LudumData

Connected Caves by Birke

[raw]
made by Birke for LD30 (JAM)
A game about exploring endless caves, pondering life and admiring bezier curves.

Controls:
WASD - Directional thrust
Space / L Shift - Vertical thrust
Mouse - Turning
Left Mouse button - Fire Flare
Right Mouse button - hold to boost speed
Q - View current seed number & field to enter custom seed
Esc - Quit

Made by Alexander Birke (@AlexanderBirke) and Sam Chester (@SamChesterD)

Music via Newgrounds Audio Portal: by Anima Theory, Anthony Floccari, Xerferic and Beaker E-Music

I did a blog post on how the caves are generated:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2014/08/30/the-procedural-level-generation-in-connected-caves/
Web http://alexanderbirke.dk/projects/ludum-dare/30/index.html
Windows http://samchester.itch.io/connected-caves
OS/X http://samchester.itch.io/connected-caves
Linux http://samchester.itch.io/connected-caves
Source https://github.com/parahunter/cave-creator
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=2550

Ratings

Coolness 65% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.36 287
Audio(Jam) 3.83 69
Fun(Jam) 2.74 548
Graphics(Jam) 4.00 146
Humor(Jam) 1.72 579
Innovation(Jam) 2.85 487
Mood(Jam) 3.92 51
Theme(Jam) 3.23 351

Feedback

Nuclear Napalm
26. Aug 2014 · 08:04 UTC
Visuals and sound reely cool. But the goal of the game?
eastes
26. Aug 2014 · 08:10 UTC
Nice procedural worlds!
ruerob
26. Aug 2014 · 08:12 UTC
This is a nice game. I like exploring worlds and the graphics and musik really fit together.
r0x0r
26. Aug 2014 · 08:19 UTC
really cool graphics/sounds and the explorative feeling
RFMTeam
26. Aug 2014 · 10:46 UTC
Nice feeling of exploring new worlds, what's here is very well done, but lack much to do
Tanser
26. Aug 2014 · 11:56 UTC
Love the graphics, they really make nice atmosphere combined with the sounds. The particles are amazing. :)
InfectionTeam
26. Aug 2014 · 11:58 UTC
Very beautiful. I enjoyed it as it is, but I wouldn't mind it being 'gamified' a bit by making collisions destroy your ship and making it a procedural race between portals. Just a thought ;)
Piat
26. Aug 2014 · 12:01 UTC
Fun to explore, nice graphics :)
simplesmiler
26. Aug 2014 · 12:20 UTC
Controls are slightly unintuitive, but visuals are very good.
FurtherForm
26. Aug 2014 · 15:43 UTC
Loved the atmosphere and being very suited to the theme. Other than exploration, actual gameplay felt missing any purpose. At first I thought the point was to collect and plant seeds from the dungeons. All in all one of the most impressive looking games so far, especially the tight and dark rooms were claustrophobic.
OnlySlightly
26. Aug 2014 · 22:18 UTC
Excellent visuals and mood you set. It felt really cool exploring the creepy environment feeling like I discovered this world for the first time. The motion and controls were very fluid. Great job!
Jishenaz
26. Aug 2014 · 23:43 UTC
That is the best hovercraft ever. I only realized after exploring many caves that this was supposed to be endless and procedurally generated. This is excellent work, even though there isn't a game. The controls were great in my opinion, it was really fun flying that hovercraft around. Those strange triangle structures are interesting. Music and light effects are also spot on.
Hyoga-3D
27. Aug 2014 · 13:37 UTC
Nice game, I really liked the turbines.
SaintHeiser
27. Aug 2014 · 15:10 UTC
Whoah! This game is totally fit the theme =)
Like the visuals and meditative atmosphere.
Well done!
adrenalinehigh
27. Aug 2014 · 22:45 UTC
The aesthetic and control scheme are great, the changing music and environments set a nice mood but there's no gameplay to speak of. Even a few simple enemies chasing me to the portal would have raised this several notches.

Leaving 'fun' as n/a.
LD_LAN_Party
27. Aug 2014 · 22:56 UTC
Kept freezing when I would click the mouse
Romko Pidstryhach
28. Aug 2014 · 15:53 UTC
Great visuals
Aaron San Filippo
30. Aug 2014 · 18:02 UTC
Cool visual, I like the feel of being lost! I've got a terrible sense of direction, so some landmarks beyond the spikes on the walls would've been cool.
Alexandre Szybiak
30. Aug 2014 · 18:07 UTC
Nice haunting mood.
ethankennerly
30. Aug 2014 · 21:44 UTC
The beautifully lit stalagmites in the caves and the haunting ambient music enchanted me. If you continue to develop this, have you considered breadcrumbing to targets to shoot?
🎤 Birke
30. Aug 2014 · 23:33 UTC
Thanks for the nice comments everyone. We are considering doing more with it at a later point. We want to make the cave generation more varied and also have hazards for the player. I have always loved the camera mechanic in Beyond Good and Evil so that would probably also make it into the game since it fits well with the exploration mechanic.
andrewkennedy
31. Aug 2014 · 00:04 UTC
Pretty, pretty game ! I'm going to check out the blog post on how you did the random generation - I really appreciate the time taken to explain it!
Adam Thompson
31. Aug 2014 · 00:05 UTC
Incredible atmosphere. I really want to play a full game that lets you properly explore these environments. Having some more details and things to look at: such as different flora and fauna. A first person option would be nice as well to drink in the details. Fantastic work for the jam, and I'm glad I played it :D
liquidminduk
31. Aug 2014 · 03:05 UTC
great work on the procedural worlds, I really enjoyed the atmosphere you created!
It would of been nice to see a little more variation in the caves to keep the player hooked, and promote more exploration
Overall a really great entry!
TKia_
31. Aug 2014 · 04:43 UTC
Very aesthetically pleasing with nice visuals and ambient sound. Was artsy-looking with some seeds and almost unsettling (in an atmospheric, good sort of way) with others. Spamming flares was fun. Good job!
LTyrosine
31. Aug 2014 · 16:05 UTC
Nice atmosphere created with beautiful visuals and music but controls needs more work.
I also liked the non violent exploratory approach of this game (Noctis IV came to my mind as a good example). I hope you guys intend to work further on this one.
🎤 Birke
01. Sep 2014 · 10:19 UTC
Ha I did not know about Noctis. It seems like non violent No Man's Sky, for DOS :P
spotco
01. Sep 2014 · 22:25 UTC
Pretty graphics, but not that much actual gameplay.
Also, controls felt very off, hard to guide the ship into the tiny portal if it was facing vertical.
MerlijnVH
12. Sep 2014 · 20:17 UTC
Nice entry and good atmosphere, though the controls were a bit hard.