Devlog #3: Cave Paintings

Mancaves

Okay, so obviously, we have to have cave painting in a Caveman game. However, painting in Little Cavemen isn’t just a spray gimmick. It’s actually one of the key mechanics in game that will help solidify the story of Tugg and his family.

Cave painting mechanic serves two purposes:

1. Player Expression – As Tugg or his daughter, you can paint using story-unlocked stencils in caves and sacred spaces.
2. Narrative Expression – Across the world as Tugg, you’ll find paintings-clues left behind by during times you played as his daughter. These serve as:
   • Environmental storytelling
   • Hints and breadcrumbs for the final puzzle

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Technical nerd stuff

Instead of using freeform drawing (which would be messy with a gamepad and generally inaccessible), I built the system around projected stencils. These are unlockable symbols that the player selects and places directly onto cave walls. I used Unity’s URP Decal Projector, which let me project a texture onto geometry without needing to alter the mesh or bake anything.

The decals are simple textures — stylized, with soft alphas — and they snap to walls based on a custom raycast system. When the player hovers near a valid surface, the stencil aligns with the wall normal and previews the placement. This along some layering and short script checks, allows painting on every flat cave surface in the game.

Premade Paintings Are Real Assets !

I literally made them using the same stencil system and spawned them into the world at key story locations. So when you find one, it’s not a prefab with baked text — it’s using the exact same system available to the player, just authored in advance.

It keeps the system unified and grounded in the world.