Long before I decided to become a reviewer, I used to jot down brief thoughts on the games I was playing in order to capture my feelings at the moment of completion for personal archival purposes. Since then, I’ve of course evolved my craft into full-fledged write-ups, but I do think there is enough merit to some of these earlier critiques to warrant their publication, especially for titles I do not intend on replaying (in the near future at least). I’ve thrown in some updates, but this is one of them.


STORY
-Premise is basic - father died and left behind a mine to his son Rusty, which you have to go through to discover what secrets he was creating/hiding. Nothing else narrative-heavy happens that I can recall. The ending does try to be semi-emotional, but fails because of the lack of real development between Rusty and the townsfolk.

-Would've liked to have seen the lore of the game expanded upon. It's cool seeing all these creatures, but you don't get to know much about them outside of brief mentions from the townsfolk (i.e. Shiners being partially responsible for the creation of steambots).

-Some satirical writing, but surprisingly light on spoofing western tropes despite the homages (the tagline is literally called "A Fistful of Dirt").


GRAPHICS
-Graphics are great, looking akin to those flash animations you’d seen on Newgrounds with bold outlines combined with steampunk and weird western aesthetics. Some really beautifully colored interiors, particularly as you get deeper into the Earth.


SOUND
-No voice acting, just hit-or-miss vocalized noises like in Skyward Sword (the fat salesman's tone, in particular, being REALLY annoying).

-All the items sound good. Explosions, whether you're using dynamite or hitting a TNT barrel or dodging a suicidal robot, have the same stock noise though regardless of quantity. Same with enemies dying.


GAMEPLAY
-Game initially feels like a lovechild between Minecraft and the Snowmuncher minigame from Neopets, albeit with a surprising amount of platforming and RPG mechanics. Unfortunately, the game is too short to really capitalize on either of those elements.

-Some Metroidvania aspects since you can discover secret areas and have to revisit previous levels. However, regarding the latter, that part only happens at the end and there's a quest arrow to help you, which I liked but others probably won't.

-At $10.00 it gives you about 4-5 hours of gameplay, so it just barely passes my rule for a buy. However, be warned that the pacing is all over the place - the first couple of hours feel like forever, while the ending is rushed.

-Then again, that does make sense given that the more upgrades you have, the faster you dig. However, all the upgrade options end up being pointless since you don't need the lion’s share of them to advance further. You may ask "what about strategy?" And I suppose there is some of that, but really you'll be fine so long as you adopt an “all-around” strategy in terms of getting a decent amount of armor, decent amount of water tanks, and so forth.

-.Also upgrades for your pickaxe are as worthless as the melee upgrades in the first Deus Ex since the vast majority of players will just utilize the faster drill for navigating. The only thing the pickaxe ends-up being good for in the long-run is getting through crates (of which there are very few) and hitting one of the bosses (which you can either way do, albeit longer, with the drill).

-I like how the underworld stays the same as when you leave it. There's a bit of a Minecraft element to it in that regard. Transitions are extremely smooth from place-to-place.

-One thing I was mixed on were the respawning enemies and minerals: repeat enemies were annoying to deal with while the minerals made the game significantly easier since you could theoretically just exit and reenter a place to farm the same minerals ad nauseam.

-Inventory management makes no sense- I could never tell if I was close to being full since there's no indication as far as I could tell. Also, the game goes out of its way to separate the minerals, which, while a cool touch, ultimately remains pointless since I doubt anyone will go out of their way to discard and replace minerals they find.

-Didn't like that you could only lay one teleporter to return to the surface. Should've been able to create several throughout the world as it’s a pain to backtrack, especially towards the endgame.

-Cannot use ladders or lanterns inside the levels. Can use dynamite though. Dying inside them luckily restarts from within so you don't have to go back to them from the surface.

-Experience (i.e., money) expands the town with new shops, but is again underutilized.

-All the upgrades are cool. I liked how water was the source for most of them.

-You get something called a "mineral detector," but I honestly have no idea what it did, if anything.


VERDICT
-Despite my negatives, I cannot deny that Steamworld Dig is addicting. I loved excavating further and further into the underground to discover new areas and secrets (especially since it wasn't procedurally-generated). It feels a bit grindy at first until you get the drill (about 1-2 hours in), but outside of that the game does a good job making you feel like you're progressing forward.

