Also, by floaty controls, what exactly do you mean? The game is in very early development and I am looking for all the feedback so I can make this a fun experience.
I'm guessing they're talking about if you stand touching a wall on the left of the player, but the player is facing downwards, clicking the wall doesn't work - this is somewhat counter intuitive when using a mouse.
Otherwise, really nice work, I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. Art, sound and style all feel really nice so far.
hey bitbrain, it's me the guy who's [roblm you had to fix, i would like you to make this a steam release, with achievements, this would make it so much more playable for me.
the sound design is incredible! I think there needs to be a bit more to do in the caves rather than just dig rocks-maybe somekind of dungeon or old mining huts to explore and loot.
I love what you're going for here. I like the pixel art, the idea - the sounds got bit to much echo for my taste but it's an interesting effect non the less.
I'd like to see the character automatically turn towards the rock I hold left mouse button on instead of manually turning him with WASD.
I feel like the rock tileset would need a bit more hight, it looks so flat compared to the oven and the PC. Not looking bad but just.. flat - probably just an artistic preference on my end.
The UI obviously still is pretty clunky to use.
I think the amount of ppl reacting to what you did here is mainly because of the juicy visuals & animations presenting your game on the itch.io site and your obvious passion for it. Also your Trello board looks awesome. Keep that up :)
Fun to mess around with. One big improvement would be in the basic controls. I would add cursor key movement and space bar to dig. Also full mouse control: left click to indicate player movement direction. Right click to dig.
I have just finished reading "The future of cave" and here are my thoughts (and remember that the player doesn't always know what's best):
Point 1: I see your rebuttal to my argument and I understand where you're coming from. In this case you may want to introduce players to materials that they are unfamiliar with. (Iron is familiar, while "Intressium" is not) This might allow the player to feel like that they are actually learning how the world around works and behaves if implemented correctly. Just don't be like: "Aha, you have found the blueprints to a iron pickaxe", because it makes sense for people to know how to make an iron pickaxe already. (Unless the plot somehow makes this not so.)
TL:DR In my opinion you should only lock crafting when it makes sense in the lore to do so.
Point 2: This is a much smaller point. I believe that it would be cool to have a seed system like Minecraft's, so that you can revisit a past seed if you want. (Also set-seed speed runs?👀)
"Point" 3: This "point" is just a new idea. While reading this devlog I thought of an idea that I don't recall seeing in any other game ever. Dynamic info boxes. Now this probably sounds confusing and stupid (as it may very well be), but hear me out. I thought,"Well this game is going to be about discovery". I thought that maybe that as you learn more about an item the description updates. When you first collect copper it says "A heavy bar of copper" and (I'm assuming the game's setting is medieval) you can figure out that copper can be imbued with magic (electricity) and the info box would update to reflect that. Or maybe just ditch info boxes for a journal.
TL:DR No tldr for you this time >:)
"Point" 4: I think that it would be cool to have the player discover something that the dwarves couldn't. Just some food for thought.
Wonderful feedback! In regards to your idea, I had something similar in mind. "Knowledge" will become a game mechanic. What I want to avoid are situations like in Minecraft, where the player goes to the wiki and hyper optimises everything from the start, because that would contradict with the story. Cave will be a linear story game in that regard and players can't just "jump" to the end game, unless they remember where to look for.
Making seeds replayable is another objective I am thinking about. Yes, seeded words are already a thing and will come with the next huge 0.1 update!
This is a difficult thing to design. Foremost, I want to build a game that I personally enjoy, and procedurally generated items or blueprints were never something I enjoyed.
It kinda takes away the immersion and the game suddenly turns into an Excel table simulator. However, this doesn't mean I cannot implement some kind of procedural generation. I have this idea of being able to have sockets on your tools. In these sockets, you can put special gems or other things that give your tool special effects.
For example, imagine I can craft a pickaxe with special powers. Special powers could be "explosiveness" or "earthquake" or "fire". However, those effects by themselves could be RNG to some extend. In order to add these special effects, you'd need to find the items in the world to create those powerful gems. This is all just theoretical and might not what I am actually gonna build, but you get the idea.
In a nutshell, I really wanna avoid having "too many" tools/equipment but rather focusing on a few that the player can customize as much as they like. And they can only customize them by exploring the world/cave.
