Cave Factory

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Cave Factory is a 2D side-view factory builder where every grain of dirt, every drop of water, and every wisp of steam in the world is its own simulated pixel — the way they are in Noita. Dig downward through a 500x500 tile cave, trigger landslides, melt ice into water, condense steam into snow, pool liquids around the base of your furnaces, and watch dirt pixels pile up into brand-new dirt tiles when enough of them collect.

Underneath the sim is a real factory game. Mine ore. Sift dirt. Smelt iron. Quench molten iron into steel at exactly the right moment. Lay conveyor belts and inserters, build chests with input and output sides, and grow a vertical factory deep into the earth. A tech tree gates the late-game machines and recipes — you earn the dirt sifter, stone furnace, input chest, magnets, inserters, and more by playing your way to them.

New in this update

• Per-pixel Noita-style simulation for water, steam, snow, ice, lava, and loose dirt. Phase changes are real: ice melts, steam condenses, water rains from the cave ceiling.
• Stalactites you can drop on stone deposits to mine them.
• Molten iron as an intermediate state between ore and plates. You can make steel by quenching a hot iron plate.
• Cast iron, cast iron chests, crystal shards, mineral geodes, metal spikes, ice blocks.
• Stone ledge replaces the old antigravity block with cheaper cost and dirt displacement behavior.
• Input chests and output chests as distinct entity types, with one-button fast transfer between chest and inventory.
• Conveyors and inserters auto-pick-up dirt when placed and as they run, so you don't have to mine the strip first.
• Designed starter area with more starting resources, built in a new world section editor.
• Real save slots, with non-blocking saves on Windows, Mac OS, and the WebAssembly build.
• UI rewrite: proportional stb_truetype text everywhere, UI scaling for high-DPI displays, sub-pixel camera scrolling, fixed zoom levels.

Controls

Movement	W A S D or Arrow Keys
Jump	Space or W
Place / Use	Left Click
Grab from world / Cancel selection	Right Click
Quick-grab matching item from inventory	Q (while hovering an entity in the world)
Deselect held item	Q
Open / Close inventory and crafting menu	E
Rotate building	R
Open / Close tech tree	T
Fast transfer one item between chest and inventory	Shift + Left Click on a slot
Fast transfer all of that type between chest and inventory	Ctrl + Left Click on a slot
Save game	F5
Load game	F6
Toggle windowed / fullscreen	F11
Pause menu / cancel modal	Escape

Getting started

1. Press the 'T' key on the keyboard to open the tech tree.
2. The first tech you want is Mineral Refining. To get that tech, you need to collect a coal patch, stone patch, and iron ore patch. They look like dirt but with stones/iron/coal in it. Hold right click when nearby to collect.
3. Once you've researched Mineral Refining, it's time to research smelting. Collect five stone and craft a dirt sifter. Collect another five stone and craft a stone ledge. If you need extra stone, you can drop a stalactite onto a stone deposit. This will drop stone and coal.
4. Place the stone ledge and put the dirt sifter on it. Put coal into the dirt sifter's fuel slot on top and place the iron ore patch into the middle slot with the arrow below it on top of the dirt sifter. You should see it drop into the dirt sifter as the dirt sifter starts mining. 
5. Once the iron ore comes out of the dirt sifter, you will have researched smelting.
6. Use the hints in the tech tree to help you unlock all of the remaining techs.