Development
Daisuke Amaya developed Cave Story in his free time over the course of five years. He began the project when he was in college and continued working on it after getting a job as a software developer. He started by writing the title screen music and programming rudimentary character movements. The idea for the cave setting evolved spontaneously when he created a number of enclosed spaces. Amaya admitted this lack of planning caused "problems down the line" because he did not have dedicated map editing and data management tools. Amaya describes the game as having an "old-fashioned feel", reminiscent of the games he played as a child like Metroid. More importantly, this "retro" design choice allowed him to create a large volume of artwork on his own, which would have been impossible for a 3D game.
At a Game Developers Conference project post-mortem, he emphasized the role of pragmatic design in shaping the game. While designing the main character, Quote, Amaya drew inspiration from Mario's iconic original appearance—a large, expressive face and a high contrast between his white skin and red shirt make him stand out from the dark cave backgrounds. Most other characters feature either light skin or white clothes for the same reason. To make levels memorable, Amaya designed them around a single theme, such as "warmth" for the Egg Corridor or "arid and oppressive" for the Sand Zone. Instead of a tutorial level, a concept Amaya dislikes, the first level of the game gives the player two paths, one of which is blocked off until retrieving an item from the other path. This setup, inspired by the opening of Metroid, "lets players feel like they've solved problems on their own" and persists throughout the game. In beta versions of the game, all the enemies were shaped like bars of soap, a concept that evolved into the Balrog character. There was also a "frog prince" character who could travel through water more easily. Elements of this beta were incorporated into the Nintendo 3DS version of the game.
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