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« Jebby's Blog What is a speed cave? A speed cave is a trap or a collection of traps that force you to act very quickly. You may be constantly running, jumping and swimming while making awkward manoeuvres. They are popular in the caving community due to their exciting intensity and the thrill of moving quickly through a cave. The Trailblazer This is named after my own cave that I made several years ago, spawning a new and interesting cave type. The basic idea is to have Hannah start on a dynamite platform and having an arrow set the dynamite off. Hannah has to run along the dynamite platform before it explodes underneath her. Typically, there are spikes beneath the platform to prevent Hannah from jumping off – keep them two tiles away to prevent the dynamite from destroying them. Here is the most basic example: Here, Hannah has no choice but to hit the arrow that sets off the potentially fatal dynamite trail. She could hop back on to the terrain to avoid the dynamite, but then it'd be impossible to get to the door – the only way is to run hence the trap is called a trailblazer. You can add great deals of complexity to your trailblazers and personalise them to your style. A common design is to make connected trailblazer platforms like this: Hannah now has to jump from platform to platform. We have, in effect, slowed the player down. Timing is crucial in speed trap – you need to test them again and again and again to make sure that the trap cannot be defeated too easily. Before I show you more speed traps, I'm going to talk about timing as that is the most important thing in this area of cavemaking. Timing - Too Easy or Too Hard? Let's use an example speed trap in this part: I'm sure you've gathered that the goal is to reach the end of the right-hand platform before the boulder lands on it while avoiding death on the other platforms as well. A novice cavemaker might produce this trap and think that it appears quite reasonable to play. It's not – it's too easy. The more arrows that fill in a gap between two others, the longer it takes for one end of the line to reach the other. Arrows are not released instantly and putting more arrows in is a way of slowing it down, which usually means that the trap is too easy. The above example is how you should start off a trap (you'll start off with fewer arrows as you gain experience). You should now think to yourself: how difficult do I want this trap to be? If you want a masterpiece of a trap, then you'd want the player to be getting through by the skin of their teeth. If you want the player to be challenged, but not frustrated, give them a bit of leeway. Here are three versions of the last part of this trap. Each one shows where the boulder is by the time Hannah gets to the end of the right-and platform: In the left section, it is far too easy – Hannah reaches the platform before the boulder has even been released. In the right section, it is too hard to be enjoyable – you have to time it to perfection. The middle section is ideal – you have to get to the platform in good time, but the model caters for mistakes. So how can you slow a trap down or speed it up? Here's the example trap sped up (made more difficult): The filler arrows have been removed, meaning that the boulders are released sooner. Another way of speeding a trap up is by slowing the player down. The usual way of doing this is putting wooden crates in the way (they briefly push the player away) or making a distraction such as forcing the player to go to another platform to pick up a treasure chest. If your trap is impossible or too hard, increase the arrows in the chain: Note that I've made a gap between the upper layers of arrows because sometimes they don't go off when an arrow facing upwards hits another arrow directly above it. This addition of arrows, of course, slows the trap down. A final thing you should think about when timing your speed traps is that you should always search for and test the fastest possible route (FPR). This is talked about in 'Cave Design/Basic Traps/Shortcuts'. Make sure the player has a chance of figuring out this FPR unless you want the cave to be extremely difficult. If you don't find the FPR and the player does, your traps will be taken advantage of and you will lose marks on design. Pushers These speed traps simply involve you being pushed along by the threat of arrows, boulders or crates. To prevent a player from backtracking, an incentive is given. The example in the timing section features a pusher – the threat of boulders falling on your platforms encourages you to get a move on. Here's one that features arrows: The incentive in this one is that if you turn back, you get crushed by steel crates. Despite this, good players can find gaps in between the speeding arrows to jump on top of the steel crates – things like this should be investigated when testing your cave. Vertical Trailblazers Although these feature trailblazers, the player doesn't really get in contact with them, but has to keep ahead of them for fear of the next platform being destroyed – leaving the player to drop to their death: The Exit Blocker Now let's revisit the cave that we first saw in Basic Traps. This is a very difficult trap to play as it isn't obvious as to what is going to happen – it can lead you into a false sense of security. Here is a very difficult one indeed (from Bribe and Massacre by jebby444): The player starts at the secret area on the left-hand side and has to get to the drop at the bottom-right hand side in good time so that they can reach the next trap before it gets too far ahead. The path to the dynamite has some spike pits so the player has to push the boulders into them while performing some difficult manoeuvres. This is an example of how complex caves can become – in this case a very difficult trap forces you right into another difficult trap… after it's been set off! This gives you an idea of how high the ceiling is in the level of cavemaking in our community. Here ends the cave design section of the manual. This section has been heavily cut down for simplicity and may be reduced or expanded in future versions. The material in this section is quite raw and unchecked so errors may be present. Despite this, I feel that it should give you a lot of ideas on how to make a cave. Thanks! 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