Encounters include special rooms, traps, monsters, allies, magical items and treasures.

Donnelly wrote that, after trying Dungeons & Dragons, "while I had enjoyed being a participant in a fantasy role-playing adventure, I wasn't ready to do the work needed to set one up... if only the concept could be translated into a format that would require no laborious set-up and no referee — a game that could be taken out of the box and played instantly, yet be different every time".

The Mystic Wood, another somewhat different randomly generated maze game designed by Donnelly, is a spiritual successor to Sorcerer's Cave set in a forest with each player having their own specific quest.

[4] Circa 1995, Donnelly created a version of The Sorcerer's Cave for Microsoft Windows computers;[5] as of 2020 it is distributed via his personal website.

[6] The ZX Spectrum computer game Goblin Mountain, by Martin Page (from Sinclair User #63, June 1987), also has clear similarities (especially the Friendly/Indifferent/Hostile reactions by strangers).