Simple and elegant!  I like this take on dungeon crawling, although it feels like it could use just a little more going on - solid walls you can't mine through?  Teleporter to get back quickly?  I enjoyed it nonetheless!  Decided to keep playing (until the 40k mark) with a podcast on in the background for some nice, chill relaxing =).

Also, the Mining minigame worked much better when I figured out it was registering on key-up instead of key-down (which means, hold the key right away, then release in the bar, instead of trying to press in the bar, which always made me late ^_^), woulda perhaps felt more responsive (the movement too), if it were on key-down instead.

Got to 10,000 and figured I'd go on for a while since I was listening to a podcast.

I stopped after 20,000 because I got buyers remorese.  Maybe I'd feel differently if I got to later sections, but the most efficient method for earning money for me was to just buy load upgrades and lots of basic food.  I even wonder if upgrading stamina is that worth it ebyond a point, since you still need to refill it regardless.

The thing that takes longest is trudging back to the start, so the second pickaxe upgrade isn't much of a boon.  Actually, I found the level 2 pickaxe to be the most fun an easy to use.  Something about the power-pickaxe always felt like it was quicker and harder to land.  Could just be psycological, but that's how it felt.

Maybe if it upgraded the quality/ammount of ore you mined instead.  Then that would also incentivise load upgrades since you wouldn't want to squander a good load if it doesn't divide so evenly into the haul.

Also some movement speed upgrade would be sweet.

And maybe a compass.  I managed to keep myslef oriented by having a main tunnel with offshoots, but one time I got spun around and panicked a bit.  I dunno if it's better to keep that aspect of self-orientation since it made it more interesting, or let the player buy a compass so they don't get lost as easily.

All in all this is a great game to relax and chill out to.  I think it just needs some extra wrinkles and tweaks.  I would have played longer if that Pickaxe felt like it was worth the 10,000 sink.  The cost needs to really suit the item so it doesn't feel like a mistake/set-back.

(Oh, and this might be a me think, but I'm not a fan of queing to this extent.  At least not with this movement speed.  I'm perfer a hold down button to keep moving if anything.  It'd save my index finger RSI.)

Playthrough:

alright beat it, its very meditative.

is it just me or the further away from the entrance you are the more ore you collect?

for me the upgrades didn't feel worth it for the most part, imho they should have had a bigger bonus and smaller cost.

also it feels like the mining timing slider isn't completely accurate. Like only the first half of the notch seems like the real notch... very hard to describe what i mean.

would have been nice to keep playing the minigame after the first fail, or terminate it completely after a fail.

If I had a nickel for every mining game in this jam I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice. Well actually I guess not that weird but ya know.

There's something to be said for simple relaxing games,and this one kinda fits the bill. I say kinda because it feels a bit too grindy for me to find it relaxing. I also found it tedious rapidly press the move key, especially when I'm deep in the asteroid, I would really recommend adding the ability to hold down a move key.

The mining minigame is simple, but it works. Though I wish failing one key press locks you out of the rest.

The upgrades also didn't seem to impact my gameplay all that much, they felt a little too incremental.

I agree with the other comments about adding more variety in ore or maybe some hazards to shake up the gameplay. I guess it really depends on which way you wanna go with the game. Do you want it to be more chill or do you want the player to be thinking "oh god am I gonna make it back to entrance alive?"

For more positives, I like the visuals, the glowing ore really stands out. The blocks fit together really well, I never noticed a single seam in the geometry!

The audio was decent, music was nice, and I liked the little help screen in the main menu.

Overall, I think this was a well-done entry, great work!

This is a nice and simple game. It’s a pleasant change of pace to just dig walls for a while. I think you could lean into that. Let players sculpt shapes to their liking, sell them little boards to close up tunnels and markers to slap on walls to find their way. Have deeper areas or lower levels with a visual change, richer ore and tougher minigames… etc.

But it’s too much of a grind currently, and the upgrades I reached weren’t very dramatic. It would feel better if you were bringing back twice as much cash with an upgrade you could buy after bringing back a single full load of ore. But since you have to go further to find ore, it actually feels like your payout per minute is dropping… if you were trying to build a narrative around gold rush futility or something, that could be clever, but if you just want a casual “turn off your brain and have fun peacefully digging out walls and making numbers go up” game, definitely not.

The timing minigame also gets dull quickly. You’d need some other dimension to that if you wanted to make this game longer.

I also noticed the awkward delay on movement and realized you don’t actually move until you release the key, rather than when you press it down, which is very unusual.

This is a "gem" it is very well made!  The look is really consistent and pleasant.  It has a clear progression that you immediately feel like exploring.  The mining itself includes a nice mini-game that is fairly simple but provides a nice diversion from the exploration.  
I should also add that I was terrified because I know the theme includes cosmic horror and I felt like making 10000 credits might actually never happen and I would get stuck on an asteroid.

I really enjoyed it!

I could critique some of the obvious stuff, feedback, polish, guidance, speed, etc., but I think everyone else has already managed to do that very constructively, so I am not sure I have much to add for this one.

Great take, and good implementation of some novel themes and interactions for the jam!

Nice relaxing entry!

I think the movement was rather slow, which might make sense if you are some slow-moving rig with lots of gear and such, but then it would have been really nice to re-enforce that with sounds and camera effects while moving. Quite a few times, I overshot where I wanted to go even though the movement was slow, so there was something in the queuing up of movement that worked unexpectedly for me. Not sure exactly what. I also several times got confused about which block had the ore since they so often were in the periphery of the block.

The mining mini-game was also quite slow compared to normal speeds of such events. I even thought for a while, what if that first level up of the mining would speed up the minigame. That was the reason I got it. it also felt a bit unfair / unexpected that I didn’t get to try the remaining keypress challenges if I missed one. I think that’s usually how those work. But it could also just quit you out of it directly when failing too. If I could have increased the speed of the game somehow, perhaps as a risk/reward thing, perhaps through upgrade, it would have been nice.

