Palindrome Cave

About Palindrome Cave

Palindrome Cave is a horror game by Quintin Steiner, made in seven days for both Scream Jam 2024 and Cosmic Horrors Jam III. It ranked 4th for horror in Scream Jam and 11th overall in the cosmic horror jam. It is a Windows download on itch.io where you name your own price, and the maker states that no generative AI was used.

A diver set out to investigate a mysterious signal coming from an unmapped region of the Palindrome cave system and has not returned. You go in to make the recovery. A warning sign at the entrance tells you that many divers, including instructors, have died attempting to dive these caves.

You swim in first person through narrow, pale rock tunnels with stalactites closing in and black water beyond your light, rising and sinking with the controls and checking a hand-drawn map with names like Witch's Hat, Eagle's Eye and Clenched Teeth, and a question mark over the unmapped part. Somewhere along the way someone has scratched SAFER IN HERE into the rock.

The maker recommends headphones. Players call it tense, choking and genuinely creepy, and one with a fear of cramped underwater spaces said it scared them. It suits players who liked Iron Lung, Narcosis or other short, claustrophobic dives into the unknown.

How to play Palindrome Cave

1. Download it from itch.io for Windows (name your own price, including nothing).
2. Put on headphones, as the maker recommends.
3. Look with the mouse and swim with WASD; Space takes you up and Shift takes you down.
4. Hold Tab to check the cave map and find your way toward the unmapped region.
5. Follow the signal and the trail of the missing diver.

Tips

• Check the map often; the passages twist and look alike in the dark.
• Use Space and Shift carefully in tight tunnels.
• Listen: the sound tells you more than the light does.

Questions