Cavern Collapse

About the game

Cavern Collapse is a unique rogue-like precision platformer that allows you to collaborate with the level generation algorithm through a level editor. 

• Travel through five unique stages each run to reach the hidden treasure at the bottom of the cavern.
• Practice your speed and precision to reach new high scores.
• Tutorials for gameplay/editor are included on the main menu and editor screen respectively, in the form of .PDFs which open externally.

 

Technical details

Algorithm

Cavern Collapse utilises the Wave Function Collapse algorithm to generate it's stages, which analyses premade examples to produce locally similar output. The level actually takes 30 different steps to generate, with much of it being polishing and verification.

The Wave Function Collapse implementation uses a weighted union comparison to construct the tile ruleset, meaning more frequent tile combinations appear more often in the end result.

Editor

The sample editor is simply an interface to Unity's Tilemap system, and the intelligent tiles are done custom using a bitmask system I made. Samples are stored in JSON format and the ruleset is constructed while levels are being generated in real time.

Generation Steps

On a macro level, the stages are generated by building a sequence of rooms from top to bottom like Spelunky, then reserving a critical path within each room from left to right. Entrances are made between dropdown and landing rooms in the sequence and then a row of blank internal walls are placed around the border of the map and along the bottom of each room as a starting point for the WFC algorithm to grow from. 

The algorithm is completed in 4 different passes, solid walls, platforms/ladders, spikes/coins and finally, decorations like plants and signs. Polishing happens after each pass and finally some small details are adjusted, such as ensuring all signs point towards the direction of progression in the stage. 

Verification steps are also performed to ensure all coins are reachable and nothing is blocked by the placement of spikes, which is accomplished using a single pass of a weighted Dijkstra function, in which spikes are given a weight of 100, walls are non-traversable and all other types have a weight of 1.

 

Credits

• Featuring 6 amazing experimental/atmospheric songs from Magnofon's album Terrarium (used with permission).
• Font and original pixel art based on assets by KenneyNL.
• Programming, design and art modifications by me.

This game was developed entirely in 6 weeks.