If you want a little bit of feedback on the ideas of a future updates here ya go:
0.1 Smithing Update: This is needed as it feels like it is a core gameplay element that is just not there. I would suggest also making an optimization to the items so the game doesn't start lagging with 10+ items on the floor. (Although I have no clue how tough that might be)
0.2 Fighting Update: I'm very tentative about this update. This is because I believe that it is going to be hard to pull off well. If you can keep the lonely ascetic while have other creatures I think that it may just work.
0.3 Exploration Update: I can see the potential here. I think maybe having some kind of cave/s. Maybe stick with that biome idea? It doesn't need to be anything fancy. It can just be some slight coloring variations with some drop rate variations.
0.4 Story Update: Obviously you aren't thinking much about this update currently which I agree with. Although you will want to decide if you want to build some vague lore, have a story line, or both. In my opinion a linear story wouldn't of much to the game as it stands unless you can find some cool way to implement it.
Final Thoughts: Remember to not forget about your core gameplay loop. Also one more suggestion that I have is to the connect these updates together. (Like linking 0.2 to 0.3 & 0.3 to 0.4) Ex. Bat's (0.2) which can be found in deeper caves (0.3) where you'll also find so story. (0.4)
As part of the 0.1 update, I will fix the item issue alongside many other Quality of Life improvements. To address your concerns, the roadmap of features will definitely change after the Smithing Update has landed.
In order to deliver a great crafting experience, I need to introduce some new concepts to make learning "patterns" approachable and immersive. Crafting will be very different from other games where the player "just needs to have the materials". Instead, crafting will be based on knowledge and SKILL. However, to learn patterns, you need to find/discover them within the world. All of that requires a procedurally generated world. All of that I am currently building and will show in more detail in my next devlog.
With shaped crafting I always give this suggestion: Make it so that the player can make a recipe even if their character in game hasn't learned it. If you know a basic recipe exists and you can't make it because your character just "doesn't know it" your immersion will probably be broken. And I will be checking out "on the future of cave" right now. I will post a separate comment with feedback soon! I also can't use discord, because it makes my computer funky. I don't know why. :(
Great game, atmosphere, and I really love the sprites. The only thing I think would be good to change is to make the sprite for the mouse small, as it is pretty big in my opinion.
Hi Miguel, I'm really enjoying this as a bit of mental rest in between work :)
I think a it would be interesting when there are enemies to have the option to pay them off, maybe only for a particular class, like a dwarf that starts mining and when you go to interact you can either fight or bribe? One thing I find in these types of games is if I open the cave out too much I get a bit disoriented so a way of placing markers/guides would be good. I also really like the idea mentioned below of having short lived torches. And last thing is that gold bars currently have the caption "A heavy bar of iron"
Thanks for a great game, I'm looking forward to future updates :)
Wow! Great feedback. I will definitely consider your suggestions. Btw, feel free to join my Discord to not miss out on any updates and to collaborate with others on ideas! ❤️
I am so sorry for that! Thanks for letting me know! Could you maybe answer the following questions to make it easier for me to figure out why that happens to you:
I am glad you like it! I am currently working on the crafting system and on world persistence, so your game status will be saved, even if you close the game.
I also want to make mining rock a bit more interesting:
add ability to get "cobblestone" from rocks
add "mineral clusters" that become visible once you first hit a piece of rock, so you can decide for yourself if you wanna mine that rock
some rocks might have special effects, e.g. it could collapse the the area in front of you and reveal a secret cave with treasures
It is currently by design, that you have to walk away from an item to collect it again. While testing, it was quite annoying to get rid of items because they would just end up in your inventory again.
The missing tin bars is a bug that I am going to fix tonight!
show what ore you are getting from that block add some sort of crafting a way to make torches for better lighting and a way to get better tools and a better smelter
I was thinking about torches as well! However, this is supposed to become a rogue-like, so I might give torches a timer so they only burn for a given time and then get destroyed.
