Cave Quest

In Cave Quest help Isabella and her sweetheart, Mike, find her parents and brother George who are missing. Travel to the mountains to find the fabled mountain spirits George was seeking and rescue them all from an evil king and queen.

Cave Quest is both an adventure game and a tile-matching game. It also contains a few simplistic hidden object games. Choose between Timed and Relaxed modes at the beginning of a new game.

As an adventure, there is an evolving story, interaction with other characters, puzzles to solve and inventory items to locate, collect, combine and use.

While objects can be found in the gameplay screen, others must be purchased from the local trading post with money earned during the tile-matching games. Objects can also be given to and received from NPCs. Conversations with NPCs are not voiced and are shown as on-screen text. The player's task list appears on the lower left side of the screen and updates as objectives are reached.

Working tile-matching games becomes the means to an end, whether it be to clear ice from a stairway, dig gold out of a mine, or enter a previously unvisited area. All tile-matching games follow a traditional "match 3" mechanic, creating matches of three or more identical icons.

There are three different types of tile-matching games. One has a stationary grid; important objects appearing at the top with the objective of moving them until they drop off the bottom. Another sets the player in a battle against a monster in turn-based matches with special tiles that heal, protect or attack, also using a standard grid. The last has the player clearing a pre-set pathway so the protagonists' icons can reach the end. In the path-clearing puzzles, the board "moves" to follow the progress of play and simulate navigation, and parts of the board are hidden until movement on the path reaches them.

Some objects appear as power-ups in the tile-matching games and, innovatively, are used to interact with the adventure environment as well. For instance, find a pick and use it to break a pile of rocks in the adventure. Then that same pick is used in the tile-matching puzzle games as a bonus item. Upgrades to those tools become available gradually and can be bought in the trading post.