This Is No Cave Review: A Tiny, Terrifying Speedrun Platformer Worth Chasing

This Is No Cave strands the player on an uncharted alien planet after a crash landing, tasked with navigating an underground labyrinth back to their ship while avoiding the colossal worms that dug the tunnels in the first place. Developed by monome.studio and published alongside GCORES PUBLISHING, it launched in October 2025 to a strong 96% positive rating across 127 Steam reviews. The 19-review English-language sample pulled for this piece, drawn from both the most-praised and most-recent reviews in that pool, is dominated by one message repeated in nearly every entry: the movement feels exceptional, and that alone carries the game a long way.

A Minimalist Premise Built Entirely Around Movement

The setup is deliberately thin, and reviewers treat it that way too: this is a game about the joy of propelling yourself through 2D space, not about story or exploration for its own sake. Players navigate intricate, hazard-filled levels using a suit's thrusters and a grapple hook, both controlled with the mouse (controller support is included, though several reviewers specifically recommend sticking with mouse and keyboard). One reviewer sums up the core appeal bluntly: "the game controls like a dream. It takes a second to get used to using the grappling hook to launch yourself in a specific direction, but once you do it's a ton of fun launching yourself through hazards and obstacles." Another calls it "the best auto-runner EVER by FAR," while a third simply writes "holy niche, this game is so fun, mechanics are insanely smooth and the animations are absolutely perfect."

That consensus around movement quality is close to universal across the sample, and it's worth taking seriously as the game's defining trait rather than treating it as generic praise. Multiple reviewers independently reach for the same comparison point, Super Meat Boy, specifically citing the game's forgiving-but-demanding structure and its focus on aerial momentum over precise platform-to-platform jumping. One bilingual review, posted in both English and Portuguese, describes the game as reminiscent of Super Meat Boy "but with a focus on aerial moments," and praises how new tools are introduced "at just the right time, making the game increasingly challenging."

Presentation: Pixel Art, Atmosphere and a Soundtrack That Grows With You

Visual and audio presentation draw consistently strong marks in the sample. Reviewers describe the pixel art as "gorgeous," "very, very beautiful," and praise the game's atmosphere and lighting as it shifts across the roughly 30 core levels. One reviewer specifically highlights the soundtrack's structure, noting that "the music that evolves as the game progresses" alongside the introduction of new mechanics helps the difficulty curve feel earned rather than arbitrary. A more mixed note comes from a reviewer who otherwise enjoyed the game but felt the antagonist's design, the giant worm that periodically chases the player, doesn't entirely fit the rest of the game's visual language, writing that "it's art style is really good, but i feel like it doesnt really fit the greater style of the game." It's a narrow criticism, but a specific and repeatable one worth flagging for anyone particularly attentive to visual cohesion.

Chasing the Leaderboard: The Game's Real Endgame

Several reviewers frame the base campaign less as the full experience and more as an on-ramp to the game's real hook: its built-in leaderboard and speedrunning structure. Quick respawns and tight level design are explicitly built to encourage rapid retries, and reviewers describe losing entire evenings to shaving fractions of a second off personal best times. One reviewer calls it "an all night long race against yourself and the whole world," while another, who doesn't identify as a speedrunner, still found it "so fun trying to beat others on the leaderboard," adding that "it never gets boring." Adjustable difficulty modes, referred to in the sample as Chill Mode and a harder Hardcore option, along with an endless mode for players who exhaust the core 30 levels, are repeatedly cited as reasons the game's replay value outstrips its modest level count. Co-op and split-screen multiplayer are also called out favourably, with one reviewer noting the co-op mode "even featuring new mechanics exclusive to it," and another specifically recommending it as "a fun way to extract more hours from the game if you have a few friends and controllers."

Where the Campaign Runs Short

The most consistent structural complaint in the sample is length. More than one reviewer explicitly says the base 30-level campaign, while excellent while it lasts, is short enough that the game's overall value depends heavily on whether the player actually wants to engage with the leaderboard and endless-mode content afterward. "Amazing game but way to short only 30 levels but most of them are pure platforming gold," reads one representative comment. Another reviewer, while still recommending the game, notes wanting "more levels" and mentions having heard that a DLC expansion is planned, though that detail comes from reviewer discussion rather than an official announcement and should be treated as unconfirmed. For players who don't particularly enjoy replaying levels for better times, this is worth weighing carefully against the asking price.

Camera and Control Complaints From a Vocal Minority

Not every account in the sample lands on the enthusiastic end of the scale, and the two more critical reviews both point at related issues with the game's aiming and momentum systems. One reviewer, who ultimately still recommended the game, describes struggling specifically with the unconstrained 360-degree mouse aiming combined with an unpredictable camera, writing "it's too challenging for me to aim cursor when camera movement is unpredictable," and suggesting a controller might work better despite not being their personal preference. The sample's one Not Recommended review goes further, describing the environmental gas-cloud hazards as "very annoying" and arguing that boosting with the grapple hook can make careful routing feel "meaningless" in a way that undercuts the game's own precision-platformer identity in places. That same reviewer singles out the final level specifically, describing its chase sequence as "really unbalanced and broken," and arguing that introducing a forced-chase structure late in a game built around deliberate, momentum-based movement doesn't work as well as the rest of the design. A separate reviewer, while still recommending the game overall, independently reports that "the sliding and picking up speed while running is kind of buggy and inconsistent," though they add it didn't stop them from posting good times regardless.

Accessibility and Modes

The game ships with a reasonably deep set of accessibility and difficulty options for its size, including adjustable difficulty, a "Playable without Timed Input" option, full controller support, and a shield/checkpoint system on normal difficulty that one reviewer describes as making otherwise-hard sections "easier than they should be." That same reviewer, who describes themselves as "old" and finding the game "quite a challenge mechanically," still recommends it on the strength of that forgiving checkpoint structure, suggesting the difficulty curve is more approachable for less mechanically confident players than the leaderboard-chasing crowd might imply.

Final Verdict

This Is No Cave is a small game with a clear, well-executed idea at its centre: mouse-driven grapple-and-thrust movement that reviewers describe, almost without exception, as some of the most satisfying platforming they've played recently. Thirty core levels is a modest amount of content on paper, and the handful of critical voices in the sample are right to flag that the campaign alone may feel slight, that the unconstrained aiming won't suit every player, and that at least one late-game sequence doesn't fully deliver on the rest of the design's promise. But for the audience this is actually built for, players who want a tight, replayable movement system worth mastering and a real leaderboard to chase, the overwhelming reviewer consensus is that it delivers exactly what it sets out to.