Gameplay footage of an Ice Dragon Monster in The Cave.
His idea was for a multi-character, 2D side-scrolling platform adventure wherein the game’s characters are stuck inside a living, talking cave that speaks its mind as its own “character”, as players are making their way through the various environments, enemies and obstacles. “The Cave” will literally chime in with humorous voice overs and narration to live-in up the proceedings.
It’s important to keep-in-mind that this new videogame, The Cave, was actually tapped as in-development by Tim and Ron even BEFORE the Kickstarter-funded “Double Fine Adventure” craze, a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $3 MILLION dollars. Way, WAY above the $40,000 Double Fine was asking for. :P
Here is an interview about THAT game with Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert, so you know who these two individuals are.
Fantastic interview, eh. And fun guys.
So back to “The Cave”. In the game you get to pick your choice of 3 characters to play as from a group of seven different characters. Each character has their own unique abilities, backstory, storyline, dialogue, etc. The choices are…
The princess in the Castle in The Cave. Gotta get her amulet!
* The Hillbilly
* The Knight
* The Adventurer
* The Twins
* The Time Traveler
* The Monk
* The Scientist
Each of these characters will “learn something about themselves, and who they might become” as players go through the game, and each character brings a different mechanic or way to solve puzzles and obstacles to the adventure. You will switch between characters in order to solve puzzles. For example, in one puzzle a fire-breathing dragon is blocking your path. In order to solve the puzzle, you have the Knight distract him and use his Invincibility power (called Guardian Angel), to keep the dragon focused on trying (to no avail) to roast our fare knight to a crisp.
Actual gameplay of The Cave looks like this, with the Knight facing The Dragon!
While the dragon is distracted, another character can make his way to the other side and steal the Dragon’s gold that the player is after. That gold can then be traded to a princess who has an amulet that the Knight wants; the Knight’s ultimate goal is to find the world’s most powerful sword, which is what lead the party to the Castle in “The Cave” where they met the aforementioned princess. A castle beseeched by the aforementioned Dragon. Ultimately one of the dragon’s simply eats the Princess, and we get our amulet. :D
Here is the debut The Cave Gameplay Trailer.
The humor that Double Fine is known for will definitely be on display throughout The Cave, and is sure to satisfy fans of Double Fine’s classic Adventure game’s (Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, etc.) as well as their most recent material, like Costume Quest, Brutal Legend, Psychonauts, Iron Brigade and Stacking.
The game controls much like LittleBigPlanet, from a side-scrolling perspective as players can jump, pick things up, drag stuff, and interact with various objects in the environment. The main hook to the gameplay is swapping between the various characters to solve puzzles.
While The Cave doesn’t necessarily sound like the most interesting game ever-conceived, the ideas seem sound, the premise interesting, and the gameplay solid. And with a team like Tim and Rob, it’s sure to be a quality product.
The Cave will be released for Xbox Live Arcade on Xbox 360, PSN on PS3 and PC in early 2013, published by Sega.
The Knight blocks the Dragon’s Fire with his Guardian Angel ability!
