Artem Taran - Unity Developer

Return to Darkness

A roguelike action game with a procedurally generated cave descent, where the player mines resources, explores the environment, and fights enemies on the way down.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Core Gameplay

To reflect the theme, the core idea was to create a game about descending into the depths of a cave. The game was designed to be replayable, so the cave was procedurally generated using Perlin noise. At the start, the player has two main tools: a pickaxe and a weapon, along with limited resources such as health and ammunition. As the player descends, they encounter enemies and must fight them off, spending these resources. Since both health and ammo are limited, a recovery system was introduced in the form of crystals scattered randomly throughout the cave.

Mining

To enhance the atmosphere, post-processing effects, sound design, and low lighting were used. To avoid frustration caused by darkness, the player was given glow sticks with a cooldown to prevent constant spamming. Upon reaching the bottom of the cave, the player encounters a final scene.

Final scene

Result

The game received high ratings in the audio category and a lot of positive feedback, with players especially highlighting its strong atmosphere. Despite many games exploring a similar cave-descent concept, this project ranked higher than most in the overall standings. The development process also provided valuable experience in creating procedural level generation systems.

GAME JAM

Created for Ludum Dare 57

Theme: "Depths"

TOOLS

Unity Engine C# Aseprite jsfxr bfxr

DEVELOPMENT

Development time

48 hours