Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → M.I.N.E - Massive Indifferent Neverending Exploitation
By xparker, lea251, math1369, Wolfhead, Rentem and pentaworks
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 823 | 2.80 | 30 | |
| Fun | 831 | 2.48 | 30 | |
| Innovation | 697 | 2.82 | 30 | |
| Theme | 272 | 3.94 | 30 | |
| Graphics | 730 | 2.82 | 30 | |
| Audio | 323 | 3.48 | 30 | |
| Humor | 347 | 3.03 | 29 | |
| Mood | 732 | 3.00 | 30 |
First of all – great concept! It totally reminded me of that meme: “99% of diggers stop right before hitting the jackpot.” That fits the theme perfectly. With some extra polish and more intuitive gameplay, this could really shine. Keep up the good work!
This game genre is perfect for this theme. Great potential! Unfortunately, it took me a while to understand how the game is supposed to be played. A little tutorial would be very helpful! And the UI was constantly popping up and slowing down gameplay. Especially when you want to relocate some mineshafts, the UI makes fluent gameplay almost impossible.
Very atmospheric, especially the music. Didn't quite figure out how it all worked, but I probably wasn't paying much attention.
Looks very interesting, really wanted to progress more, but had a lot of troubles dealing with UI and understanding how to play, even after reading the explanations. Maybe a video of gameplay would help?
i couldn't figure out how the bag items worked at all so for the life of me i couldn't figure out how to get anything or sell it. the concept is cool but kind of unplayable for me
I was kind of confused on how to play and I really wanted to like it because at a first glance it looked really nice but there wasn't much to do once I actually started playing. One thing I will say is that I like the music :)
@siilicac +1 to this. It looked fun, but it felt hard to play. The pickaxes felt very slow, and the drill extremely quick. I wasn't sure how to get my resources back up. Cool concept but maybe some more tutorial or guides!
There is a lot of potential here, I love the random events, got a few good chuckles out of me:) Unfortunately I wasn't really able to grasp the objective and controls of the game, so I couldn't make much progress I just kept bleeding money:D I do think that there is potential and you should continue working on this if you can:)
i wish there was a tutorial, took some time to figure out the mechanics
@ All Thanks for playing and your feedback.
@anton-florey True, when relocating, the popup is rather annoying. issue is, we tried to keep it also playable on mobile devices, making key combinations hard. Tough, while writing this reply, I thought of 2 alternative ways of handling the issue (1 being touch and hold, the other a "remove" tool).
@siilicac The "bag" is a left over idea to have miners carry bags on their back (as in Settlers 2 - if you know the game). We converted it to the cheap transportation version for simplicity's sake. Think of them like factorio belts (working in only one direction).
@odronin @jamesgames1000 so do we - it really pays to have a professional musician do the music :laughing:
@cmaks as mentioned above, think of them like factorio belts. transport from one tile to another, in one direction.
@kuboi Objective of the game is to dig, no more, no less. in regards to bleeding money: yes.. upkeep is expensive, depending on what you place. And thanks a lot for the kind words in regards to keep working on it.. we will, certainly for now.
@nonumbersgames @scoobysnacks Improvements to follow (post-jam of course).
For those a bit lost: I eventually figured it out, ladders, sacks, carts, etc. work like conveyor belts (indeed), and you need to move resources from your miner to the matching store on the right side of the map. Direction matters, so pick the right arrow!
Fun fact: sacks can’t be placed on top of mining holes. One way to solve this is to have the ladder go one tile above the hole (see screenshot).
Screenshot 2025-04-12 163735.png
Anyway, I had fun. Nice little game, the spice did not flow, but the music? Loved it Some suggestions for a post compo version: - Some tooltips on mouse over for the ores (or some other solution), it would be good to know what I'm mining. - Some visual indication that the ores are 'flowing' on the ladders/bags - I would LOVE a way to move sideways on the mines.
Screenshot 2025-04-12 163710.png Is this... the end?
Very fun news announcements! :smile: I also had some problems understanding the transportation mechanism and think there some general balancing missing. But still nice entry!
@leparlon Thanks you for the very deep going comment. Pretty much sums up the entire game logic.
The missing part would be, that you -can- mine sideways. but to do that, you have to stop the downward digger and place a new one, facing the desired direction.
Also thanks for the hints.
We are currently expanding and partially reworking the game (Post-Jam) to house minor improvements.
Animations will most likely not make the cut (for now?), but a few gameplay improvements for certain.
And no, there is no end to it :rofl: at least in regards to the mine depth. The background has a fixed height, sadly.
@oadt Thanks for playing - true, we are also not that happy with the balancing. tough it does somehow work.
Amazing game with cool graphics!.
Cool concept but a bit tricky. Player should unlock stuff over time (or by buying technologies) so that the player learn how to use the items. Great job.
Idea itself is cool - I like digging myself - but there are a lot of stuff that could be improved pretty easy. For example diggers that dig with speed of the light. I have no time building product delivery chain if in two hearts beets my workers already dug tunnel to the another dimension :D. I also think you guys need to prioritize features more. Upgrades and million different resources are fun but they are secondary. Also tutorial would be much easier to understand if you used a gifs and there is free open source app for it called ScreenToGif. Music and messages about changing prices pretty cool though!
Neat little idea, liked the music. Was a bit difficult to figure out how to get started and it would be nice to automatically close others windows
Congrats on the music and I appreciate the tutorial/guide you've placed here - I have to confess the mechanics stumped me a little.
@eugenik Thanks a lot for playing and commenting.
@alexis-brochec Unlocking stuff was planned and even partially implemented (the model at least contains a bit of code for it)... But as per usual, time constraints.
@dancingimp Yeah, balancing is a "bit" lacking :wink: Although I cannot wholly agree with the "feature-first" approach as I'd personally rather have a solid game loop and the add features on top. The minerals, for example, were a very simple thing to implement as the "map" is procedurally generated based on json configuration (min. depth).
@beardywombat Thanks. As mentioned before, music is done professionally. In regards to the windows, you are talking about the popup of the mineral depositories, correct?
@blushingcrow Thanks for your feedback :blush:
Decent entry, I really liked the music and sound effects. It could use some kind of in-game guide and a little more polished and intuitive UI. Good job! :D