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[Martin 2BAM]

Caverns: An experimentation game.
It's about tiny life forms coexisting in a cavern.

Try to find them all!
Mess around with the enviroment
and free your imagination.

It's my entry for the ludum dare #15.

Play the game (Flash): http://www.tbam.com.ar/play--caverns.php
LudumDare entry: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-15/?action=preview&uid=937

Regards
-Martín

[JaJitsu]

I don't get what to do O.O

[letsap]

This is surprisingly fun. I felt so rewarded when I found all the little dudes.

I also felt so sad when I found out that all my new black blobs killed all my tomato buddy budding trees.

[Terrorbuns]

This game was fun! I got all the races save one. How do you get it? :S (the below tiny text is all the races I got)
I had the water, sand, oil, red jumping things, sand trees and normal trees, the fruit off normal trees, those cool critters that come from the sand trees, the rolling purple blob and the green worms that spawn off that, and that's it I believe. Is there one more?

[Μarkham]

You're missing the one that comes from the stone border.

[Terrorbuns]

Ok, I've seen everything now! This is a cute game, and expanding it would be awesome. More critters and everything! 

[JaJitsu]

This is pretty fun.
Still missed one though.

[mokesmoe]

Does dirt do anything to affect the creatures? I found all of them, and don't remember dirt being good for anything, so isn't it kind of a useless material?

[Martin 2BAM]

Wow, so much feedback . Thanks!

I'm really glad some of you found the mold turquoise crawler and the little green worms, I thought those were hard to figure out (frustratingly boringly hard )

One question: About how much time did you spend playing?


To answer some of your comments:

I'm planning to expand it. I did it in about 10 hours (my girlfriend came for the weekend so I couldn't put more hours on it).
My idea is to make more critters, more plants, more combinations and even "animals" (a bit bigger creatures, with some needs to sustain life).

The dirt is a neutral filler (for now at least). It does nothing whatsoever.

I just wanted to say that there is some sort of whacky logic behind the creatures.
Spoiler:
I mean, tar and lava "ignites" a flame moth, plants need watering, water and seed create a plant,
But still I accept that water and fire do not create little manatees XD (the real reason is that blue+red is violet ;] )
The basic ones can get the experimentation thingy working and after that you'll have to think laterally and go "trial and error".

Thanks a lot again and good luck!
-Martín

[JaJitsu]

never found the green worms 

[letsap]

Purple blob dies on green block.

Also, glad to see you're expanding it, but I dunno about the bigger animals thing. The game is pretty simple and hard to balance as it is, I think that might throw stuff for too big a loop.

But I dunno, I guess we'll see.

[Martin 2BAM]

You can use the Glow tag and setting it to black to actually hide the spoiler (no SPOILER tags on Simple Machines Forums)

Consider that if the critters are 8x8 animals would be no more than 16x16  :D
I know it's hard to balance (I spend about half the developing time retrying the game, tailoring the gameplay balance details  )

Thanks!
-Martín

[mokesmoe]

Spoiler examples:
Spoiler Highlight to see
Spoiler Copy-paste or quote to see (some machines show it at normal size, not best solution)
One lame one I just though up, try to find the spoiler!

I don't remember how to do the mouse over one, will edit my post if someone tells me.

[LeFishy]

Oh man this game has manatees in it? I'll totally download it next time I'm in windows. Unless I missed that it is web based.

Edit: Learnt to read. Trying.

Ok given that it is like 2am and I only really care about the manatees I am not sure my opinion is valid but what the hey.

This looks like something I definitely need to invest more time into. I mean seriously I discovered like 3 races so I am clearly lacking some basic understanding of what is going on. I am determined to find out though.

[letsap]

Whoop, thanks for the tip.

[William Broom]

Spoiler examples:
Spoiler Highlight to see
Spoiler Copy-paste or quote to see (some machines show it at normal size, not best solution)
One lame one I just though up, try to find the spoiler!

I don't remember how to do the mouse over one, will edit my post if someone tells me.

You use the abbr tags!

I thought this game was really cool, but I found it too hard to discover the last 3 creatures. Also, I think I experienced a glitch because I got a new creature (some kind of green worm) but it didn't register on the score. Then the worms died really quickly and I never worked out how to get them again...

[Martin 2BAM]

Thanks for the feedback. I never found that glitch, but spawn/death code in v0.7 has been reviewed thoroughly because I added a "coexisting creatures" counter now (for a to-be award system).
So perhaps it's solved now.
I'll upload v0.7 when I add add some more creatures.

Regards

[Martin 2BAM]

Ok, no new creatures but a menu, hints and an achievement system.


Thanks to Noyb for the idea to add a bio like in Tanaka's friendly adventure. Not yet but coming (he actually posted it on my LudumDare entry but editing the entry each time is a drag)

Regards

[JaJitsu]

did all but the races and seeds achievement.

very fun :]

they should put this on the iphone

[Martin 2BAM]

Hey, thanks 

Yup, that achievement is the hardest, but doable with some enviroment tweaking!

Unlickily the iPhone doesn't have flash yet, and I don't have cash to buy a Mac and port it.