You always realize what your mistake was and how to try and fix it next time. The simple combat system means there’s no massive learning curve, and like Hollow Knight, there’s no cheap gimmick responsible for your demise. In some rooms, monsters, overeager in their pursuit of peasant flesh, walk into traps or fall down pits while you stand in the corner and quietly wait for them to finish destroying themselves.Įven in the rooms that make you fight for your life, you almost always have the tools needed to make it out alive. Slime creatures called Pilfers steal your gold if you aren’t fast enough (and make amusing sounds when you punt them into oblivion). UnderMine’s signature quirkiness shines through in dungeon design and helps keep things fresh too.
#Undermine game full#
The randomly generated rooms might be full of gold and health-restoring food, or the layout could have a legion of monsters and a maze of pressure plates that might as well scream D E A T H. UnderMine is also very fair, even when it’s brutal. The action element, while simple, just feels good. How UnderMine handles these things is what raises it above being a knock-off, though.
Each dungeon room is full of traps, from pressure plates to something very similar to Zelda’s blade trap foes, and it’s hard not to see them as imitations in some way. Some foes, such as bats, slimes, and giant centipedes with suspiciously glowing rear ends, are straight out of Zelda and numerous other RPGs. There’s a cave area, a dungeon area, and so on.
#Undermine game plus#
Your peasant has a canary, like all good miners, plus a standard attack, a ranged one, and a bomb attack. The ultimate goal is reaching the bottom-most area, gathering as much gold and other precious materials along the way.
You can say the same for UnderMine’s gameplay and dungeon design in general, but it’s proof that innovation and darn good gameplay don’t always go hand-in-hand.Ĭhances are, you’ve seen a good bit of UnderMine elsewhere. Then there are improvements for your pickaxe, your health, your bombs - it’s all pretty standard, though useful, stuff.
#Undermine game upgrade#
The hardy peasant(s) keep enough of it to spend on goods back at the base, and assuming you’ve bothered to free the various shopkeepers and smiths you come across, you can upgrade your peasant with a better chance at survival.Įnhancements, such as bag durability, are a must so you retain even more gold after death. You’ll lose all your special artifacts upon death, true, but not all your gold. The roguelike elements themselves also help with that. It takes a significant piece of the grind and annoyance out of restarting and makes sticking with UnderMine for long sessions easier. Each dungeon area is relatively contained, meaning you won’t be searching through dozens of rooms vainly trying to find an exit before you either die in-game or stop caring in real life. UnderMine’s approach to roguelike dungeon crawling is a more accessible one than many. It’s a reason for five distinct dungeon areas brought to life with charming pixel art, and while the overarching story isn’t bad by any means, the visual identity and strange world unfolding around you stand out much more strongly than the actual story.Īnother of UnderMine’s stand-out features is the dungeon design itself. UnderMine has a wider story you’ll gradually dig out the further you go, and the earthquakes are just the beginning. You’ll find all manner of lovely weird folk underground, from talking mushrooms desperate to give their sporelings new life to shopkeepers trapped behind locked doors who, with nothing else to do, set up shop anyway.
There’s a pervasive quirkiness in UnderMine that goes well beyond the comically callous wizard. As with other roguelikes, you’ll lose a big chunk of your money and all the artifacts uncovered on the way, but your particular peasant is dead too.Īnother one hops down into the fray, a new name and fresh face in a never-ending parade of peasants marching to their certain dooms that the wizard can’t even be bothered to notice. When you die - and you will die, make no mistake about that - that’s it. So off you go, ill-equipped for the task and with no real clue what to do. He’d do it, but… well, y’know: he’s important, and you’re a peasant. He summons you to his wizardly abode once the game begins and tasks you with venturing into the mine (and beyond) to solve the mysteries behind the strange earthquakes occurring recently. That’s what the resident all-powerful wizard thinks anyway. It means you do what others tell you to do and don’t ask questions. UnderMine Review: Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Back to the Mines We Go UnderMine doesn't break new ground, and with the level of polish and strong design here, it doesn't really need to.
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