Jet Kave Adventure is an attempt by a small Polish studio to make a quality platformer in the style of Donkey Kong Country Returns. And they did a great job!

I’m deep in the DK community, and Retro’s DK reboots can be divisive in some corners. I like them though (except the rocket barrel segments) so it’s interesting to see a take on their brand of dynamic, weighty action. Kave doesn’t play exactly like DK but the flow of the levels does feel good, and there’s plenty of secrets to find if you want to take it slow.

The caveman-fantasy theme (inspired by caveman-based Amiga platformers Big Nose and Prehistorik, according to interviews) is a fun setting, with beautiful vistas of wastelands, beaches, forests, and volcanoes full of giant skeletons… as well as lots of wacky, living, dinosaurs to smash… incidentally, the game begins with a tongue-in-cheek warning about its historicity. Also, there’s aliens, and advanced ancient technology.

The alien crashlanding kicks off the plot, while Kave steals a jetpack from the downed saucer. This is the main gimmick of the game, with hover and burst abilities giving you a lot of aerial mobility plus letting you break through walls, hit switches, and facilitating the—sigh—autoscrolling sections. But actually! These are short and give you more control than DKCR and TF’s rocket barrels, plus you get more hit points.

Along with this Kave has a melee attack with his club, and a sling for range. These can be improved in a shop between levels, along with other functions like health. These improvements are useful, permanent, and distributed fairly over the course of the game; it seems better balanced than Retro’s DK shops. Another key mechanic is gathering food from the environment and enemies, to give you a quick health refill mid-level. It’s fun!

I’ve mentioned a few things that I think Kave does better than DK. The truth is, it’s a lower budget indie game, so it won’t have the production values of a big Nintendo first-party affair. But they’ve still managed to pull off something that looks good (lots of cool 2.5D backgrounds) with a fun theme, plays well, and has some interesting mechanics in the mix. I really liked this one. It has a demo too if you want to try it out.