Hi! My online name is S1x, and this space will talk about development topics related to Impossible Cave.

As of this writing, I am getting ready to release the 0.3 update of the cave. But, I think the most appropriate place to start off is the very beginning, before the core game actually formed.

Impossible Cave has technically been in development for around 6 years. However, the game only started getting substantial progress done for a little over a year. Before that, it existed as a small piece of a more "traditional" classic RPG. The initial codename of the project was "Secrets", then became "Impossible Cave" later on after creating small bits of lore.

This project got as far as a couple rooms in the lobby area, one mini-dungeon, and fragments of the start of a second one. It shares a couple mechanics with the game as it is now: I had already completely disabled random encounters, due to my own feelings on that mechanic, and fights initiated with enemies touching you. A small amount of skills were implemented, with the main character learning new ones on level ups. One of the major auras, Spades, was in, and I tested an enemy using those skills for themselves.

One of the main design themes was going to be that the trek through each of the dungeon’s levels would be fairly linear and straightforward, with options to go back screens and fight more if necessary. However, by doing sneaky things, you could also find secrets on side paths that lit up a light or an orb in a “secrets room”, and the more secrets you found, the more bonus things you unlocked within the secrets room, potentially ending with a super bonus fight if you found all of them.

(Fun fact: the maps are all still in the project right now, but inaccessible, because deleting things is dangerous for update compatibility reasons.)

The reasons this never got too far off the ground are, in my opinion, because of two main factors:

I didn’t have a clear vision

At first, I thought this project was already a compromise from the idea of a much larger (still incomplete) universe and story connected within it. This would just be, like, a series of levels, right? But even that was way too much to start blueprinting all of. However many areas there were, I would constantly need to add little pieces of variety to not make everything feel too same-y, and without much experimentation in this software yet, it was really hard to find cool ideas to get more content in. Plus, it all needed to be connected by a progressive story, because that’s what these types of games do, right? Well… I sometimes came up with what I thought were interesting individual scenes or areas, but linking them all together into an actually interesting plot or world… it’s not something I’ve ever really completed before, and the interest doesn’t hold personally when trying to force something like that.

Which then made me have to admit…

I was forcing myself into things I was not passionate about

I liked classic RPGs, but what did I really enjoy about them myself? For a long time, I convinced myself it was the story and characters, because that’s what everybody constantly talked about on forums all the time. But then why did I make all these forum games for people using entirely fun mechanics and text? Why is my Cook Serve Delicious 2 playtime much higher than Tales of Symphonia?

I primarily play games to do fun things. Ideally, those things have enough of a learning curve where mastering them and / or making better choices aids in overcoming great challenges. Audio, visuals, characters, and overall presentation can all add to that, but at its core, I like being rewarded for my choices.

So what if I focused on that type of game? It would be a little more unique than the usual story heavy games made from RPG Maker, and there was an optional mode of a classic RPG that pulled this off pretty well… 

but what if it was the main mode of a game instead……

The next post will talk about the first Impossible Cave test exports, and everything I've played / seen that inspired it.

For Reasons, the "sneaky things" I did to hide the old secrets I did implement are going to remain a secret for now. :)