Drill Deep
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You expected to meet your end in the noose when Her Majesty commuted your death sentence to something much worse. Given your distinguished expertise in excavation, you are hereby assigned to oversee operations at a new imperial mining facility.
A coalpunk Lovecraftian idler wrapped in pixelart grime and coal dust. Horror doesn't chase you: you're walking towards it, one block at a time, and you won't notice until you're already lost. Your task is simple: dig.
You will manage the dig and expand the surface base. You will optimize, automate, and upgrade. The empire expects results: coal, ore, or whatever else the earth is hiding down there.
The task seems familiar: dig a block, gather a resource, build something and dig deeper. The surface camp grows, smokestacks rise, progress charts tick upward. It’s almost cozy out there. Definitely better than the gallows
But the earth hides all sorts of things.
As you descend, the rock gets older and your finds get weirder. At first it's curious: unusual formations, oddly-shaped fossils, inscriptions in unknown language. Your workers don't comment on them. Neither do you, at first.
And then you stop sleeping well. The Mine is calling you.
Key Features:
- Idle-clicker with real depth - a simple loop that gradually unfolds into a layered upgrade and building system with meaningful choices
- Surface base building - construct and expand your industrial camp to unearth what lies below
- Buried lore - every unearthed object and broken block hints at a world that existed long before humanity came to existence. Some of it bites back.
- Incremental dread - horror that scales with progression. The deeper you dig, the more reality strains at the seams
- Horror for non-horror players - no jump scares, no punishment for exploring. The dread just waits for you to reach the bottom
- Roguelite mode - high replayability with procedural generation for those who want to return to the dark
Comments
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pretty cool
really cool game! maybe put story mode above just play, because everyone it would seem, myself included, chose "play" first as it was the first option. also in the normal version hearts don't give red gems, and they occasionally cannot be broken like the eye/flesh blocks. also maybe include another power upgrade as the red blocks can't be broken in the normal version
huh, the story mdoe is actually a tuora of sorts I guess?
I totally played stuff in the wrong order.
Like any sane person sine ce it is listed first I jsut chose play on the main menu and been grinding it out there.
thigns to improve there:
1. in general for a very long time (pun intended) ou often fell like you have too little time eahc run. Like I would do tons of runs one oafter another that eahc brought only 100-150 coal. while one ugprade already needed 300+ coal.
at some point, basically after you buy the +1sec/ressource thing, it becomes the opposite.
yu easily clear the whole map within a minute or 2.and jsut sit there and wait for another 2-4 minutes till times runs out.so you haveway too much time then stuff to do.
so yeah, you first do tens or hudnreds of way too shrot, too little ressource yieldings runs.and then suddenly runs give you max ressoruces each tiem cause you dig up everything except the unbreakable red blocks. and then gotta wait for time to be over.
so time pacing there jsut feels off in a way. or I bought stuff in worng order but ressources always felt so sparce....
2. yep, not being able to quit early... BIG BIG PITA!
woudl make it WAY more enjoyable
3.not being able to dig the red blocks. like, I know this is basiclaly the end of current vdevelopment.but it would kind of feel more "fulfilling" if you could dig it all up, icluding some "core" block at the bottom that triggers some shrotcut and basically gives you the end gamecredits.jsut more so it doesnt feel like half way throguh the story, even thoguh it currently is sitlk in development.a place holder ending implemented, if you want
4. immortal blocks.jsut annoying, not sure if you get the ressoruces from them.but them beign immortal, especially the eye ones is sjut annyoing.
5. once a drill spawned on the left most column, the border one thatis obiously containing unbreakable blocks. was kind of pointless and wasted a bot in that round.
Now I'll go into story mode which i likely should have doen from the beginning.but yeah, play was written above sttory mdoe so i assumed this was the right place to start.not that story mode is kind of the tutorial and you do the play afterwards.gotta choose better naming there.
oh yeah almost forgot:
6. the chests.it's nice that you can buy an upgrade for it to auto smash the chest. but the very popup itself gets annoying too, as you are y´jsut in the right flow of mining blocks and have tointerrupt each time to basically click away a popup.jsut give an upgrade that auto accepts those too or doesnt show them anymore and jsut gives a "+3 to mining damage" hint in the corner or such.
sad that zeppelinsdont exist in the actual play mode. they looking good.
interesting take on mining. needs some polish. like a way to stop a run when you still have time left. and it get’s a bit odd when the automatons are placed outside the playing area where you can’t even grab them.
I'm not sure I experienced the game as intended as I started the story mode, then basically thought "ok, this is a tutorial and probably adds some flavor texts". After the story mode was finished I played the regular game, but at that point I have seen most upgrades and depths. So basically, as far as I can tell the story mode doesn't add much to the player experience (in terms of story / lore / drama), but it does spoil the game quite a lot due to very quick progression.
I guess a warning to not start with that mode would be good for new players.
Some gameplay, a little critique ;)
I couldn't do the "upgrade" quest since I already got the upgrade before getting the quest (since the coal quest doesn't count any coal you got before getting the quest)
Also the automaton on the far left tile seems trapped and unrepairable
explosions occasionally make blocks immortal. when it happens to the eye corruption block it can be... frustrating. adding an end run button when you cant go any further but have 100-200 seconds on the clock would be nice.
getting to the point where i cant mine anymore and i just have to wait out the clock. a way to end current run would be awesome. also a way to toggle fire/explosive mining after purchace would be awesome as well maybe for the automated miners too
I like this, but it has some issues:
- Some eye blocks can't be attacked, also had it happen with a heart a couple times.
- Energy per resource upgrade is too OP, was forced to wait out the time (several minutes). Nerf it or at least make a "return early" option.
- Got notifications of a zeppelin? Only ever saw one on upgrade screen, can't interact with it. (Just noticed a red gem spawns when it happens?)
ran into an issue where an eye block on the left edge of the map refused to be destroyed.
and it happened again, but not on the edge... Also please add a end day button... after the +1 second per resource I end up with 200+ when I'm at the end of what I can mine.