SteamWorld tem uma gameplay que apesar de não ser exatamente inovadora (afinal Dig Dug de NES já existe) traz alguns elementos novos pra esse tipo de jogo de exploração, como mecânica de vendas de minérios e power-ups que fazem parecer um metroidvania mas só parecer mesmo. O problema é que esses elementos ficaram ofuscados por alguns outros momentos que eu tive.
O loop de minerar, vender e minerar denovo acaba ficando chato e virando algo secundário do jogo, quando a parte mais legal é procurar pelo próximo power-up do mapa mais fundo na mina.
A parte que eu mais curti foram os efeitos sonoros, especialmente os do Rusty, que tu controla, os sons dele andando com o som pesado de metal das botas foram muito bem feitos.

One of those games that I've been meaning to get round to for years. The game being 89p on the Switch eshop certainly convinced me to go for it.

A really nice little time waster this one. Just keep digging for jewels and to see where you end up. The upgrades can't come soon enough, as getting that double jump and negating fall damage were a god send, and made the game as fun as it was.

It took me 5 hours to complete. That's 5 hours of digging, jumping and blowing shit up, in a really fun and fairly laid back manner. Some of the baddies can be a pain in the arse, and all the laser cannons near the bottom were a ball ache, but otherwise, it was just a lot of fun digging.

I'm probably gonna have to pick up the sequel now, as I had a very good time with this. A perfect length, too. It being inexpensive, and the great gameplay make this an excellent value game, that I honestly wish I'd played sooner. But I've played it now and I'm pretty thrilled how far that 89p got me.

Although vastly superseded by its sequel, the first Steamworld Dig is still by all means a great game, worth revisiting today if you want to see the roots of Steamworld Dig, and the context to the 2nd game's story.

SD opens up in a small, cozy setting in a backwater western town called Tumbleton, and while the writing doesn't play a massive role in the grand scheme of things, I still enjoyed the setting a lot and whatever small ragtag group of characters were present, both in design and personality. It gave the shopekeeper npcs something to be remembered by.

The whole steampunk aesthetic coupled with the decadent approach to character/environment design is very charming as well as inviting, and along with the modest but atmospheric soundtrack, I couldn't help but be engaged with this game on that level despite its flaws.

The gameplay itself feels satisfying and the overall loop is addicting, even though the loop is never expanded upon, which is one of my few criticisms of this title.

More on that, SD1 is certainly not perfect; Fighting enemies is more times than not a fruitless endeavor, combat in general is frustrating and somewhat feels like an afterthought. In fact, it's probably better to ignore the enemies if you can.

The randomly generated digging space is a cool idea but can sometimes lead to weird spikes in difficulty or awkward spaces that you have to navigate through. Once, one of the wall laser enemies spawned inside of the invincible eye laser enemy...a bit strange but I guess it can happen.

With how this game is designed, I kept wondering as I was playing if it'd be possible to hardlock yourself, considering the finite resources and how said resources are necessary to progress through the game, as well as the fact that blocks that you destroy do not regenerate (with a small "but" later in the game).

There are two types of upgrades in SD1, the type you unlock by completing hand-crafted dungeons you find by digging (which are actually pretty good for the most part), and the type that you purchase with resources you find underground.

The upgrades that you can buy with the resources you collect are kind of dull, and don't offer anything exciting, it's just "oh here's an upgrade so you can dig 1 block faster", it's the lazy way to do upgrades and felt exhausted with these by the 2/3rd of the game.

To add to my criticisms, I do think the addition of boss fights would've regulated out at least some of the tedium that comes across with progression in SD1.

A lot of these problems are fixed in the sequel, SD2, which might render this entry obsolete for many people.
But I don't know, I can't help but feel enamoured by this sweet little indie game with a charming vision.
I played it first on the 3DS and didn't get very far, but thought the art direction was cool, and I'm glad I revisited it on the Switch.

It was a very fun (and sometimes frustrating) 8 hours I managed to get out of it, so if you have a weekend to spare and haven't played the 2nd game, I definitely recommend giving this a go. Especially if you're a fan of either Spelunky, Dig Dug, or love Metroidvanias.

this is like one of those flash games where you go underground, do some mining until you can't anymore, and then return to the surface and buy all the upgrades you can, but with the addition of some incredibly light "metroidvania" elements (generous definition). it's better than those, for sure, but it still feels kinda hollow and sorely lacking in intentionality for the majority of the game. there's unique areas with more level design built in with rewards of lots more money or a new power-up, but even those segments aren't all that great. story is nothing, characters are nothing, and most shop purchases are just numerical upgrades as opposed to having cool horizontal progression with optional abilities to bolster the ones along the main path. it's fine.

