The Cave Diver — Volumetric Headlamp, Oxygen Panic, Bioluminescence
First-person scuba into flooded caves. Your headlamp is a real ray-marched volumetric cone in dark water. Oxygen drains. Bioluminescent creatures pulse. Some passages are dead-ends.
What this is
You're underwater, inside a flooded cave system carved by marching cubes. The world is pitch black except for your head-mounted lamp — a real volumetric ray-marched cone of light with 24 jittered samples through subtle fbm noise. Bioluminescent corals and creatures glow softly along the cave walls, drifting jellyfish pulse. Distance fog (heavy blue- green) swallows everything beyond 8m. Oxygen drains continuously, faster when you sprint or panic. 3 air pockets scattered through the cave — surface your head into the rippling pools to refill. Below 30%, panic rises. Below 15%, the bar pulses red and your breath goes raspy. Some passages are dead-ends.
Why this is mind-blowing
Volumetric light, marching-cubes geometry, bioluminescent emissives, panic-driven audio — this is a horror game where the horror is your own oxygen meter. From one paragraph. The cone of light cutting through particulate water is the kind of effect that wins SIGGRAPH papers.
First-person underwater cave diving simulator in three.js. Procedurally-
generated flooded cave system (marching cubes for organic 3D tunnels).
Player has a head-mounted lamp casting a real volumetric light cone
forward. Oxygen meter drains over time, refilled at air pockets.
Bioluminescent creatures glow. WASD swims, space ascend, ctrl descend.
Some passages are dead-ends — must backtrack. Audio: muffled breathing,
occasional distant whale calls.Paste this into Claude, Cursor, or Copilot. Change one thing that matters to you.
What I learned shipping it
- Real volumetric light cones are not optional for underwater scenes. Hand-rolled spotlight (cone smoothstep on dot(N,-L) + inverse-square) plus a 24-step ray-marched additive scatter pass = god-rays underwater.
- Oxygen drain that accelerates with sprint + panic creates a constant background tension that doesn't need monsters. Time pressure is the horror.
- Bioluminescence is not just decoration. It's the only color in an otherwise pitch-black world. Each glow is a destination.