Double Fine has made the news of late with its $3 million Kickstarter success story, but this isn’t that game. The independent game company has made a string of innovative games, including Psychonauts and Brutal Legend. The studio is focusing on some new titles for digital download, including The Cave.
The Cave, which will be released on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, comes from the mind of Ron Gilbert. The creator of classic PC games like Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island. There are some similarities to those beloved adventure titles.
In The Cave, players will be able to choose several characters to control with special attributes. And since this is a Double Fine production, the actual cave is nothing ordinary. Gilbert talks about what’s in store for gamers who enter this adventure in the interview below.
What’s The Cave about?
The Cave is this odd little adventure game about these seven characters that are drawn to this mysterious sentient, talking cave, which asks them to descend its steps and learn something about themselves.
What does this open up from a gameplay perspective?
It is an adventure game, so you are taking these players through and you’re solving adventure game puzzles as you descend through the cave. There’s some climbing and other challenges as you are going down. At its heart, it’s an adventure game, so there is a lot of adventure game stuff.
When it comes to the environment, what will people be exploring?
The cave is a very interesting place. It is a cave, but you have these seven characters. There’s this knight that is descending the cave and one of the things that he finds in the cave is this giant medieval castle down there. So he goes and explores the weird castle. Another one of the characters that you can take down there is a scientist and she finds this giant underground missile silo with this armed, ready-to-launch ICBM missile. When you go down into the cave, you never know what to expect. It’s always going to be these strange, bizarre things.
So replay will be rewarded through these new worlds that characters open up?
Yeah, because each of the characters has their story or reasons that they’re there. The knight has this castle, which you wouldn’t be able to get into if you didn’t have the knight. With the hillbilly, there’s this whole carnival that he can get into and then different puzzles you can solve different ways. If you have the hillbilly you can solve it one way, if you don’t have him you have to figure out a different way to solve the puzzle.
Who are some of the other four characters?
The others include a monk, a hillbilly, a scientist, a knight, a time traveler and an adventurer.
Where did the idea for this come from?
This is an idea that I’ve had for about 25 years. It’s something that has percolated in my head over the years and I just had the opportunity to come to Double Fine and make the game.
What role has technology played in helping to bring this game to fruition?
One of the things is that we can do a lot more things than we could 25 years ago. I mean, 25 years ago had simple bit map graphics, but now when you use full 3D graphics and wonderful particle effects and lighting. All of these things are really bringing the mood of the cave alive.
What is it like to work on something new and unique like this?
Having something unique is great. I haven’t done a lot of sequels in my career. There’s only probably ever been two or three that I’ve done, so mostly I just like creating brand new things. It’s really great to have an opportunity to do new stuff.
Ps
I think they’re going to like these seven characters. They’re all a little bit bizarre and quirky and they all have these really weird things that they find when they go into the cave.
Published: Jul 25, 2012 08:24 am