Cave Rewind

Cinevva's analyzer read this game's design doc and its source, then wrote the brief below. "Make your own" hands it to the game creator as your opening message, so you start from a real spec rather than a one-line idea.

Create a fast, Spelunky-inspired 2D cave platformer called “Cave Rewind,” rendered in a clean 2.5D orthographic style with chunky rectangular tiles and simple flat geometric sprites. The game world is a small procedurally generated cave, 34 tiles wide by 20 tiles tall, enclosed by an indestructible dark blue-gray rock border. Fill much of the cave with dark brown destructible dirt, then carve a rough winding horizontal tunnel from the left side toward the right. The playable view follows the player with a smooth camera and shows roughly 12 tiles of vertical space; keep the background nearly black with a subtle blue-black gradient, faint dust speckles, vignette, bloom, and mild screen shake during explosions.

The player is a pale blue-gray rectangular character about 0.62 tiles wide and 0.9 tiles tall, with a small soft circular contact shadow beneath them. Use arcade platform physics: horizontal acceleration, a maximum speed around 7.2, friction, strong gravity, capped falling speed, variable jump height, coyote time, and jump buffering. Controls: A/D move left and right, W or Space jump, S drop through light one-way platforms and descend ladders, E place a bomb, R activate time rewind, and P pause. The player can climb vertical tan ladder tiles while holding W/S. One-way platforms are thin horizontal light-brown strips that only catch the player when falling from above, while dirt and rock are fully solid.

Procedurally scatter about 22 one-way platform strips and ladders in open areas, red spike hazards on cave floors, 7–10 horizontally patrolling purple bats, and collectible tiles. Bats drift/flap with a gentle vertical oscillation and reverse direction at solid walls. The player dies immediately on spikes or on contact with a bat, but can stomp a bat while descending from above; a stomp bounces the player upward and awards 25 points. Use one life: on death show a centered “You Died” message with the reason and “Press Enter to restart.” Enter restarts the run.

Each level contains a gold key and a green exit door placed in open spaces. Coins are small glowing gold squares worth 10 points. The key is a wider gold rectangular pickup; the HUD should show Key No until it is collected, then Key Yes. The green exit only advances to a newly generated level after the key has been obtained. Keep the score when advancing levels, reset the player and level-specific resources, and increment a level internally even if it is not shown in the HUD. Also scatter bright cyan-blue glowing time crystals, shown as small rotated diamonds; collecting one fills the rewind charge to 100% and allows another rewind.

Give the player 3 bombs at the start of every level. Pressing E places a small dark circular bomb just ahead of the player, consuming one bomb. It has a 1.2-second fuse and blinks during the final half-second, then explodes with a subtle sound and screen shake. An explosion affects a radius of about 2.2 tiles: it destroys only brown dirt tiles, never rock, and can kill the player within about 1.7 tiles or bats within about 1.9 tiles. Rebuild the cave visuals immediately after dirt destruction.

Implement the defining rewind mechanic with a recent snapshot ring buffer recorded at 30 snapshots per second for roughly 3 seconds. Snapshots must restore the player’s position, velocity, grounded/climbing state and facing, score, key state, bomb count, rewind state, bombs, bats, and the complete tile map, so collected items, destroyed dirt, bombs, and enemy positions visibly undo. Start each level with a partial rewind charge of about 35%. Pressing R rewinds backward faster than real time while the charge drains; display “(rewinding)” in the HUD during the effect. It can normally be used once per level, and collecting a time crystal recharges it and clears the used restriction. When rewind ends, resume normal play from the restored snapshot.

Use the visual palette and presentation visible in the reference: charcoal/near-black cave background, dark brown dirt blocks, blue-gray rock border, muted tan one-way platforms and ladders, red spikes, green exit, gold key/coins, cyan crystals, pale icy player, and vivid violet bats. Add thin dark outlines behind tiles and pickups for readability. Give coins, key, and crystals a gentle bobbing animation; crystals also rotate slowly. Use simple noisy materials/textures for subtle grit, ambient and directional lighting, and a polished but minimal arcade look.

Place a fixed HUD at the upper left over a translucent dark gradient with large readable text: “Score 0,” “Bombs 3,” “Rewind 35%,” and “Key No,” updating live. Directly below, show the help line: “A/D move · W/Space jump · E bomb · R rewind · P pause”. On startup briefly show a centered overlay titled “Cave Rewind” explaining “Grab the Key, then reach the green door. Mess up? Hit R to rewind a few seconds (once per level).” P toggles a centered “Paused / Press P to resume” overlay. Add simple synthesized pickup, jump, bomb, stomp, rewind, death, and win sounds if audio is available.