That's a bit scary, but sure.

Hello! In parts of my free time, I chase difficult challenges in games. I focus more on the "player vs game" aspect rather than PvP challenges. I've sometimes described it as being a "hardcore casual gamer;" if you've seen me playing high speed Tetris, that should hopefully make sense.

In other parts of my free time, I create difficult challenges in games, because I always enjoy seeing how people's minds function. I have always done this in some form, all the way back to paper card and board games, web site puzzles, and forum games. Recently I've been going the digital game route, which is great because I don't have to be physically around to offer the challenge.

Impossible Cave is my current big project. It's a random and strategic turn-based RPG where you dive into a 100-floor cave; but if you fail, the game resets all levels & items and you have to start over. It also features a highest difficulty mode I don't expect anyone to ever beat... but I have lots of fun throwing myself at it.

The main goal is to get to and defeat the boss on the 99th floor of a single dungeon, or the cave, without your whole party getting wiped out. In order to do that, you have to use the randomized treasures and upgrades you find in a series of calculated risks: to not only survive the next floor, but also build enough power to survive all the way to the end. The items and events being random forces you to adapt and make plans on the fly.

Oh, and your items/levels are always reset back to nothing at the start of each attempt. There are some permanent perks—for the easier modes—but it's basically a fresh start every time.

The 99th floor matches where the final enemy is in Lufia II's Ancient Cave, which is the direct inspiration for my cave's length. The 100th floor in Impossible Cave is reserved for a special bonus boss that is much stronger, mostly exists to test how super overpowered you are, and is not required for your run to count as a "victory."

The appeal is similar to how I am possibly endlessly grinding for the GM rank in Tetris: The Grand Master 2. I love the journey as much as, or possibly even more than, the end goal. This may sound weird, but sometimes I wish I was not as good at certain types of games as I am, because it often cuts that journey super short. It creates a gap of relatability to many other players. My first win on Balatro on the second try didn't make me feel nearly as ecstatic as someone else on the internet that screamed about finally winning a run after 50 hours.

I want to clear the Impossible Cave mode, but I also kind of don't want to. Because this is my game, if I ever beat it, I have the ability to make it harder; the journey can keep on going.

I personally am not the biggest fan of meta-progression in rouguelikes (anything that permanently makes you stronger than your previous runs), but I also get why others like it. In a compromise to, in a way, both include and exclude it, there are perks that make subsequent runs easier in the two lower difficulties... but none of them can be used in this hardest mode.

In addition, every extra feature from the second hardest mode—like more dangerous enemy moves—are included, and every enemy gets a huge buff to something that you don't know until you start fighting them. Every fight is technically winnable, but every fight could also instantly end you if the buff hits the right thing. Winning the run should take both a large amount of strategy in deducing what the Impossibuffs are and taking risks around them, and also a massive amount of luck.

A lot of people won't like losing to pure luck, but if I can make it exciting to see what starting things will be rolled next, perhaps that curiosity can make some of them stick around.

Currently, it's mostly your companions, which are 3/4 of your party. The companions roll a random class, random skills from a pretty large pool, and random fluctuations in starting stats.

Sometimes you get great synergies, like a Flame class companion that has a magic Fire move with a great Magic Attack stat; and sometimes you get an almost useless combination. I find it interesting to check what I get at the start of each run and determine how to proceed from there.

Your main character is more consistent (for now 🙂), but which of the 4 aura rings they get to start with is randomized.

Under the hood, I also flip some switches that change what extra moves enemies can use in the harder modes. I only do this once so that when you realize what they have, you can plan out how to play around it if you fight them again that run. I don't want just total randomness, I want a lot of the kind of randomness you can react to strategically.

Super short answer: the target audience is me. A big part of this was an attempt to create something that can entertain and surprise myself.

Slightly longer answer: If I knew what my target audience was, I would have approached them a long time ago for data. It would have to be the type of people that prefer RPGs for mechanics and content above story and aesthetics, which is already not a great strategy numbers-wise. It could also be people that love chasing challenges and achievements in games, even if the odds are stacked against them. Maybe the type of people who want to shut me up when I gloat that I'm technically a world record speedrun holder? Or, possibly, people that enjoy cheesy puns and references in text and item/skill names.

I want to be careful about alienating people who don't want as intense a challenge, though. The easier modes and perks are in anticipation of a less hardcore player that just wants to see all the content. One of the trickiest parts in making this game is making things for that theoretical type of person, because I won't touch it in my own plays, but somebody else might appreciate it.

I'm really proud that all the content and numbers I've thrown together have created some really intense fights. In my own plays of the game, there have been some boss fights where it came down to the final few attacks, and when I saw the boss go down, it felt really great from a gamer perspective, and right after, from a design perspective, it felt really great again that it made me feel that way.

