itch.io

26/04/2026 20:43 version:

- Remove backgrounds
- Add border fill progress
- Improve icons
- Make veins thinner and semi-transparent
- Spread out the default placements
- Make bodies pickable by dragging
- Move nodes to center

24/04/2026 15:18 version:

- Remove backgrounds from node overlays
- Pulse transfer nodes
- Add Wakefulness Cycle banner and tutorial
- Change Body Card traits and modifiers to pills

I love the logo! And I love the new pause menu.

However...

I encountered a consistent issue that prevents me from playing.

The mobs spawn one by one, at the spot where I killed the last mob. So I can just continue shooting in the same direction, and kill all mobs. At some point no more mobs spawn, but there is no next wave.

Also I don't die when I should - I just remain at 1 hp.

And there is a consistent visual artifact getting stuck in the top left corner, around x:200 y:200 - the sprite changes, but the artifact remains.

21/04/2026 22:43 version:

- Juice up picking/dropping bodies
- Add toggle for LiveValueText in main menu
- Remove auto-dismiss timer display from toast
- Make sure screen and node callouts are always on top of everything
- Make pointer usable during pause
- Fix How Big Can I Get?
- Make nodes locked by conditional activation semi-transparent

I'm looking forward to trying a dash-and-melee run :)

Mac version, please! 🙏

LMK if you want any specific type of feedback on the browser version.

Nice, I had an almost half an hour of a very fun run!

Had to end the run prematurely, though. The mobs that grow enormous when you hit them eventually grew so enormous, I had to chase them out of the map, and eventually I couldn't hit them at all.

Still no minimap :(

Pretty cards do work well. Showing selected upgrades - perfect, I hope all of them will end up in that window, including the modifiers (fire, explosive, electric, etc). Took me a while to figure out where the modifiers were :)

Thank you! I am so happy you liked it, and that my intent is getting through.

I think I made a mistake with adding a layer of mechanics between bodies and tasks. Fairly certain that that's the main current friction - it makes balancing harder than it should be. So I'm tossing the whole interaction layer and replacing it with a different one, which will make balancing intuitive and diegetic. 

I'd like to point out that there are 2 games with a similar name that I am aware of. "The Cave" by Double Fine, and "Cave Game" (an early Minecraft build). There are other games with "Cave" in their name, of course, but these are the most salient ones.

If you are aware of any game called "Cave", I would appreciate a link.

Thank you :)

Thanks for letting me know!

I'm working on a somewhat unusual game and would love some initial feedback.
Is the concept understandable?
Is anything annoying, too obtuse, too incomprehensible?

https://speaks-with-stone.itch.io/cave

I’m happy to return feedback on your project too :)

The instructions are clear, but you're asking me to pay a heavy cognitive price to parse them.
You have a lot of active keys. I think showing a keyboard, with the keys highlighted and explanations attached, would be easier.
The mechanical explanations are clear but quite verbose. Unless you're purposefully text-forward, I would condense all of this into an explanation of "here are values that kill you when they reach 5", and [item icon]:[effect icon][op][value] for the rest, like [cigarettes icon]:[madness icon]-1. So 2 cards altogether, + the keyboard.

Graphics are fine, pleasant and not intrusive.

The sounds are problematic, especially the asteroids - they are the most prominent sound, and they don't sound fun. 
Could use a little bit of variety in unlocks - maybe more star and planet types? 
I did play it until I had ±10 warp. Mind numbness achieved  :D

Please add a reset save game. I reviewed your game a few days ago on reddit, most of my comments were about the tutorial (make it slep-by-step! :) ), and I'd like to try it again if you've made updates.

I played for a bit over half an hour, until the first boss - skill issue, after I died twice schlepping back to the boss (the fire mage guy) room seemed like too much. I am not a big soulslike player, and I couldn't figure out what the solution to this guy is - his attacks that are chasing me seem to just keep on chasing, so there's more and more of them on the screen all the time.

Changing the resolution on Web version disappeared my character.

The movement of the main character is very slow. It was the only thing in the game that I found annoying. I was left feeling that there are secret rooms to reveal, but the movement of the MC is so slow I didn't really try looking for them.

Beyond that - I love the art, it works well. The game has a coherent world feel, very inviting to explore. Combat against mobs was fun and satisfying, with a lot of room to grow. I wish I could use the environmental hazards against the mobs. Also could use more indication of "cooldown finished" or "mana ready" for abilities.

More content could be nice :D

It looks interesting, I love the concept! Any chance of a web build?

It was difficult for me to understand when I was taking damage. It was hard to me to understand what is background, what is mobs, what is environmental hazards (if there are any - I think some of the barrel-like things are maybe hazards). Turning into white (and maybe red?) particles when jumping threw me off, I didn't understand what was going on. Had to go back to the landing page and read the instructions, but I am still confused about what I saw.

