I first saw Miasma Caves at Play NYC 2017. I was completely taken in by a gigantic banner of a cute dragon girl and decided to learn a bit more about the game. This year, the cute dragon girl banner and the game its advertising both made a return to Play NYC. I was keen on catching up with a game whose development I was very much interested in.
In the last year, Miasma Caves has fleshed out its world quite a bit. 2017's build had flat level design with very little in the way of detail, but the current game world is now filled with lush grass and plant life. The underground areas have all sorts of lovely touches of detail. The gameplay is there too, of course—I was able to spend about seven minutes getting hands-on with the game and seeing just how far it's come. Have a look at this trailer to see a bit of the game in motion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAPJa_uNmPs
Demo sessions were time-limited to keep people from hanging around and playing the game too much. It certainly was an understandable concern; I can't count how many hours I've burned away playing the likes of Minecraft or similar exploration games. I dug around for a bit, searching for valuable treasure to take out of the underground tunnels back to the surface.
Throughout my time in the caves, I had to be careful to avoid enemies. Miasma Caves still won't have a strong focus on combat, but that's not to say that there aren't a number of threats to worry about. Cave-ins nearly bonked me on the head a couple of times and indigenous creatures like slimes threatened to hinder my progress or steal my sweet loot away from me.
I had a torch and a pickaxe to help me with my searches, but both of these tools had a limit to how long they would last. It wasn't too long before I found myself in the darkness and had to resort to using my claws to dig into the earth. It's slower, but it still allowed me to make some measure of progress in my hunt. As time wound down, I decided to make a dash for the surface and see just how things have changed in the world above.
Once I was back on the surface, I spoke with the sole NPC in town to get my items appraised. Pretty much anything you find in the underground is going to be a complete mystery to you until a professional with a practiced eye takes a look and tells you just what the heck you found. Some of the items might be useful equipment to help in your adventures and some might just be valuable goods that are only fit to sell.
At the moment, the world of Miasma Caves is a good bit more fleshed out than it was a year ago. Some new areas have been added into the game and there's more detail in the map as a whole. More townsfolk are going to be added (each with their own distinct purpose), and I'm sure the number of cool things you can find is going to expand, too.
If things stay on schedule, Miasma Caves should be making its way to Steam Early Access in just a few months. I'm very much looking forward to spending a lot more than 7 minutes with this game. You can find out more by heading on over to the game's official website - and don't forget to add it to your wishlist on Steam!
What do you think of Miasma Caves? Does the idea of a treasure-hunting game without an emphasis on combat appeal to you or do you feel that fighting bad guys is necessary to the formula? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out what else we saw at Play NYC by going to our Play NYC 2018 Coverage Hub.