Interesting to see that the SteamWorld Franchise came from such humble beginnings. The aesthetic is charming and digging your own personal maze underground are stand outs. I found moving through the dirt, avoiding obstacles and finding new upgrades to be very compelling. Death was maybe a little too forgiving at times but it all services a really strong progression system.

Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of its ending. It almost undermines the simple nature of the title with an awkward final reveal and ending cutscene. I don't think it properly set up what it was going for.

Despite that this is a tightly made and short journey into the depths of an old west mining town run by robots. I think that fun idea alone is worth a playthrough.

I just replayed this wonderful game again, because I want to play with the sequel. What can I say? This is my third time playing it, and I still find it utterly addicting.

The gameplay loop is very simple: Gear up, mine resources, come back and repeat. It is such a charming game, with an amazing atmosphere and smooth animations.

If you want to play something casual, yet challenging, do not miss this one out!

Mein erstes Spiel aus dem "Steamworld" Universum. Hab nach etwas kurzem und preiswertem für die Switch gesucht.
Das Spielprinzip ist ziemlich simpel: graben, Ressourchen sammeln, Gegner bekämpfen, Upgrades freischalten oder in der Oberwelt kaufen, um tiefer und effizienter graben zu können.
Mir gefiel der Grafikstil und auch der gameplay loop sehr gut. Das Spiel ist mit seinen 3-5 Stunden (je nachdem, wie gründlich man die Ebenen erkundet) auch nicht allzu lang und lädt durch seine Statistik am Ende dazu ein, mehrere Durchläufe zu spielen. Die Progression funktionierte erstaunlich gut, erinnert in gewissen Zügen an ein Metroidvania oder rogue-lite.
Weniger gefiel mir das Kampfsystem, da es nur aus Schlagen mit der Spitzhacke bestand und sonst nicht viel zu bieten hatte. Auch wurden einige Funktionen wie der Teleporter gar nicht erklärt, was anfangs zu Verwirrung und Frust führte, weil man dafür auch wertvolles Geld, was man erarbeitet hatte, ausgeben musste. Die Gegnervielfalt lies leider auch zu wünschen übrig und die letzte Eben bestand fast ausschließlich aus Bomben oder explosiven Gegner. Die Story oder ein world building war auch kaum vorhanden, kann aber damit entschuldigt werden, dass es erst das zweite Spiel ist, welches das Studio entwickelt hat. Vielleicht haben sie die Punkte im Nachfolger verbessert.

Alles in allem ein solides Spiel, vor allem wenn man den Preis von 2€ im eshop bedenkt. Das Spiel hat es aufjedenfall geschafft, dass ich mir auch die anderen Ableger der Reihe anschauen werde.

Sights & Sounds
- The characters and environments are crafted in a cartoonish style that's used effectively
- The Western veneer added some nice flavor. For a mining game about robots, it wasn't necessary, but I appreciated it
- The music follows the western visuals; lots of old-timey sounding western songs full of harmonized whistling, ricochet sounds, and whip cracks

Story & Vibes
- The game is very light on story, but it adds to the mystery of the gigantic caves you'll be tunneling through. All you really get told at the beginning is that your uncle has died and left you the deed to his mining operation
- This gives the game an opportunity to try the "show, don't tell" approach to backstory. Unfortunately, I feel like a few more breadcrumbs could have been shown to the player. I still don't really know what's going on
- This give the game very mysterious vibes, but I haven't had a whole lot of success digging into that mystery

Playability & Replayability
- Played this game on the Steam Deck, and the default controls were pretty good. They felt tight and responsive
- As you might expect, the central gameplay mechanic is digging through a series of gigantic mines to find ability-granting upgrades that help you go deeper into the mines as well as resources that can be used to buy things like extra health, a larger water reservoir for your tools, more storage capacity, equipment enhancements, and more
- Dying has very little impact on the game. You just restart in town and try to recover your findings from the bag that marks the location of your death
- Compared to other so-called "metroidvanias", neither the combat nor the platforming are very hard
- I've beaten the final boss, but I might revisit in an attempt to find some other secrets and pick up a few more achievements

Overall Impressions & Performance
- The game ran perfectly on the Steam Deck
- I tend to enjoy games like this where the central story line is fairly easy to finish (I did it in less than 5 hours), but there's plenty of other secrets and hidden areas to dig into. This helps exploration feel rewarding and worthwhile

Final Verdict
- 8.5/10 For a tenner, this game is absolutely worth the money for fans of platformers with a heavy emphasis on exploration

Like a mix of hollow knight and Minecraft. Didn’t fully get the appeal at start but once I unlocked some of the power upgrades it clicked. Very good for picking up and playing a few minutes here and there. The world building is unassuming but what is there is great with its tone and progression. I loved the freedom of movement at the end when you have all the upgrades. My only real gripe with it is I couldn’t unlock everything from the shop at the end because I bought one too many of the teleporters.

The main loop of SteamWorld Dig is very fun. Explore, mine, return and sell. Manage your inventory to not waste ores. Manage your health or you will die very quickly (before you get later upgrades at least). Predetermined caves to explore are placed around the randomly-generated world to change up the loop a little bit and avoid the game getting stale.

I mostly enjoyed the game, but there are a few things that hold it back for me. First off, the combat is extremely limited and not very fun to engage in. You have only a few tools to deal with enemies and enemy variety is almost non-existent. You're better off simply ignoring enemies unless combat is absolutely necessary.

I also found the movement very awkward to start with. Rusty slides around a lot and the walljump took some time to learn to use effectively. The cramped environment doesn't really help either. I got into the groove of it by the end of the game, but I wouldn't call SteamWorld Dig's movement good.

I'm pretty confident that SteamWorld Dig is one of the first indie games I ever played. If my memory is correct, the first was Cave Story, and I'm pretty sure that SteamWorld Dig is within the first ones I got on my 3ds. Point being, I wanted to return to the game for a little bit of a nostalgia trip.

Luckily, I think this holds up really well! It sits at the intersection of Dig Dug, Mr. Driller, Terraria, and a little bit of Metroid. I think most people would accept the first three influences, but there may be some debate on whether or not this qualifies as a search action game.

I really love the main gameplay loop of mining. The restrictions on your capabilities, namely how you cannot dig across a layer above you brings a lot of thought to each movement you make. As the game progresses, and unique obstacles are added, the game only becomes more dynamic. The various caves, while less interesting in my opinion, help punctuate the gameplay. The upgrades you collect across the game also do a good job at expanding your possibility space.

Ultimately Steamworld Dig does a great job at applying an arcade style gameplay loop into a short but featured campaign.