The smelting process will be reworked with the upcoming 0.1 update. Instead of automatically crafting "something" you have to explicitly select what you want to smelt. There, you can also see what resources may be required to do so.
when u break a block and it gives u nothing instead it should give cobble stone and u should be able to smelt it and make stone there should also be something you can craft with cobbelstone and the stone that u hopefully add after this comment
I had this exact idea as well! I want to change things a bit: instead of having a "random" chance, I wanna add clusters of materials, e.g. a "coal cluster" or "diamond cluster" similar to other popular crafting games. Hitting a cluster will take a bit longer to mine and while mining you'll be able to see "what's inside". Mining a "non-cluster" will be much quicker and indeed it gives you something called "stone" you can then use to craft "buildings" (like the furnace) or walls. Walls will be interesting to block a path once there are enemies that might kill you. (stay tuned for that!)
Can you do something about this? The loading of the game takes so long..... and i still haven’t played the game yet cause it takes to long to load.So pleaseeeeee help
What kind of Browser are you using? If the loading is stuck, it might be that your browser does not support it properly. This would help me to identify potential improvements to compability.
Ah, great feedback! That A is supposed to be the "A" button on the XBox controller. Those are currently placeholder and I only want to show it in future as soon someone connects a controller.
I love the sounds! They really evoke the feeling of loneliness. You should probably think about changing the name one you have a complete gameplay loop.
for now, yes. However, the plan is to add dozens/hundreds of items into the game. Also, currently all items can only be obtained by chance. I want to change that so you actually can craft your own weapons and tools and improve them / raise their rarity.
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floaty controls, pickaxe doesn't work 100% of the time, closed it after 1min, only good thing is art style and sound.
> pickaxe doesn't work 100% of the time
What exactly did not work?
Also, by floaty controls, what exactly do you mean? The game is in very early development and I am looking for all the feedback so I can make this a fun experience.
I'm guessing they're talking about if you stand touching a wall on the left of the player, but the player is facing downwards, clicking the wall doesn't work - this is somewhat counter intuitive when using a mouse.
Otherwise, really nice work, I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. Art, sound and style all feel really nice so far.
Yup, that will be all fixed! You will rotate in the direction you click, see this preview: https://twitter.com/bitbrain_/status/1351611741378064388
I think you should always face the mouse icon- which would eliminate that weirdness.
i was going to play but its webgl and i cant use that so ya i bet its a really good game
Do any of the downloads work? I have provided versions of the game for Linux, MacOS and Windows (64bit)
no they dont because my chromebook is one i the older ones and it depends how many bit,gigabites and stuf so ya but i will try
it let me do it :) :) :)
Awesome! I am curious what you think about the prototype!
its rlly good i like how u have to hav coal to smelt
hey bitbrain, it's me the guy who's [roblm you had to fix, i would like you to make this a steam release, with achievements, this would make it so much more playable for me.
thanks for listening.
Hey! Steam release is planned!
nice! i am looking forward to that, where can i wishlist it, also will it have achievments, will it be free?
The game won't be free but it won't be super expensive. Just a few bucks I think.
So the browser and the download versions will just be like a demo/miniature version and the steam will be a full version?
Correct! Also, the game will be free on itch.io until pre-alpha and the demo version will always be available here to play!
the sound design is incredible! I think there needs to be a bit more to do in the caves rather than just dig rocks-maybe somekind of dungeon or old mining huts to explore and loot.
There will be. :) Stay tuned for more.
PS: the dev roadmap ahead is roughly 2-3 years. There will be A LOT of stuff I wanna do.
Epic! I'm looking forward to seeing new content for Cave and your devlogs!
I love what you're going for here. I like the pixel art, the idea - the sounds got bit to much echo for my taste but it's an interesting effect non the less.
I'd like to see the character automatically turn towards the rock I hold left mouse button on instead of manually turning him with WASD.
I feel like the rock tileset would need a bit more hight, it looks so flat compared to the oven and the PC. Not looking bad but just.. flat - probably just an artistic preference on my end.
The UI obviously still is pretty clunky to use.
I think the amount of ppl reacting to what you did here is mainly because of the juicy visuals & animations presenting your game on the itch.io site and your obvious passion for it. Also your Trello board looks awesome. Keep that up :)
Best of luck with your game.
Thanks a lot, MadByteDE!
I agree 100% with all your points. The 0.1 patch will come with lots of improvements, including a visual revamp (higher walls!)
