Caves of Steel is a touch-operated version of a scrambler-style game, in which the player must guide a spacecraft through a horizontal scrolling maze of deadly blocks to reach the end of each level. Some game levels require skill, others also involve puzzle-solving. Each level can be completed, even if a few may initially seem impossible.

The game was written as an exercise to prove that Expo React Native, Skia, and Reanimated can be used to implement fast arcade games on mobile devices.