I think the special thing about this project is that it can include, and already has, pieces of creativity from many other people I know. I like building systems and rules, but I don't have as much focus on art or music. However, thanks to friends like Liz, ZeroJanitor, Spritedude, Valigarmander, monstrman, and obviously you (Leo / ArcanaXIX), there is still unique art and music in the game, and they add to the experience in ways it would take me far too long to do myself.

I was just going down floors, partly as a quality check, and partly as a real attempt to win the run. Like many other games, I was playing it while listening to some other stream or video in the background while occasionally giving the game extra focus for making key decisions or doing rough damage calculations.

Then I had to face the next boss. I had an okay-but-not-great party; every turn was a risky decision on when to heal because the boss outsped everyone. Many turns passed. 2 of 4 allies fell. I launched a final few last-resort desperation attacks to try and damage-race the boss... and a critical hit took it down. The victory and relief I felt then is as real as any other game I've played.

Perhaps that means it's a real game?

My very initial vision was a more traditional RPG with a big world and a story that went with it, but that stalled out indefinitely. My more realistic vision after that focused on going through linear-ish dungeons with lots of off-path secrets if you looked carefully. That got as far as maps for 1 dungeon and a very-incomplete second one, but it also stalled out because I didn't have an idea of what connected it all together from a narrative or progression standpoint. If you want to read more about that, check out this!

I think the big mindset shift happened after we did the game jam that resulted in Lost Wanderer's Wand. It forced me to think back to the fundamental question of what defines a game. I created the end goal immediately, worked with others to make the path between A & B something functional and fun, and published it to the whole internet over the course of a few days.

After that, for my personal project, I re-evaluated and thought: what is implementable with the RPGMaker engine but more attuned to my interests, and something I can make a concept test with an actual start and end for fairly quickly? I liked roguelike-type runs, so I made a 10-floor dungeon following the general structure of Lufia II's Ancient Cave. I then decided to expand on it until I got bored or tired of working on it. Somehow, I still am not bored or tired of working on it.

So, in a way, Impossible Cave has been worked on for 7 years. But in terms of actually picking a concept and making substantial progress on it, it has really been about 2 years.

Much like an early access game, the game is currently fully playable, with clear & achievable goals. The core layer of the cake is built. Now I'm stacking delicious toppings on top of it and seeing what tastes the best. Feedback is highly desired so I don't get lost in adjustments that work for me but confuse or turn away other people.

There will probably be a point where I slow down the big changes and maaaaaaybe give it a price and a Steam release, but I don't know when that will be yet. One of my biggest upcoming decisions is defining what version 1.0 actually is, because I know that some people only want to play it when it is "complete," even if that's not a term I'd ever use on something I iterate on this much. For the near future, I'll continue thinking of additions that I can do with the tools I have, and build my favorites into the game (the whole "home base and decorations" thing went from idea to implemented so fast).

...and also do better at valuing and promoting myself and my work, but that still feels super awkward.

Adventurers that earn enough points from cave runs unlock a personal home base and gain the ability to open a purple chest, which is basically a gacha machine that costs 1 cave run instead of money. It will give you a random decoration which you can then place somewhere in or around your base. There are also formulas going on with the purple chest where the better your run was, the more it will attempt to not give you a duplicate.

I drew the map objects for all these ~100 decorations by myself in paint programs, and they reference all kinds of things I like. Not a single external plugin was needed to make this system, although due to limitations, specific decorations can only be put in specific spots. That was the only real compromise.

This is one of several mechanics intended to make losing feel better, because you get to do some other interesting thing before the next run.

A lot of my past work has been incorporated into the cave. Mites were a creature in a really old physical card battling game I made, and they look basically exactly how I drew them on the cards. So many of my older things have reformed in my newer things like that. Usually I'm the only one that knows. But that's fine.

For the development process, if anybody is stalling on making a game themselves: force yourself to make the minimum viable product. For the cave, that was roughly 4 floors of completely featureless maps, a treasure chest per floor that picked from one of 3 things, a basic attack, a stronger attack that cost resources, one fight-able enemy (pic doesn't matter, could just be a red dot), a trigger to go back to the start if you are defeated in battle, and a boss at the end.

For the project...

...one of the companion skills your allies can randomly learn is called "Ice Missile." If one of them has this, and the player moves from floor 68 to 69, without any indication to the player, that skill silently gets replaced with one called "Nice Missile," which has the exact same effect but is non-elemental instead of Ice elemental. Upon transferring to floor 70, the skill silently switches back.

I love putting goofy little secrets like these in games. There are more things like this I've buried into obscure conditions in the game. There are some I've yet to tell anybody how to see them. And there's one that I probably will never tell anybody how to see it. 🙂