CaveRace: From a 1997 DOS Game to a Modern Rewrite
CaveRace began in 1997 as a maze-based action game I created with a group of fellow students. We were inspired by Dyna Blaster (Bomberman), a game I loved playing on my Commodore Amiga.
Almost thirty years later, I returned to Eldora and rebuilt CaveRace for modern computers. CaveRace 1.5.1 keeps the original levels, pixel art, bombs, treasure, and aliens, but now runs natively on Windows and macOS with music, sound effects, controller support, and a new story presentation.
Download CaveRace
CaveRace is now available from its official website. Visit caverace.com for the latest downloads and start exploring the caves of Eldora.
Visit the official CaveRace website to download the game
| Story | Main menu | Controls |
|---|---|---|
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The story of Eldora
Far out in space lies Eldora, a small planet whose people have built their lives around treasure-filled mines. Every day, its miners venture underground to recover gold, diamonds, and other precious minerals hidden deep inside the caves.
Then unexpected visitors arrive from outer space. Alien creatures invade the mines, threatening Eldora’s people and the riches they depend on. The miners have only one practical defense: the explosives they already use to open paths through the rock.
You are one of those miners. Enter each cave, collect as much treasure as you can, and drive out every alien. Bombs can clear softer stone and destroy nearby monsters, but careless explosions can also destroy treasure or valuable power-ups. Dense rock does not move, so every bomb can reveal a route—or create a new danger.
| Planet Eldora | Collect treasure | Alien visitors |
|---|---|---|
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The modern rewrite
CaveRace 1.5.1 is a from-scratch rewrite in the Odin programming language using Odin’s bundled raylib bindings. I wanted the game to feel like the original rather than replace it with something unrecognizable. The ten level files from the DOS and DirectX releases are still used unchanged.
The rewrite adds the things I once wished the original could have: a proper story sequence, an original soundtrack, streamed music, sound effects, keyboard and controller remapping, pause and retry flows, screen and audio settings, controller rumble, and comfort options such as reduced flashes and adjustable screen shake. The simulation runs at a fixed 60 Hz, independent of the display refresh rate.
Versions through the years
CaveRace has moved through several generations of PC and console technology. The version numbers represent different development branches, so the 2012 XNA 2.0 experiment predates today’s 1.5 classic desktop rewrite.
| Version | Year | Platform and technology | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.2 | 1997–1998 | Original MS-DOS game, Borland C 3.1 and x86 assembly | Official website |
| 1.3 | 2002 | 32-bit Windows port using Visual C++ and DirectX 8.1 | Official website |
| 1.4 | 2012 | Windows 8 Store app written in C# with SharpDX | Source preserved on GitHub |
| 2.0 | 2012 | XNA 4 edition for Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox 360 | Official website |
| 1.5.1 | 2026 | Modern Windows and macOS rewrite using Odin and raylib | Official website |
The Windows Store and XNA editions expanded the game with Forest, Desert, Winter, and Lava environments. They are preserved as part of the project’s history, while 1.5 is the only version under active development.
| Desert and Lava levels | Forest and Winter levels |
|---|---|
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How the original was built
| Forest level | Winter level | Lava level |
|---|---|---|
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The original game was written mainly with Borland C 3.1, with some graphics and memory routines in x86 assembly language. Its minimum target was an Intel 80386-compatible IBM PC running MS-DOS with a 320×200, 256-color VGA display (Mode 13h).
The menus use the mouse and gameplay uses the keyboard. The game loop is tied to the display refresh rate—simple, but a design that I changed in the modern rewrite. The DOS release has no sound; audio first arrived in the DirectX port.
The DOS download also includes the original MapEditor, so you can create your own levels. If you make one, I would still love to see it.
Graphics
Marijn Schotte created the original artwork on an Amiga using Deluxe Paint. The source art is stored as IFF (Interchange File Format). For the DOS game, its 16×16 tiles and 320×200 screens were converted to raw indexed graphics that share a 256-color RGB palette.
| File | Content | Bytes | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| BGS | 5 × 50 tiles (16×16) | 64,000 | Backgrounds |
| BOM | 17 tiles (16×16) | 4,352 | Bombs |
| CAR | 320×200 screen | 64,000 | Title card |
| ENM | 16 tiles (16×16) | 4,096 | Enemies |
| FNT | 38 glyphs (3×5) | 570 | Font |
| HIS | 320×200 screen | 64,000 | High scores |
| ITM | 13 tiles (16×16) | 3,328 | Items |
| MAN | 18 tiles (16×16) | 4,608 | Player |
| MN1 | 320×200 screen | 64,000 | Menu 1 |
| MN2 | 320×200 screen | 64,000 | Menu 2 |
| PAL | 256 RGB entries | 768 | Palette |
| STS | 4 tiles (16×16) | 1,024 | Status |
| TRS | 7 tiles (16×16) | 1,792 | Treasure |
Game cheats
Start the DOS or 1.5 game with -powerblast to enable the function-key cheats.
| Key | Result |
|---|---|
| F1 | Complete the current level |
| F2 | Restore maximum health |
| F3 | Give the maximum number of bombs |
| F4 | Increase bomb power |
| F5 | Double the score |
| 1 | Save a screenshot (screen.raw in DOS, timestamped PNG in 1.5) |
The historical -slow option remains available. In 1.5 it limits presentation
to 30 FPS while the game simulation continues at 60 Hz.
Open source and credits
The complete CaveRace source and version archive is available on GitHub under the Apache License 2.0. The repository preserves the DOS, DirectX, SharpDX, XNA, and Odin codebases together with their original assets and build notes.
The original CaveRace team was Clemens Schotte (code and concept), Marijn Schotte (artwork and concept), Paul Bosselaar and Paul van Croonenburg (documentation), and Harro Lock (code). From version 1.3 onward, I continued development with artwork by Marijn.
I hope you enjoy returning to Eldora—or discovering it for the first time. Download CaveRace from the official website and let me know how far you get.