By the time you read this, Cave Digger 2 will be out on Quest AppLab and SideQuest. Also the Escape from the Valley will have been released on Steam. Originally the Steam update was planned for December but then we shifted some resources into doing the AppLab version.
The game is now much closer to completion and has so much meat on its bones that it’s hard to compare to the earlier Halloween version. I’m going to talk about some of the best additions, stuff that I’m the most proud of and stuff that’s just funny in a chaotic way.
Due to a funny list-sorting bug in our level generation, it was using only a small portion of the rooms available. The ratio between the most used room and the least used room was like 200 to 1. After a one-liner fix, we are now actually using all of our hand-made rooms, so you should see caveloads of variety in the levels.
Another major change is the run length. After getting feedback from our fans on Discord, we shortened the mining runs – now they have an average of 6 rooms instead of the earlier 10. This turned out to be an awesome change, as it compressed the gameplay into a more action-packed, focused version. Mind you, you still can get lost in the caves from time to time.
One relatively simple addition was explosive barrels and traps. The emergent chaos this creates is just distilled fun. You see enemy projectiles fly past, light up an explosive barrel, which then as it blows up lights everything in the room on fire, including the enemies. It’s a nice dynamic, and who doesn’t love using traps against enemies?
I’m not going to spoil the ending – the first of many to come. But let’s just say it’s pure spectacle and will be worth finding. Also it introduces the first song on the soundtrack in the game. We’ll be adding many more endings, as the players loved them in CD1.
I’ve talked at length about the new Biome – the Nest, so won’t delve into that now. Let’s just say the new enemy types, the massive rooms and climbing make it feel so different than the earlier biomes. If you don’t fancy climbing, you can always buy the nuclear-powered sledgehammer and go rocket jumping. That turned out to be one of the most favourite things for our testers and streamers.
As you can see, I could go on and on with this, but I’ll let you find out the rest of the things yourself. Of course, we’ve added much to the existing content as well – more loot, more enemy types, more Clayton voice lines, more story comic, more SFX and VFX…
So yeah – this is the best one yet. And it’s only going to get better.
Or as my old friend Clayton would phrase it: “Can you smell the diesel burning? Can you feel the gears grinding? Ooooh yeah, this is the life.”
Welcome to Cave Digger 2!
-Kharan (Jaakko Asikainen)
Random development quote: “Onhan se vähän tylsää jos sieltä anuksesta ei löydykään mitään“
