Cavernicus by Rashcan
Play as brave explorer Cavernicus as he faces his two greatest fears: staggering heights and consuming darkness. Using only the scant light of glowsticks, descend the endless, treacherous depths. Watch yourself! One wrong step will send him plummeting to his doom.



| Win/Mac/Linux | https://stumpystool.itch.io/cavernicus |
| Web (muted by default) | https://play.unity.com/mg/other/cavernicus-ldjam-48 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/cavernicus |
Ratings
| Overall | 776th | 3.595⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 607th | 3.548⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 689th | 3.405⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 201th | 4.167⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 547th | 3.762⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 20🗳️ | 24🗨️ |
I really liked the lighting effect, good job.
in a polite way, i tried first to throw the light sticks and go from platform to platform. Obviously, there are no sufficient light sticks to throw - and the claustrophobic atmosphere gets really intense...i loved it!
The second - and fun - way it's just play as @mlho7 said - a "deeper" racing and crazy game.
In any way, the game is amazing! Great atmosphere and mood, simple to get what to do and yet pretty chalenging.
I wish it was a bit more clear how far you could fall before death; felt like there was a mechanic there I just wasn't seeing.
I found it pretty fun trying to "chase" lightsticks down to get multiple uses out of each one.
the audio also did a great job setting the mood. Graphics were simple but effective.
Nice work!
@fireslash I definitely agree with the deadly fall distance being ambiguous. The main way I tell the player how close a fall is to being fatal is by how loud the landing is. It's (mostly) consistent that two platforms is the most you can drop. In hindsight, I probably should have used a fixed falling distance rather than velocity to determine player survival.
@ardorugus During development, I actually entertained the thought of providing a "motivator" in the form of a giant worm descending from above. It was a bit too late to throw that in, though, so the best I could do was say that it's the call of the abyss compelling our hero down the hole.
Thanks for playing the game, everyone!
Atmospheric game. Great idea. You can get stuck in the game for a long time. :)
PS: Nice catchy name for the game as well which you can remember when you need to find it again (after Ludum Dare kicks you out and you have to login again for the hundredth time before you can rate after playing for a while) sigh :/