The Cave Diver blends the joyful physics of QWOP with the less joyful physics of being trapped underground

“What morbid force is calling you deeper into the heart of the caves?” asks the Steam page for The Cave Diver. It ain’t calling me, developer Ovsko. I read the opening words of your description and immediately started running away from my laptop. I’m still running, in fact. This article is being breathlessly dictated to Oisin over the phone. I’m somewhere in the vicinity of Luton, now, and hope to make it all the way to Scotland by the weekend.

After that, there’ll be the problem of securing naval travel as I continue my headlong flight. Then I’ll have to worry about frostbite as I gallop past the North Pole and begin my long traversal of the Pacific. At some point I will reach New Zealand, which – according to this handy antipodal mapping site – is approximately as far away from The Cave Diver Steam page currently loaded on my laptop as I can get without venturing into outer space. I do not rule out venturing into outer space, which is notable for its complete and categorical deficit of caves.

Perhaps you think I’m being hysterical. Friend, The Cave Diver is about perishing repeatedly in crawlspaces a few inches wide, deep below the surface. It’s a game based on that awful cutaway image you’ve doubtless seen and flinched away from on social media. And also, beloved lunchbreak physics diversion QWOP. What kind of vile intellect turns QWOP into… this? I guess there’s nothing for it but to roll the trailer.

The premise here is that you’re trying to find a possibly-mythical subterranean flower that has the ability to cure your paraplegia. You move using your hands and arms and, where called for, the element of momentum. You can also scrawl signs on the rock to navigate by during your next attempt, in the quite likely event that you die. The threat of being crushed or trapped aside, the depths harbour some kind of ancient, ravenous evil. Going by the logo art, The Oesophagus Diver would have been an acceptable alternative title.

It’s out later this year. With any luck, I’ll have reached New Zealand by then and reinvented myself as a travelling hairdryer salesman who still dreams of being an astronaut. It wouldn’t be the first time. If you have a grotesque fascination with caves – which to be honest, I sort of do, as long as I can stand up in them – you might also enjoy free 20-minute spookelunker Crawl.