This was an area dedicated to the Hillbilly character and took us a good half hour to puzzle through and complete. The level we played was a testament to this. It's not just one little drawbridge with a puzzle." "Once you get into the Knight's area there's an entire medieval castle with catacombs and a dragon - they're quite big. You'll get into completely different areas and entire groups of puzzles that are different. "The changes are quite significant, it's not like you play it again and 95 per cent is the same. Gilbert insisted it wasn't just a trick designed to extend the game's lifespan. You'll actually need to play through The Cave three times to discover each of the seven characters' back-stories and individual areas. You can play it once and that's fine, but if you want to explore every nook and cranny you do need to play it again." When we designed this we wanted all the characters to have their own story, their own special ability or skill that's different to everyone else. "No one replays Maniac Mansion to be Jeff. "Some of that occurs in Maniac Mansion, but we hadn't done enough to make the characters individual or interesting," Gilbert explained. It's an idea that Gilbert has touched on before. The third was the ability to choose a trio of characters from a cast of seven, each of whom has their own skills and access to exclusive areas. The second central idea was to include a light platforming element that could entice gamers not interested in puzzles - players have to jump from one gondola of a Ferris wheel to another, for example. You're not allowed in until January (exact date TBC). "It was one of the core tenets of this design, and we were stuck with that." The Cave creator Ron Gilbert Gilbert guards the entrance to The Cave. "It was one of the core tenets of this design, and we were stuck with that."
Games with inventories containing hundreds of items were "sloppy", Gilbert added, however difficult an alternative was. "You don't have the ability to just load people up with crap and call it a puzzle - when you just had to scroll through your inventory to find something. "I think if there was any one 'most challenging' part to making this it would be designing a classical adventure game with no inventory. "That was a very challenging part of the design," Gilbert sighed.
The first may come as a surprise - there's no inventory.
But while the story has been set for "25 to 30 years", Gilbert began actual development two years ago with a trio of "core tenets" designed to modernise the genre. The Cave's story has been knocking around his head for just as long, Gilbert told Eurogamer in an interview conducted this week. Gilbert's latest creation - an exploration of a sentient cavern filled with puzzle-based traps and outlandish solutions - will be immediately familiar to fans of earlier projects Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. Upcoming Double Fine adventure The Cave sees genre veteran Ron Gilbert return to his roots.
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