You might wanna watch this:
Let me know what you think about the new UI. Personally, I really like it, especially because its underlying concept is inspired from Minecraft/WoW.
Fun to mess around with. One big improvement would be in the basic controls. I would add cursor key movement and space bar to dig. Also full mouse control: left click to indicate player movement direction. Right click to dig.
Great job with this; the sounds are interesting.
Haha, thanks! Sounds are mostly placeholder, though.
I have just finished reading "The future of cave" and here are my thoughts (and remember that the player doesn't always know what's best):
Point 1: I see your rebuttal to my argument and I understand where you're coming from. In this case you may want to introduce players to materials that they are unfamiliar with. (Iron is familiar, while "Intressium" is not) This might allow the player to feel like that they are actually learning how the world around works and behaves if implemented correctly. Just don't be like: "Aha, you have found the blueprints to a iron pickaxe", because it makes sense for people to know how to make an iron pickaxe already. (Unless the plot somehow makes this not so.)
TL:DR In my opinion you should only lock crafting when it makes sense in the lore to do so.
Point 2: This is a much smaller point. I believe that it would be cool to have a seed system like Minecraft's, so that you can revisit a past seed if you want. (Also set-seed speed runs?👀)
"Point" 3: This "point" is just a new idea. While reading this devlog I thought of an idea that I don't recall seeing in any other game ever. Dynamic info boxes. Now this probably sounds confusing and stupid (as it may very well be), but hear me out. I thought,"Well this game is going to be about discovery". I thought that maybe that as you learn more about an item the description updates. When you first collect copper it says "A heavy bar of copper" and (I'm assuming the game's setting is medieval) you can figure out that copper can be imbued with magic (electricity) and the info box would update to reflect that. Or maybe just ditch info boxes for a journal.
TL:DR No tldr for you this time >:)
"Point" 4: I think that it would be cool to have the player discover something that the dwarves couldn't. Just some food for thought.
Can't wait to hear back! -Nick
Wonderful feedback! In regards to your idea, I had something similar in mind. "Knowledge" will become a game mechanic. What I want to avoid are situations like in Minecraft, where the player goes to the wiki and hyper optimises everything from the start, because that would contradict with the story. Cave will be a linear story game in that regard and players can't just "jump" to the end game, unless they remember where to look for.
Making seeds replayable is another objective I am thinking about. Yes, seeded words are already a thing and will come with the next huge 0.1 update!
Maybe something like some kind procedurally generated recipes?
This is a difficult thing to design. Foremost, I want to build a game that I personally enjoy, and procedurally generated items or blueprints were never something I enjoyed.
It kinda takes away the immersion and the game suddenly turns into an Excel table simulator. However, this doesn't mean I cannot implement some kind of procedural generation. I have this idea of being able to have sockets on your tools. In these sockets, you can put special gems or other things that give your tool special effects.
For example, imagine I can craft a pickaxe with special powers. Special powers could be "explosiveness" or "earthquake" or "fire". However, those effects by themselves could be RNG to some extend. In order to add these special effects, you'd need to find the items in the world to create those powerful gems. This is all just theoretical and might not what I am actually gonna build, but you get the idea.
In a nutshell, I really wanna avoid having "too many" tools/equipment but rather focusing on a few that the player can customize as much as they like. And they can only customize them by exploring the world/cave.
Well, it seems that you know what you want to do, which is good! I can't wait until 0.1!
If you want a little bit of feedback on the ideas of a future updates here ya go:
0.1 Smithing Update: This is needed as it feels like it is a core gameplay element that is just not there. I would suggest also making an optimization to the items so the game doesn't start lagging with 10+ items on the floor. (Although I have no clue how tough that might be)
0.2 Fighting Update: I'm very tentative about this update. This is because I believe that it is going to be hard to pull off well. If you can keep the lonely ascetic while have other creatures I think that it may just work.
0.3 Exploration Update: I can see the potential here. I think maybe having some kind of cave/s. Maybe stick with that biome idea? It doesn't need to be anything fancy. It can just be some slight coloring variations with some drop rate variations.
0.4 Story Update: Obviously you aren't thinking much about this update currently which I agree with. Although you will want to decide if you want to build some vague lore, have a story line, or both. In my opinion a linear story wouldn't of much to the game as it stands unless you can find some cool way to implement it.
