New release: The Enchanted Cave 2

Dustin Auxier writes in to announce the PC release of The Enchanted Cave 2, a graphical roguelike he’s developed in collaboration with ex-Rare composer Grant Kirkhope. It first released for Android and iOS back in April, and it’s just now popped up for Windows and Mac as well.

The premise:

A mysterious cave with seemingly infinite treasure and monsters was discovered years ago. A town was built around it, attracting eager explorers from all over to try their hand at finding some treasure. It’s known to carry the ultimate risk of never emerging again, though lately the number of missing explorers is rising much faster than usual…

Here’s a gameplay trailer:

TEC2, as its title suggests, is a sequel to The Enchanted Cave, a Flash game that Auxier released to some success back in 2009. Auxier states that this newer title focuses heavily on an overarching risk-versus-reward structure, in which you must temper your greed against the danger of overextending yourself in the game’s dungeons. That’s not exactly unbroken ground in the roguelike genre, but with so many recent roguelikes providing persistent progress between characters to ease the sting of overextending, I suppose that this works as a selling point.

The game’s official feature list reads as follows:

• Randomly-generated floors of loot, monsters, and minibosses
• Secret areas hidden in the walls of the cave with loot + plot details
• A thriving town of tourists and eager explorers to talk to and trade equipment
• Over 300 items, equipment, spells, and crafting ingredients
• A soundtrack by the legendary Grant Kirkhope

The Enchanted Cave 2 is currently available for $4.99 on Steam (Windows and Mac), or $2.99 on iOS or Android. In case you want to try a demo first, there’s also a free “lite” version that you can play in-browser on Kongregate.