Living Cave
| “ | This cave contains walls which are somehow living. After each turn, each cell counts the number of living wall and living floor calls around it, and if it is currently of a different type than the majority of the cells around it, it switches. Items counts as three floor cells, and dead Trolls counts as five wall cells. Some foreign monsters also count as floor or wall cells. | ” |
The Living Cave is a realm which can change its shape. Picking up the local treasure, Gold, and killing Rock Trolls can cause significant wall growth, possibly trapping the player.
Both creatures are mostly featureless melee fighters, with the distinction that Rock Troll corpses tend to spawn more wall hexes.
The Orb of Life which is found here can spawn a Golem, a creature which will attack the player's enemies. It's also a creature of average speed and limited to melee.
Monsters
Items
Objects
Details
Living Caves is the basic "cave-type" land where walls and floors live, changing their state with time. It is unlocked from start. Living Caves and Dead Caves can never appear next to each other.
Living Caves is made of two types of cells: living walls and living floor. Living walls form 55% of the cells and living floor forms 45%.
Item details
Gold appears on the living floor with basic chance 2%, increased by 0.04% per each Rock Troll or Goblin killed, but only to a maximum of 5% (reached at 150 kills of these monsters); if you have over 10 Gold and are outside Living Caves, this probability can be reduced thanks to the "no dipping" function; with 20 or more Gold, no new Gold will be generated unless you are directly in Living Caves. In Pure Tactics mode, Gold is no longer kill-dependent and has flat 4% chance of appearing.
Monster details
Base chance of a monster appearing on a newly generated living floor cell is 0.125% plus 0.025% per each Gold collected plus the Yendor hardness bonus.
Each generated monster will be either Rock Troll or Goblin with 50% chance.
Living wall cells might contain a Seep with the probability 0.02% per Gold collected plus additional chance based on Yendor hardness.
Rock Trolls, Goblins and Seeps also appear as wandering monsters in Living Caves.
The native Orb is Orb of Life (base chance to appear 1 in 1800). Orb of Earth is a guest Orb in Living Caves (base chance to appear 1 in 1200). Most of other Orbs except Orb of Safety and Orb of Matter (including Magic Mirrors and Clouds of Mirages) can appear in Living Caves once unlocked as prizes.
Living Caves is always available in Random Pattern Mode where the random pattern governs which cells will be living walls and which will be living floors. Once you collect 20 Gold, you can play it in Pure Tactics Mode.
Cellular automaton
Living Caves evolve their state based on cellular automaton rules. On each turn, every cell in Living Caves that is 8 or less cells from the player's position, counts the number of living walls around itself and the number of living floors around itself. There is, however, a large amount of special cases:
- Dead floor counts as a floor and will "come alive" on the next turn.
- Dead wall and rubble in Dead Caves count as walls and will "come alive" on the next turn.
- Normal rubble, stone gargoyles, stone gargoyle floors, stone gargoyle bridges and vines counts as walls.
- Dead Rock Troll counts as 5 walls.
- Other types of dead Trolls count as 3 walls.
- All other types of cells except Great Walls (which are neutral) count as 5 floors.
- Item on a cell counts as extra 2 floors.
- Gargoyle or Ivy on a cell counts as an extra wall.
- Tentacle tail on a cell counts as 2 extra walls.
- Demon on a cell counts as 3 extra walls.
- Worm tail on a cell counts as an extra floor.
- Zombie, Ghost or Necromancer on a cell count as 10 extra floors.
- Big statue of Cthulhu counts as 100 walls (in addition to 5 floors from step 6, so 95 walls in total).
- Activated Thumper or Fire counts as 100 floors (in addition to 5 floors from step 6, so 105 walls in total).
- The cell with the player counts as 100 extra floors if the player has Orb of Earth.
After all this, the cell will be converted in living floor if the number of "floors" exceeds the number of "walls" and into living wall if the number of "walls" exceeds the number of "floors". If both numbers are the same, the cell will stay unchanged.
Miscellaneous
Dead Caves can be converted to Living Caves by killing a Rock Troll there.
If a Dark Troll steps into Living Caves, it will be instantly transformed into Rock Troll.
Using Orb of Summoning in Living Caves will summon a Rock Troll (on living floor) or a Seep (on living wall).
Oscillators
The cellular automaton will usually settle into a static pattern, but occasionally you may see oscillating patterns instead.