Cave Dash

Tips for Cave Dash

In Cave Dash the ground you dig is often the only thing holding a boulder up. Dig under one and it drops as soon as you step aside, so never stand directly below a boulder you have just freed, and look at what is stacked above before you clear a tunnel. A boulder resting on another boulder rolls off to the side, which can block a passage you still need. Work out the order of your tunnels first and leave your way back to the exit open.

Count the diamonds the cave asks for and collect those before anything else, because the exit only lights up once you have them. Spare seconds on the clock turn into bonus points, but with three lives a careful route is worth more than a fast one. The four caves loop with less time once you finish them, so the routes you learn early pay off on later runs.

How to play Cave Dash

Cave Dash is played on a grid, one tile at a time. Each cave starts you inside the rock with a quota of diamonds to find and a clock counting down. Moving into dirt digs it away and leaves an open tunnel behind you. Steel rock cannot be dug at all, so it decides which routes exist. Step onto a diamond to pick it up.

The boulders follow simple rules you can see coming. A boulder stays where it is only while something is under it: clear the tile beneath one and it falls once you move out of the way, and a boulder balanced on another boulder rolls off to the side. You can also push a boulder out of your path.

When you carry the number of diamonds the cave asks for, the exit lights up. Walk into it before the clock reaches zero and the seconds you have left become bonus points. You have three lives for the whole run, and after the fourth cave the run goes back to the first with less time. On a computer you dig with the arrow keys or WASD, P pauses, M mutes and Space restarts. On a phone or tablet you swipe or use the on-screen d-pad.

About Cave Dash

Cave Dash is a digging puzzle in the tradition of the boulder-and-gem games of early home computers, in which a miner tunnels through soft earth while rocks fall by plain rules of gravity. What has kept the format alive is that nothing is hidden: you can see which boulder will drop before you dig, so a lost life usually comes from a plan rather than from bad luck.

Kiloo's Cave Dash, made by the Kiloo team, keeps it compact: four hand-built caves, a diamond quota, a clock and three lives. It suits players who like a puzzle with time pressure, where the clock pushes you on and the boulders punish haste. Because the caves come round again on a shorter clock, a high score comes from routes you have worked out on earlier laps.

Frequently asked questions