It’s a great time to get into Steamworld games, what with them having just concluded a deep sale on Steam and Heist 2 getting released soon. Dig 1 starts strongly and there is a lot to like about it. But there is one thing that ruined the experience for me as a completionist.

The game is literally about digging your way through vertically. You collect valuables to sell for money and you find orbs that can be used to buy items/upgrades along with the money you’ve accumulated. There are different things to keep in mind that force you to come back to town on a frequent basis. This slowly gets better with the power ups you find and the items/upgrades you buy. You feel pretty powerful near the end. There are 3 big caves that also contain smaller caves. The game has some random generated elements but not completely. When you enter a world for the first time, the lay-out is set in stone along with the valuables, orbs, enemies and the order you encounter the less important caves. So it can feel fresh with each new save.

The gameplay is addictive. You can play it in short sessions but I ended up spending long hours because I was getting so invested in the gameplay loop of exploring, finding stuff and getting upgrades frequently. The world created looks appealing in terms of style. The controls are fine for the most part. It’s of a good length when you take your time. The game is very polished, I haven’t encountered any bugs.

My biggest problem are the achievements ‘Master Prospector` and ‘A Fistful of Dirt’ to a lesser extend. The latter is a pure grind where you can think of completing the game around 3 times to dig 15000 tiles. You won’t ever get this naturally the first time, you’ll need a grind session but at least it’s only a time waster. The former is a time waster AND very frustrating. The game wants you to get over 20000 gold, 150 orbs, not die and do it within 2.5 hours in one save. The biggest issue is the requirement of 150 orbs. They’re not as plentiful as valuables, they’re random and there is no specific detector for them or a percentage to show you that you found all of them in areas. I can get all the other requirements except for this one because of the limited time you have. I’ve completed the game in 8 hours the first time, I’ve spent over 10 hours trying to get this achievement (with at least 2 new saves). My friend helped me get the last achievement to stop the stress. The 3 other requirements were challenging enough. If they wanted 4 requirements, then they should have done everything about the orbs better. RNG can really get in the way on rare occasions, you can die in unexpected and cruel ways. And lastly, I mentioned how the controls are fine for the most part. The reason I mention this is because you have to hold a direction when you’re digging (d-pad with the dig button). If you accidentally let go of the d-pad, then you dig in front of you. This causes you to unintentionally dig the wrong tiles. It happened too often with me.

Despite this, I’m still willing to give an overall positive with the promise that the next games will be better about this. I know that Dig 2 and Heist will also have a challenge to get 4 requirements in one save, but they appear to be more reasonable based on my research. The rest of the game is mostly good. It’s even impressive for a first game in the franchise. You’ll have a great time if you don’t care about getting 100% with the achievements or you’re very skilled/lucky with your save. I’m not sure if the game is worth the stress if you’re a completionist.

Steamworld Dig is a hybrid game in a few ways. Steamworld itself is a steampunk western, but everyone is robots. The digging meanwhile is the classic dig for gems, head up to the surface to upgrade your gear, and then return to mine deeper loop. Only, there's also a fair bit of combat. And platforming. Oh, and it's kind of a metroidvania.

I don't think it all gels, but there's no denying how compelling this world and these characters are, nor how satisfying and tactile the mining is. And that core loop of mine - > upgrade -> explore and then mine some more is very compelling.

I find controls a bit too clunky for either the platforming or action, which frustrates from time to time and takes this down a few notches. But all of the ideas thrown in here are good, just not integrated in a way that always works. Thankfully, the sequel addressed all these issues and then some. Still, this is a fun one and it's neat to see how the sequel carries on the story started here.

Legal. As duas ou três horas iniciais me deixaram maluco. O grosso da ação me deixou obcecado e eu jogava sem objetividade nenhuma, só pelo gosto de pegar a picaretinha e cavocar. Quando a novidade passou, eu perdi a vontade de continuar. Sei que isso é um problema meu e diz pouco ou nada sobre o jogo, mas não vou ter o empenho pra gastar outras cinco horas num jogo que traz pouca recompensa. A história é um fiapo de história, a música não ajuda muito, os personagens não têm lá muito destaque. De resto, eu tenho a impressão de que Hollow Knight tirou algumas ideias daqui.