Final Thoughts: Remember to not forget about your core gameplay loop. Also one more suggestion that I have is to the connect these updates together. (Like linking 0.2 to 0.3 & 0.3 to 0.4) Ex. Bat's (0.2) which can be found in deeper caves (0.3) where you'll also find so story. (0.4)
Thanks for the feedback. Very useful!
As part of the 0.1 update, I will fix the item issue alongside many other Quality of Life improvements. To address your concerns, the roadmap of features will definitely change after the Smithing Update has landed.
In order to deliver a great crafting experience, I need to introduce some new concepts to make learning "patterns" approachable and immersive. Crafting will be very different from other games where the player "just needs to have the materials". Instead, crafting will be based on knowledge and SKILL. However, to learn patterns, you need to find/discover them within the world. All of that requires a procedurally generated world. All of that I am currently building and will show in more detail in my next devlog.
In the meantime, make sure you read up on the future of cave and join my Discord to get daily updates on the development of the game!
With shaped crafting I always give this suggestion: Make it so that the player can make a recipe even if their character in game hasn't learned it. If you know a basic recipe exists and you can't make it because your character just "doesn't know it" your immersion will probably be broken. And I will be checking out "on the future of cave" right now. I will post a separate comment with feedback soon! I also can't use discord, because it makes my computer funky. I don't know why. :(
wow this a lot of potential
Really great random gen system! Great atmosphere as well! Reminds me of the ol days when I got on Minecraft with the fam.
Great game, atmosphere, and I really love the sprites. The only thing I think would be good to change is to make the sprite for the mouse small, as it is pretty big in my opinion.
I am building this game on a 4K monitor. That must be the reason. Let me add that to my list to fix! ❤️
oh, ok that is probably the case, as I am using a 1080p monitor.
Hi Miguel, I'm really enjoying this as a bit of mental rest in between work :)
I think a it would be interesting when there are enemies to have the option to pay them off, maybe only for a particular class, like a dwarf that starts mining and when you go to interact you can either fight or bribe? One thing I find in these types of games is if I open the cave out too much I get a bit disoriented so a way of placing markers/guides would be good. I also really like the idea mentioned below of having short lived torches. And last thing is that gold bars currently have the caption "A heavy bar of iron"
Thanks for a great game, I'm looking forward to future updates :)
Wow! Great feedback. I will definitely consider your suggestions. Btw, feel free to join my Discord to not miss out on any updates and to collaborate with others on ideas! ❤️
https://discord.gg/sJjsksEwDq
Fala companheiro, seu jogo esta ficando ótimo, espero novidades, eu o coloquei no meu canal, da um pulo lá ok!
Thanks a lot! I assume you are from Albania. Greetings from London!
You should add save mechanic also main menu
Hey Umuthoper,
feel free to checkout the project board. A tutorial/menu screen is planned for the first big 0.1 update.
Additionally, I want to implement a save mechanic in the 0.2 update afterwards.
Link to the Trello board
Thanks for the information
just a black screen for me
I am so sorry for that! Thanks for letting me know! Could you maybe answer the following questions to make it easier for me to figure out why that happens to you:
windows, chrome latest version but i use itch.io app,not sure,i dont know
Thanks a lot! I will look into this.
I have created this bug ticket and you can track it here:
https://trello.com/c/PTDqreRn/29-black-screen-when-playing-on-itchio-app-and-var...
i figured it out, it doesnt work on the app but it does of i download the file
I was able to reproduce the issue on my computer as well. I tried everything but I am getting a bit desparate. I have now asked Reddit for help: https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/k8oefc/my_game_does_not_load_in_the_itch... let's see if this leads to anything...
EDIT
After many hours of research I discovered this bug on the itch app: https://github.com/itchio/itch/issues/2496
and I can confirm that in the beta version of the next release the issue is gone. Looks like we have to wait!
very good, played it for around 2 hours straight
Yea, it's addictive! I like it too. Looking forward to the updates!
I am glad you like it! I am currently working on the crafting system and on world persistence, so your game status will be saved, even if you close the game.
I also want to make mining rock a bit more interesting:
Sounds absolutely poggers
pretty cool game but there's not really anything to do right now. Would love to see what the updates bring.
I can't seem to craft any tin bars tho and you can on;y pick an item up again after you've walked away first.
It is currently by design, that you have to walk away from an item to collect it again. While testing, it was quite annoying to get rid of items because they would just end up in your inventory again.
The missing tin bars is a bug that I am going to fix tonight!
good job it seems like your always on top of this
how do I craft
Crafting is currently not available and is planned for the next big update!
For some reason, smelting tin isn't working for me.
I am afraid this is a bug! I have not released the latest build. I am going to do that today!
Should be fixed now!
things that you could do:
show what ore you are getting from that block
add some sort of crafting
a way to make torches for better lighting
and a way to get better tools and a better smelter
other than that its a pretty good game idea.
I was thinking about torches as well! However, this is supposed to become a rogue-like, so I might give torches a timer so they only burn for a given time and then get destroyed.
how do i smelt?
Just walk to the front of the furnace.
it doesn't work
nvm it does i just didnt have coa
The smelting process will be reworked with the upcoming 0.1 update. Instead of automatically crafting "something" you have to explicitly select what you want to smelt. There, you can also see what resources may be required to do so.
dug dug
good idea, but lacking feedback to create items and game progression
Stay tuned for future updates! Things that are coming:
In the meantime, checkout my latest devlog:
This game has big potential
when u break a block and it gives u nothing instead it should give cobble stone and u should be able to smelt it and make stone there should also be something you can craft with cobbelstone and the stone that u hopefully add after this comment
I had this exact idea as well! I want to change things a bit: instead of having a "random" chance, I wanna add clusters of materials, e.g. a "coal cluster" or "diamond cluster" similar to other popular crafting games. Hitting a cluster will take a bit longer to mine and while mining you'll be able to see "what's inside". Mining a "non-cluster" will be much quicker and indeed it gives you something called "stone" you can then use to craft "buildings" (like the furnace) or walls. Walls will be interesting to block a path once there are enemies that might kill you. (stay tuned for that!)
like the sounds is preety boring without crafing but my ocd kicking in making me make everything even is makeing it fun lol
What engine are you using?
This game is being built with Godot Engine 3:
How do I mine?
click
but the real question is how do you craft?
I will implement crafting very soon. Stay tuned for my next devlog :)
In the meantime, checkout the current one:
I were bored and made this. Planning on making it bigger...
This is what I call dedication!
And of I want to make it bigger I need to redo the whole thing, because I accidentally closed the tab and the work was gone (*wink, wink*)
Persistence is a big item not on the next update but the one after.
Can you do something about this?
The loading of the game takes so long..... and i still haven’t played the game yet cause it takes to long to load.So pleaseeeeee help
What kind of Browser are you using? If the loading is stuck, it might be that your browser does not support it properly. This would help me to identify potential improvements to compability.
Im using safari,i tried opera but opera couldn’t load the files or sumthin.also the way it loads is it loads then black screen.
Thank you for reporting this, I have created this bug ticket and you can track it here:
https://trello.com/c/PTDqreRn/29-black-screen-when-playing-on-itchio-app-and-var...
Really Cool Game!
A couple Ideas though:
other than that really epic game!
Ah, great feedback! That A is supposed to be the "A" button on the XBox controller. Those are currently placeholder and I only want to show it in future as soon someone connects a controller.
I love the sounds! They really evoke the feeling of loneliness. You should probably think about changing the name one you have a complete gameplay loop.
P.S. Could you please post the Trello link?
Here you go!
https://trello.com/b/sDE3sTrx/cave
Many thanks!
cool game. Is diamond the rarest Item?
for now, yes. However, the plan is to add dozens/hundreds of items into the game. Also, currently all items can only be obtained by chance. I want to change that so you actually can craft your own weapons and tools and improve them / raise their rarity.
Cool. Hope it gets implemented soon!
The way you made the mining is really interesting, What doc did you use to achieve that behavior ?
My imagination! 😂
Seriously though, it's all explained here:
i cant understand how to do anything except move or min
That's the game right now. Well, if you have collected enough resources, go close to the furnace to smelt ingots. It's still WiP :-)
I am currently working on a crafting system that allows you to forge weapons etc.
How is it going with development? Changelog?
https://itch.io/post/2240942 here ya go :)