SteamWorld Dig

Rusty the robot has inherited a mine from his uncle. With a craving for adventure, he ventures into the mines with the aim of uncovering its secrets whilst digging up ore he finds along the way. The mines are created with procedural generation; the location of caves, minerals, hazards and monsters will be randomised on each play. I wouldn't imagine it would make much difference to the game-play, since you will be mainly digging down, searching for ore and avoiding enemies.

Rusty has a light source which illuminates his surroundings up to several squares away. Anything out of range is hidden unless it is in range of an existing torch. Rusty's light source has limited fuel and depletes over time, with the range dwindling accordingly. Once the meter has completely drained, the player cannot even see into the blocks underneath Rusty’s feet until hitting it with a pickaxe. This means that continuing to dig without knowing what dangers while being unable to see what kind of block which is being dug is very risky. Previously explored areas are lit up, so you can always find your way back out.

As standard, Rusty has a pickaxe which can be upgraded in strength, with separate upgrades to increase damage to blocks, and enemies. At first, I thought you had to dig careful paths so you could back-track without purchasing and placing ladders. Rusty can actually wall-jump, so scaling vertical drops is not a problem. You can do criss-cross style jumps or just jump up the same surface. He can only jump one block in height though, so the initial jump can't be too ambitious. Falling will cause damage, but this can be negated by sliding on vertical walls, even momentarily. Eventually, an upgrade is found to prevent fall damage.

Rusty can only dig when standing, so you cannot smash blocks mid-air. There is only one type of block that regenerates after a few seconds, any other blocks you destroy will be gone forever. Sometimes you do need to plan in order to reach as much ore as possible and tunnel out a convenient route back to the surface. The underground isn't completely solid; there are some gaps/rooms which are great to take advantage of to minimise the time spent digging.

Above ground is a town called Tumbleton. This acts as a base to converse with a few characters, refuel your light source, sell your ore, and purchase supplies and upgrades. Selling ore gives you money and increases the town's level. At each level, new items appear in the shops, and new stores will arrive in town.

Ore can be spotted amongst blocks due to its colourful properties. When collected, it is placed in Rusty’s limited pouch space. Depending on the type of ore, another instance either stacks into an existing slot, or takes up a new one; the rarer items tend to take a space per instance. Any piece which cannot be carried is left where it is, and will not disappear unless crushed.

Some upgrades require money and rare orbs in order to purchase. These orbs are found trapped in blocks just like ore. Once you crack them, the block explodes and the orbs float around, occasionally making them tricky to collect.

If you do want to return to the surface, you don't always have to back-track. You may find a teleporter down in the mines, or can even deploy one yourself, but these cost precious orbs. There are transport tubes which Rusty can use in order to get back up to the surface. These often occur at the start of any region of the mines.

If you lose health in the mine, you respawn at the town with half your cash taken as a penalty. Any ore you were carrying remains at the place of death for you to go back to retrieve it. This means you are encouraged to return to the surface in order to cash in your ore and invest in the upgrades. It's also advised to pay a small fee to restore your health. Health pick-ups are found in the mines from defeating enemies, but Rusty is weak compared to most of them. It's not advised you actively attack the enemies, especially when they are not guaranteed to drop health pick-ups; they may drop light fuel or water.

The common monsters follow simple patrol routines, moving back and forth. Other enemies may lie dormant until startled then become a threat, throwing dynamite. Most enemies have some sort of weakness, like being weak to fall damage, or being killed in one hit if caught in their dormant state.

There are some caves which are connected to the mines and some are mandatory in order to progress. These are essentially separate levels which aren't procedurally generated and are designed for platforming. Death in a cave level does not carry the usual death penalty, but simply resets the cave. The reward is a technology cache which make Rusty even more capable at mining or platforming. Additional tools include the Steam Drill and Steam Punch. These can destroy the stronger blocks which the pickaxe can't damage, and they destroy weaker blocks faster. However, these deplete Rusty's steam which has to be refilled in water sources.

There are some hazardous blocks that cannot be destroyed and will fall if you destroy the ground they rest on. Falling blocks will damage anything underneath them so these can be used to eradicate enemies, but they will also damage other blocks and destroy ore. There are other hazards such as falling acid, acid pools, lasers, and TNT barrels. TNT barrels will explode if something remains in close proximity for a few seconds, or after a few seconds of a direct hit.

There is an auto-map feature which sits in the top right corner of the screen. It presents the blocks which make up the mines and caves in just two colours: grey for the empty space which Rusty moves about in, and black for blocks. If you have the upgrade, ore is marked with magenta. Cave entrances and teleporters are shown too. When Rusty is close to a vital location, red markers are drawn on the map.

The game takes around 5 hours to complete and once I had done so, I felt I had done more than enough mining. Mining game-play is rather tedious, but you are mainly motivated to see where the game is going. In the end, there really isn't much to it though. All the mechanics of the game are fine, but it just isn't interesting or rewarding enough to be great.

a fun little game that borrows a lot of its concept from Motherload, a very popular early 00's flash game. I actually looked up if they were by the same company due to how similar the two are. Basically the objective is too keep digging futher and further, purchasing upgrades that you will make the minning easier. There are some spread out caves that work more like puzzles as well. Its a nice little time waster, boostered by funny dialogue and nice visuals.