How to play

The aim of the game is to see how far you can run through the cave, whilst avoiding various hazards and jumping over many gaps. When the game starts, you will start running automatically and build up speed running on the ground. As you travel further into the cave, the challenge will increase. The game ends when you run out of health, or fall into a pit.

This game can played in browser using PC and Mac devices. It is not fully supported for mobile devices with touch screen, however it may be possible with a controller or keyboard attachment.

Controls

In Super Cave Runner DX, you can control your jump and armour colour, using either a keyboard, mouse, or gamepad. The devices and associated buttons are listed in the table below.

Jumping

Tapping the jump button will perform a small, quick jump. Holding the jump button will allow you jump higher and further.

The height of your jump is related to your speed. The faster you are running, the higher you can jump. Your speed is indicated in the bottom left corner of the game screen with the speed gauge.

Armour Colour Change

Pressing the change armour colour button toggle between blue and orange colours.

Hazards and Health

Throughout the game, you will encounter different types of hazards, as listed below.

Ground, Platforms, and Gaps

Different ground and platforms will appear from the right side of the screen. These will appear at different gaps from each other and at different heights. Successfully jumping onto these ground/platforms will allow you to run further into the cave. Falling into the gap will result in the game ending.

Stalagmites

Stalagmites may appear as you run further into the cave. Running into these will result in you taking damage and losing speed.

Light Barriers

Some ground and platforms will feature light barriers.

To successfully pass through a light barrier, the colour of your armour must match the colour of the barrier’s light beam.

If your armour colour does not match the beam colour, the game will end.

Health and Healing Items

Your health is displayed by the heart containers at the bottom left of the screen.

Taking damage will result in the loss of a health container. If all three heart containers are lost, the game will end.

If you have taken damage, there is a chance that a healing item will appear. 

You can collect these by running or landing onto them. These will restore one heart container.

Invincibility

When you take damage, you will become invincible for a short period of time. This will allow you to run into stalagmites and light barriers without taking damage or losing speed. Once the invincibility wears off, you can take damage from any hazard again.

About

Super Cave Runner DX is based from a game developed at the 2022 Global Game Jam by Graeme White and Timothy Drew.

The theme from the game jam was “Duality”. Inspired by the game Canabalt, we designed an endless runner game set in a cave filled with various hazards. One of these hazards would be a wall or barrier that would be one of two colours. To break through these barriers, the player would have to match the colour of the barrier.

After 48 hours, we had a prototype where an animated character would automatically start running, ground would generate at different heights and at different distances from each other, and the player could control the jump. 

The prototype was filled with bugs and many of the planned mechanics were not implemented. I decided to continue working on this as a personal project and challenge to complete this in one month.

Credits

Design, programming, sprites, announcer voices - Graeme White

Music - Timothy Drew.

Special thanks to Lewis Innes and Robert O'Brien for testing and feedback.

Tools and Assets

Game developed with the Unity engine (version 2021.2) and the C# programming language.

Sprite assets created with Aseprite.

Announcer voices recorded with Audacity.

“Press Start 2P” font designed by “CodeMan38”. Available from Google Fonts.

Sound effects by Taira Komorio. Available from "Let's Play with Free Sound Effects".

Additional sound effects by InspectorJ, Jofae, se2001, and TheSoundcatcher. Available from freesound.org.

“Button Pressed” sound effect created by David McKee (ViRiX) and available from Open Game Art.