There was a small bug that the mining prompt showed after you had mined a location.

With the mining, I think it could just as well have triggered when moving towards a block with ore instead of a separate mining button. I also wasted quite a lot of ore, I think because my inventory wasn’t completely full, but I guess too full to take any more ore. It would have been nice with a clear feedback there.

The main reason I didn’t want to continue though was the movement in combination with backtracking. Since you go ever deeper, it becomes a lot of presses to get back. If movement was snappier and if I could hold down to move forward or if there was a separate backtrack function (could even be an upgrade), that lets you watch as the character moves back. That’d be nice.

At one point I was a sliver of stamina away from death and I think that came from a combination of lack of feedback in the UI that I was running low. And that I would imagine that mining would be a big drain on stamina, but just moving back not so much.

Maybe I didn’t dig deep enough. But it would have been nice with some variation on rock. Taking more time / costing more stamina to cut through. Thus increasing the need for upgrading pickaxes that way. Also if there were different ores of different worth so that you could get a little thrill rush of discovering some gold.

Nice relaxing entry to start today’s voting with while sipping on a cup of tea.

Playthrough: https://youtu.be/sOg6BgZKh5M

Went through this and it's a pretty good entry! Honestly my only hard complaint is the responsiveness of the movement; turning is very slow, and only moving forward when the forward key is released is a bit of an odd choice.

Other than that, I would suggest you turn the stamina red once it's below a certain value so it jumps in the eye easier, this one is more on me but I died once pretty far into the game because I just didn't notice how low it was haha.

One small nitpick is that the opening scroll goes away by itself before there is time to finish reading it. Maybe attach a button prompt to it?

Either way, this was fun! The resource management actually feels very competent and balanced, and in the future more ways to improve than load and stamina could be implemented, if you choose to continue working on it.

A little bit more responsiveness from controlls and its golden! I often would have several 'forward' queued and then would turn to mineral only to see myself digging several tiles more before turning.

Simple, yet effective gathering crawler with nice implementation of upgrades. I enjoyed this submission!

You mentioned in another comment, that the crawler movement fits with the mining and I can second that. Maybe improve a bit on the controls, faster movement (only if not mining) and maybe move directly, when pressing a button and not, after you let it go. The graphics are fine and I had to think for a moment, how you implemnted the walls fitting together at all, very nicely done!

Just add some different ores and maybe have some poisenous zones or whatever and it could become something really nice.

Cool game for what it is. The graphics are clean, the mechanics are there. I which the movement, turning and actual breaking through the non-ore rock would be a bit quicker. I know there was limited time but some fleshing out - more ore types, maybe some other mechanics that puts you in danger etc could take it to the next level.

I took a break and relaxed.

What's there is well executed, I can't say I'm utterly fan of the gameplay loop yet as it would get repetitive you've basically paid your debt already so it's fine.

If not enemies I think the game would benefit from some second pressure than only stamina. I think this game in particular would also benefit from keeping advancing when you maintain the up key pressed since you might spend some time getting back through a long straight line but that's really no big deal.

Thanks for sharing!

Really nice game! I am a sucker for mining games so I really hoped this would be fun to play and it was. I played until I got the exoskeleton which took me a while...

The art is very clean and looks great. It is satisfying in a way that there is not clutter all over.

The mining mini game works fine, but don't use the release time of the buttons to register a press. Maybe entering the mining game could be handeled the same way as normal block mined i.e just move into it.

The queue up of inputs is a bit of. Having the ability to hold a directional button would make a great improvement. I must have pressed W a couple thousands of times on my playthrough.

Upgrades - The upgrades were ok, but it takes a bit to long to get them and they don't contribute that much. I would like an option to  upgrade movement speed. Maybe have a marker or something you can buy that you can place in the level to mark your path. Fun thing would also be if the light goes out if you run out of fuel and it get super dark (and cold).

I think not having a compass or sense of direction is a positive thing for this game, it kinda makes it an important and additional objective to keep track on. And I think that for this game its the way to go.

I really like this game. The main mechanic is well implemented.

A few thoughts:

• Just dying because you run out of stamina... Would have been nice if that had turned red or something. But now I know!
• A map would have been great!
• When performing the timing sequence, I think maybe make it 5 ore for perfect, and 1 extra ore for each of the timing directions. Rather than all-or-nothing. Obviously needs a rebalance elsewhere, but you get the idea.
• A way to ramp up the ore mined (eg "better" axe). I know you get a faster pickaxe, but it would have been great to get more resources.

I say all this stuff like you had weeks to do it... Which you didn't! I spent ages just smashing around, so definitely a good game. A bit of polish to this after the ratings have finished and I'm coming back for more mining !!!

Really well done.

Deep down in many of us, there a still an ancestral yearning to be in the mines, and is true of me it seems.

This is the definition of simple premise, well executed. It's super easy to pick up and understand right away, the goals are clear and it's a nice fun loop with neat presentation. It's a great 'switch my brain off' kind of game where I don't have to think too hard. I made it to the 80k checkpoint .

I would have loved if I could have continously moved by holding the 'W' key because once the tunnels get quite long it can become a little much to smash the key repeatedly; however I do understand this may have been a design decision to incentivise lots of smaller tunnels rather than a few long ones? If that's the case I would prefer the option to have it in keydown rather than keyup (even if that's an ingame setting). But that's literally the only thing.

I don't know how this will rate amongst the 'die-hard' dungeon crawler fans. However from my perspective, it follows all the rules and I had fun, which is all that matters. Great job, and thank you.

Is there a win condition in this game?