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
- 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