Cave Hunter by GeoBlackrU
Game Title: Cave Hunter
Game Description:
Descend. Survive. Conquer.
In Cave Hunter, you take on the role of a daring prospector, descending into a monster-infested abyss on a rickety elevator platform. Your mission? Mine valuable minerals, arm yourself with powerful weapons, and fortify your platform against relentless attacks—all while racing toward a final showdown with a terrifying boss lurking at the bottom.
The deeper you go, the deadlier the caves become. Monsters will swarm you, damage your platform, and test your reflexes. If your platform falls, it’s game over.
Controls:
- Movement: WASD
- Pick Up Items: E
- Drop Items: Q
- Shoot: Left Mouse Click
- Aim: Mouse Movement
- Interact/Repair: E
- Pause: ESC
Will you reach the bottom… or become another victim of the depths?
(If you have problems starting the game here, check the link below)
| Game | https://geraniumcat.itch.io/cave-hunter |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/cave-hunter |
Ratings
| Overall | 813th | 2.833⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 727th | 2.875⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 704th | 2.804⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 609th | 3.37⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 600th | 2.341⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 741th | 2.979⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 32🗳️ | 26🗨️ |
I do think a few more hours of polish could really put this over the top -- hitscan bullets, muzzle flash, enemies recoiling from getting hit, etc. See the 30 tips from this [super famous talk](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1t0jlc/vlambeers_jan_willem_nijman_the_art_of_screenshake/) for what I mean.
[chrome_717VImhdQY.gif](///raw/c00/b5/z/6ba8e.gif)
Also I feel the brown background with the brown platform are quite confusing.
I went deep to the left, getting every gem on the path, but then I had to return, with nothing of interest on the path. Maybe it would have been better if instead of waves of enemies every 90 seconds, there were some wild enemies on the map.
For some reason when I was returning back to the platform the player started moving slower and I couldn't reach a jump I needed to make to return, so I just lost, got back to the platform, but couldn't activate it, and it got destroyed by monsters 😅
I don't wanna sound too harsh, I know how time constrains affect our games! So keep at it! 😉
The art looks great as well, the pixel art is really beautiful, and the colors really help set that spelunking mood! Very well done game, great job!
I almost completely died in the first wave of enemies, it was a bit confusing with my own projectiles from the platform and theirs, perhaps they could have used distinct color pallets or such. It probably also wasn't helped that my keyboard isn't normal and space is nowhere near WASD so I needed two hands on the keyboard for all the actions.
I think binding wise, since mouse did all the gun stuff it would have been nice with reload on the mouse as well.
And it would have been nice to be able to force the platform down when you were just waiting.
It looks like there's a lot of cool stuff in here though, so I'm probably just missing something essential.
Also not sure if you've seen this, but I totally LOVE this video on 'juicing up' shooting and these kinds of platforms, you might enjoy it too (if you haven't seen it already): https://youtu.be/AJdEqssNZ-U?si=0oYmV2yk6P7bn4qY&t=498