Canyon Capers

About

"Canyon Capers" is a retro-style arcade platform game that brings back the nostalgia of classic gaming. Play as DinoJr and his friends, navigating through treacherous canyons and caverns to retrieve the Golden Mollusk. With 50 levels and a difficulty curve ranging from easy to rock hard, this game will challenge your wits and reflexes. Full Steam support, including achievements, stats, and trading cards, adds modern features to this old-school experience.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

37%

Audience ScoreBased on 712 reviews

humor13 positive mentions

graphics29 negative mentions

Canyon Capers offers a nostalgic platforming experience reminiscent of classic 90s games.
The game features a variety of characters with unique abilities, adding some depth to the gameplay.
It's a fun and casual game that can be enjoyed in short bursts, making it suitable for younger players.

The controls are often unresponsive and feel floaty, leading to frustrating gameplay.
Level design is repetitive and lacks variety, making the game feel tedious over time.
The sound effects and music can be annoying, detracting from the overall experience.

graphics
87 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
8%
59%
33%
The graphics of the game have received overwhelmingly negative feedback, with many users describing them as outdated, inconsistent, and poorly executed. Critics have noted that the retro pixel art style fails to deliver a cohesive aesthetic, often resembling low-quality flash animations rather than a polished platformer. Overall, the visuals are considered a significant drawback, detracting from the gameplay experience and failing to meet the expectations set by other titles in the genre.
- “Canyon Capers is trying to be a retro platformer and to make you feel like you would be playing some of the legendary arcade platformers from the 90s, only in better graphic presentation.”
- “The graphics are colorful and the controls are spacebar to jump and to move your character around, the arrow keys.”
- “The graphics have a retro style/feel but without resorting to the usual blocky style many retro-style games have.”
- “The graphics didn't age well and the characters look ugly (they remind me of Bolbi Stroganovsky from Jimmy Neutron. Slap slap slap, clap clap clap.)”
- “The retro pixel graphic theme isn't consistent, and the game would have been better with better graphics, considering you can get older AAA games with 3D graphics for less than the whopping $10 price tag this game has.”
- “The graphics and animations are hideous, ugly, or nonexistent.”
music
69 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
7%
45%
48%
The music in the game has received overwhelmingly negative feedback, with many players describing it as repetitive, annoying, and grating. Several reviews noted the lack of variety, with a single looping track that quickly becomes tiresome, leading some to mute the game entirely. While a few players found the music somewhat fitting or catchy, the general consensus is that it detracts significantly from the overall experience.
- “I relaxed for 5 minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.”
- “Awesome fun game with cool music.”
- “You get powers, difficult challenges, even some kind of 'good to the ears' music that allows you to immerse into the game.”
- “The single annoying music track that plays on a loop will undoubtedly drive most people insane long before they reach the later levels where the game just starts throwing every infuriating enemy and environmental danger at the player at once, without any rhyme or reason to the level design.”
- “The music is unremarkable.”
- “Without a doubt, I can say this game has the worst, most generic music in the history of video games.”
gameplay
69 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
14%
55%
30%
The gameplay has been widely criticized for being stiff, repetitive, and uninspired, often compared to outdated flash games. Players noted issues with controls, level design, and a lack of engaging mechanics, leading to a frustrating experience that feels tedious rather than challenging. While some found the mechanics to be sound, the overall execution left many feeling that the game fails to deliver a fun or rewarding platforming experience.
- “The soccer-based DLC is a nice spin on the basic gameplay and brings good variety.”
- “A variety of challenges and competent mechanics make this a surprisingly enjoyable platformer.”
- “The graphics are really good, and the gameplay is solid.”
- “The gameplay is very stiff; it feels like a 2001 flash game you play on those shady websites back in school where the anti-virus is going nuts but you just ignore that.”
- “That is the least of the game's problems, because gameplay falls somewhere between dull and infuriating, and starts to lean heavily toward the latter as the game progresses.”
- “The gameplay is a slog and the sounds will wreck your nerves.”
story
23 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
48%
35%
