Cauldron - The Best Way To Lose An Evening

I received another game for free, courtesy of Peter Regg, the solo developer at SleepyDad games. Cauldron was pitched to me as an incremental idle game with minigames, turn-based combat with RPG elements, collectables, puzzles, charm, cosy vibes and more skill trees than a very skilful orchard. Progression, replayability, gorgeous retro pixel art, music inspired by the classics of the genre.

That set-up had my brain jumbling with buzzwords, but I dove in regardless, very unsure of what to expect from the minute-to-minute gameplay that Cauldron offered. As I waded through, all those disparate and detached selling points melted into one big word in blinky lights: FUN. I didn’t just play Cauldron, I sucked it up whole. I could play nothing else for a few weeks, and when I finished it, I decided all of my friends needed to try it out too.

So let me introduce you: you start as a clumsy young witch called Nyx, surrounded by darkness that has enveloped the whole world. Nyx meets a sarcastic pink ghost, Blinkie, who helps her out with banishing each tile that makes up the darkness that shrouds the map. Clearing the tiles means a flashy, fast combat against slimes, dragons, ghosts (oh, my!), and many other creatures that we can encounter across the map and every new section of the map means more secrets, more directions to travel, more allies to build up the party and more minigames to play.

So let’s get to the minigames! The first tile that Nyx will uncover will give players access to perhaps the most important part of the game. The Cauldron! Placing apples, fish, rocks, crystals or ice into the cauldron will give Nyx skill points to spread through the uncountable skill trees for each character, making them better in combat. It will also increase how much the Cauldron can collect when the player is away, to keep resources building up while battling on the other side of the map.

Starting out, I played each minigame and was a little deflated. The apple minigame: catch falling apples and avoid the scary-looking fruit. Fishing: drop the hook, dodge bad fish, reel in the good ones. Mining: conserve digging energy, go for the shiniest rocks. They are tight and fun, but it feels like they will dry up quickly.

Then I started investing. Skill points slotted into place across skill trees that made each minigame explode with potential. The apple game transformed into a bullet hell fruit frenzy. Fishing turned into a precise game of multiplier-chaining cat and mouse. Mining became a methodical puzzle of perfect positioning and juicy rewards. I won’t spoil every upgrade or the two minigames that you unlock further into the game, but just when you think you have seen everything the game has to offer it springs new ideas on you that ooze creativity.

I think it’s clear I loved the game. The loop sees us fighting till we are outmatched, then collecting the resources that have built up, spending them on minigame upgrades, then playing the minigame for a new high score to produce resources while we go out and fight again, using the resources to level up the party whenever we can. It’s simple, but more than anything else, it’s satisfying.

Seeing numbers grow slowly, or shoot into the stratosphere, or allocating talent points to a new ally who then punches through the tricky boss in one fell swoop is satisfying, and it makes the whole game feel like a steady climb to a worthy victory. The bosses each pose a unique threat, and status effects have to be juggled and considered. Items that are added make for a new level of complexity. Fighting with certain groups will let team members talk to each other, forming bonds and giving them a little more characterisation that I appreciated. It made it very easy to love some of these cute little folks. I had the kill squad that I brought into almost every fight, but the occasional necessity of somebody else and the conversations that they would share afterwards, nudged me into appreciating the guys on the bench just as much.

And then I beat the final boss, and it was over. I hadn’t maxed out every skill tree or heard every conversation, but it was done. Or was it?!

A whole slew of interesting game modes: Idle, Pacifist, Hard Mode, a version where enemy numbers are doubled - all of these arrive and inject so much more game into this cutesy experience. And each game mode defeated means another bundle of skill points to use to face off against the final challenge for the true ending.

I didn’t beat every game mode. I beat most of them, then beat the True Ending after a few attempts. Then I went back to complete all of the little hidden puzzles in the rest of the game and to unlock every dialogue between my lil friends. And after all that…. I kind of miss it. Maybe I should start over from the top.

Cauldron is the kind of surprise that we all wish we could find. A concoction of genres left to bubble until the best bits rise to the surface and shine. With all the charm, wit and addictive gameplay that it promised in its initial description, there is nobody I would not recommend this game to. I don’t know if allocating star ratings to movies, books, and games is something I want to do on Chogg.Blog - if that’s something you would like, then just let me know - but if I did, this would be a perfect little parcel of 5-star fun. Buy the game, tell them Chogg.Blog sent you. There’s some magic to dig into here.

My little squad of buddies, who faced off against nearly every baddie across the map. Take a look at that gorgeous pixel art!

As always, share this if you like, let me know what you think below or over on Instagram and tell SleepyDad games anywhere you can find them online that I liked their game!

Every single person who talks about the Chogg.Blog helps, and one day I’ll have every game, film and book catalogued here for my lukewarm takes on whatever you’re interested in. Me and my best pal started a podcast about the old Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic book despite neither of us having any real interest in Sonic so if you want to give that a listen then head over to that header at the top of the screen. Thanks again guys <3