The turning-into-crunched-eye-thing death animation is cool.

In general,  it felt a bit like receiving an electric shock. I did not survive 10 minutes.

I tried progressing for a while, but got stuck repeatedly and then gave up. Tried another character, got stuck at the same point (a few rounds in, either at the first boss or right after it). Tried the vampire now, same result.

I was confused by firepower and technomancy, they don't seem to belong with the rest. 

There doesn't seem to be anything to master other than dodging bullets/mobs. The special abilities were underwhelming, and if they have a visible timer indication, I didn't see it - so I ended up almost never using them. 

Every run felt much the same, I felt like the different gear/characters don't actually require different behaviors or generate different expectations. 

13/04/2026 20:48 version:

- Reduce difficulty
- Split notifications UI to ongoing and events
- Add Suspicion ongoing notification
- Add guidances in ongoing notifications

12/14/2026 15:13 version:

- Improve node overlay labels
- Highlight unowned Habiti in Body Card
- Better Editor ergonomics
- Keyboard time controls
- Pause while selecting bodies
- Add Understanding
- Add What Am I?
- Add How Did I Come To Be?
- Add Do Locals Know Of Me?
- Add Does The Patriarchy Know Of Me?
- Add How Hard Can I Go?
- Add How Big Can I Get?
- Cave Level Up now gives Understandings
- Prose cleanup

09/04/2026 21:44 version:

- Add Lure Villager
- Add Hommleter habitus
- More prose
- Add screen shake when a body dies
- Red pulsing background when Purge is on
- Add Merchant of Hommlet quest
- Add permanent Coin chests
- Proxy death animation
- Better throughput management
- Better Cave resource logic
- Add Trading Post
- Add Wood Wholesaler
- Add Slave Market
- Add Slave Uprising
- Add Accountant quest
- Optimize veins and bodies
- Add Inside and Outside hubs
- Add Food, Heat, Bodies, Purge, UI tutorials
- Tighten prose

03/04/2026 23:27 version

- Add "Show FPS" toggle in Main Menu
- Mark suspicious activities
- Add Hommlet
- Add Hommlet Lodging
- Add Coin resource
- Add Buy Coin Chest
- Add Coin Chest
- Add Day Labor
- Make Explore permanent (Know Thyself option)
- Optimize UI

01/04/2026 02:16 version

- Make Main Menu look better
- Add a few more Habiti
- Deprecate camera focus on selection
- Add Hommlet and Day Laborer

31/03/2026 05:01 version

- Improve body assignment
- Improve tutorial texts
- Improve post-absorption report display
- Improve label logic
- Add 27 Habiti
- Add and make visible Habiti effects
- Add tutorial for Absorption and Habiti

28/03/2026 18:25 version:

- Add Node labels
- When changing throttle during pause, update values
- Make background light on cycle scale with progress
- Add Tutorials Phase 1
- Add Habiti (initial implementation)

23/03/2026 21:15 version:

- Fix camera on wide screens
- Add game UI icons
- Improve resource transfer displays
- Disconnected nodes do not animate
- Show body healthbar in swarm row
- Fancy fillbar and slider
- Pretty transfers
- Improve all Cards
- Make all icons look good

17/03/2026 21:06 version:

- Improve Swarm and Body Cards
- Make Avatars persistent, unified display for webgl and dom
- Hide throttle on Egg
- Add tutorial for time controls
- Fix blueprints exposure in devtools scope
- Fix initial camera zoom
- Hide power requirement when hiding throttle
- Fix drag window egde in devtools
- Add Thoughts
- Add entity debug inspector

15/03/2026 02:34 version

- Deprecate Faces
- Make Cave Card clearer
- Make Cave furry
- Nice default placements
- Add Visuals Editor
- Add new node fill
- Add new shapes
- Nice displays for all nodes

11/03/2026 14:54 version:
- Add animated background
- Add noise to all vein params
- Add vein walls
- Make veins taper slightly
- Spawn and Kill animations
- Replace Aura with Light
- Add Light to Cave display

11/03/2006 02:11 version:
- Add versioning for saved data
- No "are you sure" popup when clicking play without an autosave present
- Swarm avatars shuffle 

10/03/2026 20:39 version:
- Add notifications stack
- Add tutorial

10/03/2026 14:40 version:

- Add Larder (food buffer).

- Bodies that are not a Face or Swarm (assigned or traveling) must not contribute attributes to pool, but they continue paying upkeep.

- No pull resources when throttled down to 0.

- Disconnect triggered one-off cycle entities from power veins and stop showing throttle.

Love it, very heartfelt.