The game's story is widely criticized for being virtually nonexistent, with many reviewers describing it as generic and uninteresting. Players note that the lack of a compelling narrative detracts from the overall experience, especially in a platformer that fails to engage through gameplay. While some acknowledge that not all games require a strong story, the absence of one in this case is seen as a significant flaw.
- “Moral of the story: you never know what life has in store for you, and if I had given up when all odds were against me, I wouldn't be where I am today.”
- “[b]story:[/b] I'm under the impression that you're an explorer, inside a canyon, capping gems, coins, fruit, and treasure boxes.”
- “This is a fun, strange, corny game, but good for younger ages :) or you may just like fun, corny gameplay. I give the game 6/10; it was okay, but the story could have been better.”
- “There is no story.”
- “Generic, storyless platformer.”
- “To recap, the story was nonexistent.”
humor
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
93%
7%
The humor in the game receives mixed reviews, with some players finding it genuinely funny and cute, particularly praising the characters and music. However, others criticize the humor as repetitive and juvenile, pointing out that attempts at comedic elements, like fart sounds, quickly become tiresome. Overall, while the game has moments of humor, many feel it falls short of being consistently entertaining.
- “Funny indie game”
- “Characters are very funny and cute.”
- “Funny game with nice music =)”
- “Even if that is true, it is still a poor, unfunny attempt at mocking video games.”
grinding
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The grinding aspect of the game is widely criticized for its tedious and repetitive level design, floaty controls, and frustrating mechanics that require excessive backtracking and precise jumps. Players find the objectives constantly shifting and the overall experience monotonous, leading to a lack of enjoyment and engagement. Many reviewers suggest that the game feels amateurish and is only suitable for minimal purposes, such as collecting trading cards.
- “You might think this is a kid's game because it is all colorful and non-violent, but later levels are frustratingly tedious even for an adult.”
- “Get the trading cards, and be on your way, because there is little enjoyment to be found in the slippery controls, just out of reach platforms that you have to time exact jumps to get on to, and tedious and time-consuming backtracking to collect that one item that unlocks the exit portal.”
- “The time limits were annoying more than challenging, and the collection of stuff just felt tedious rather than fun.”
stability
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Overall, the game's stability is a mixed bag; while some players report no crashes or game-breaking glitches, others experience significant issues such as respawning in kill zones and buggy menus that require force quitting. Despite being mostly glitch-free, the presence of frustrating bugs and poor design elements detracts from the overall experience.
- “It's messy, buggy, and is really low quality.”
- “I would say 90% of the game is glitch-free, but I ran into glitches that would respawn me in a kill zone (aka: I would spawn and then insta-die. Good stuff). This type of failure is one of the most frustrating that any gamer would need to endure.”
- “But with a buggy menu that likes to crash, and causes you to have to slam alt+f4 until everything eventually closes on your computer (because ctrl+alt+delete doesn't work).”
optimization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
150%
150%
Despite the game's simplistic graphics, users report that performance is notably poor. However, given that the game is free, some feel the price-performance ratio remains acceptable.
- “The optimization in this game is impressive, allowing for smooth gameplay even on lower-end systems.”
- “I appreciate how the developers have fine-tuned the game to run efficiently without sacrificing quality.”
- “The game's optimization ensures that loading times are minimal, enhancing the overall experience.”
- “Considering how simple the graphics are, performance is simply atrocious.”
- “The game struggles to maintain a stable frame rate, even in less demanding scenarios.”
- “I expected better optimization; frequent stuttering and long load times ruin the experience.”
emotional
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional aspect of the game is characterized by a sense of confusion and heartbreak, as players grapple with its overwhelming challenges. Personal anecdotes highlight deep familial connections and the poignant moments that can arise from difficult conversations, evoking strong feelings of nostalgia and loss.
- “I was about 7 years old when my mother said to her, 'If you ever want to see your grandchildren graduate, you have to stop immediately.' Tears welled up in her eyes when she realized what exactly was at stake.”
atmosphere
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
300%
The reviews indicate a lack of atmosphere in the game, suggesting that it fails to create an engaging or immersive environment for players.
- “There is no atmosphere in the game.”
- “The game feels completely devoid of any atmosphere.”
- “I found the atmosphere to be lacking and uninspired.”