M.I.N.E - Massive Indifferent Neverending Exploitation by Pentaworks
About
Explore the deep, unending, underground. You might even find... Spice....
Tought that will take effort and many attempts.
Manage your mining company. Send your workers down into the hell that is the mineshaft.
How to play
You get a starting inventory of items (tools, transportation options) and a bit of money. Dig shafts, place ladders, earn money, get rich.
Buying & Selling
1. Click the store to buy items
2. Click the respective depository to sell the collected minereals.
Placing tools
1. Select "Mining tool" category
2. Select "Pickage".
3. click on available digging site
Placing transportation
1. Select "Horizontal transportation" category
2. Place it on any available site.
Important: When placing horizontal transporation items, the direction is VERY important.
Removing and Upgradde - with two Ds, for it's double dose of pimp
1. Remove the clicked tool or transportation item.
2. Upgrade the item - upgrade must be in inventory beforehand (greed => disabled)
Know issues
- We developed on PC - but mobile should be supported. iOS less so than android for some reaason.
Edit
- Improved description
| GitHub | https://github.com/Pentaworks-Group/ldjam57 |
| Itch.io - JAM Version | https://pentaworks.itch.io/mine-ldjam-57 |
| GitHut-Release - JAM Version | https://github.com/Pentaworks-Group/ldjam57/releases/tag/ldjam-57 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/m-i-n-e-massive-indifferent-neverending-exploitation |
Ratings
| Overall | 823th | 2.804⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 831th | 2.482⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 697th | 2.821⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 272th | 3.946⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 730th | 2.821⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 323th | 3.482⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 347th | 3.037⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 732th | 3⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 26🗳️ | 37🗨️ |
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.
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).
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).

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.

Is this... the end?
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.
Great job.
@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: