The Enchanted Cave is a 2010 Dungeon Crawling Web Game created by Dustin Auxier and available on Kongregate, Steam and mobile.
A crowdfunded sequel, titled The Enchanted Cave 2, was released in 2015.
Both games follow a simple premise: there is a cave and you explore it, killing monsters and collecting items along the way. The cave of the title has 100 floors in the first game, and 80 in the second (100 in the Steam or mobile versions). You can go down, but never up. You can, however, exit the dungeon by using wings that are found in a random chest. Escaping will keep your gold and stat boosts (your level and skill point distribution are also kept in the second game), but none of the items you found, except for artifacts, which are marked by a different background color.
After exiting the dungeon, you then start again. In the first game, you go on the second lowest shop you have reached. There are shops on floors 9, 19, 29, etc. so, for example, if you have reached a floor between 29 and 38 inclusively, you will return to floor 19. In the second game, you can choose which floor to start at, but you can only start on a floor with a shop you have visited. There are shops every 10 floors.
The Enchanted Cave contains examples of:
- All Swords Are the Same: Your attack animation is always the same regardless of your weapon.
- Cerebus Syndrome: 2 starts out as a whimsical, fantastical adventure, but as you trek further and further into the cave, more and more people from the town go missing (heavily implying that they've met their end in the Cave), the discarded journals you find throughout the Cave become increasingly deranged and nightmarish, and by the final few floors, the town is all but abandoned as almost everyone has either died or abandoned the town due to how dangerous the Cave has become.
- Checkpoint: Each dungeon shop appears every 10 levels. They're available for use when reaching the next shop in the line.
- Combat Exclusive Healing: In 2, items may be enchanted to provide health or mana when defeating an enemy. There is still out-of-combat healing available.
- Cursed Item: The non-artifacts are stated to be cursed, but their downside is simply having the item destroyed when you exit the dungeon.
- Do You Want to Haggle?: The second game has a guy in the village who is willing to buy artifacts from you and is willing to raise his price twice.
- Dungeon-Based Economy: The first game doesn't tell us much about the world outside the dungeon, but the second game has an inn and museum that attract visitors.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: While you exit the dungeon with only your artifacts, while inside you can carry dozens of swords and armor, potions, etc.
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Averted, as the chests were put there by the Big Bad to lure adventurers.
- Item Crafting: You can produce potions from ingredients for healing or a time limited buff. Ingredients may also be used to give a permanent bonus to an existing item. This requires a forge, appearing once every 5 levels.
- Joke Item: A guy in the second game tries to sell a rare ring for 1000 gold. Actually buying it reveals it's a fake diamond ring that grants a paltry 1 defense boost and can't even be put in the museum.
- Mega Dungeon: The entire game is set within a dungeon with 100 floors.
- Palette Swap: Only a few monsters (e.g. Spider, Goo) appear to be full palette swaps. There's additional monsters (e.g. Crystal Golem) that alter details after the palette swap.
- Rare Candy: Stat gems are scattered throughout the dungeon, and give a permanent stat increase.
- RPG:
- The first game has HP, MP, Attack, Defense, Magic and Agility, as well as offensive and defensive stats related to the Elemental Powers. You can increase your stats by collecting crystals.
- The second game adds leveling up.
- Secret Room: 2 has a Notice This effect applied to some walls, which reveals a hidden area with a guaranteed non-cursed item, a page from the villain's journal, and a level exit.
- Tech Tree: In the second game. There are three sections: alchemist (get more drops, boost potion efficiency), mage (increase MP and magic power while learning new spells) and fighter (increase attack, defense, critical hit rate, and XP gain).
- Trauma Inn: In the second game, there is an inn at the entrance of the dungeon. You start every session by getting out of it, but are never shown having to ask for a room.
