local multiplayer FPS
• Planet of the Eyes – a puzzle platformer that didn’t hold my hand