Introduction

Introduction and project goals

I have been interested about game programming for a long time, but this is first project I have published. My efforts tend to fail as projects get too complex.

Lately I have been dabbling with PICO-8 and DragonRuby game-engines and have found their design philosophy and style suiting me better than more popular and complex engines like Unity and Unreal. As someone who has some experience on programming, I find programming-oriented approach better and faster. I suspect that many features on editor-based engines that are meant to simplify creation process can slow down progress on smaller projects.

With Cave Explorer I wanted to make game with limited options to keep it simple. Also, I wanted to publish something as soon as possible to see some tangible results. I'd say project is a success if I manage to get this project into reasonably playable state. For game engine I chose PICO-8 because I liked its simplicity and way it allows to very quickly prototype new ideas. If/when game gets more complex engine choice may need to be reviewed.

In its current state game only includes basic gameplay. Player can explore caves and collect treasures and encounter enemies, but game lacks any goal or background story. To make it actually playable some additional content and story should be added.

Planned improvements

Exploring - There should be more interesting and varying encounters. Plan is to make possible further explore cave rooms and meet different creatures and engage in mini quests.

Items - Collecting and using magical items is planned feature.

Strategic choices - Battles are now very simple and I intend to keep it that way as fighting is not meant to be main purpose of game. Still there could be some more choices for player.

Touch/mouse control - Now game is only playable with keyboard, so adding touch controls is something I plan to add. Also, the keyboard controls are maybe not very intuitive now and could possibly be improved.