CaveExpress

About the game

CaveExpress is a delivery job in the Stone Age. A caveman sits in a flying machine made of wood and leaves, with a pedal-driven rotor on top, and his customers are the cave dwellers of each level: they leave packages lying around, and the job is to carry every one of them to the shredder, the wooden box that takes in the deliveries. When all packages are delivered, the map is done.

The challenge is the physics. The machine has weight and momentum, gravity pulls it down the moment you let go of the up key, and hitting a wall too hard breaks it. Every package you carry hangs under the machine and makes it heavier and harder to steer, so taking two at once saves time only if you can still fly straight. Water, wind, geysers, gates, lava and narrow tunnels turn each map into a small route puzzle.

The caves are not empty either. A sleeping dinosaur snores you off course, an angry one charges at you and smashes packages on its way, pterodactyls attack anything that flies, a big fish guards the water and the mastodon is slow but dangerous up close. A stone thrown at a dinosaur dazes it, and the same stone thrown at a tree shakes loose fruit that restores your health. Some maps ask you to rescue a villager before the water rises, and the Taxi campaign has you carry cave people between caves.

Playing it here

This build comes from the source code of Martin Gerhardy's repository (the game shows "CaveExpress 2.7"), compiled for the browser. It has the 13 campaigns of the game, from the Introduction to Ice, Rock, Jungle, Desert, Wind, Taxi, Letters, Villages and Races, with more than 160 maps; the multiplayer mode and the map editor are not included. The download is about 72 MB, mostly the artwork, and your progress and settings are kept in this browser. The game is in English and needs a keyboard or a gamepad.

Controls

Getting started

Normal or Hard. The first screen asks for a game mode. In Normal mode you can retry a map as often as you like. In Hard mode you have lives: every crash costs one, collecting several fruits in quick succession gives one back, and losing them all means starting the campaign again.

Start with the Introduction. The first campaign opens with a short scene and then teaches one idea per map: carrying packages, the tree and the stone, geysers, flying creatures, gates, rescuing people, diving, rising water, the fish and lava. Each map starts with a card that lists its objectives and the new things in it.

Pick a campaign. All campaigns are open from the start, and inside each one the maps unlock in order: finishing a map opens the next. Each map awards up to three stars, depending on how fast you deliver everything.

Tips

Feather the up key. Short taps keep the machine hovering; holding the key too long sends you into the ceiling. Slow down before every landing, since a hard touchdown hurts as much as a wall.

Carry one package when the way is tight. Two packages hang lower and swing more. In open caves taking both saves a trip; in tunnels it is safer to fly twice.

Use the stone. Drop it on a dinosaur that blocks the way, or on a tree when your health is low. A stone left near the shredder also helps when a package has to be dropped from above.

Watch the timer. Stars depend on time, so once you know a map, plan the order of the packages and fly the shortest route.