Man, this has got to be the most fun game I've played on the GMTK2026 yet. It's a good concept, it's well executed, it's funny, it's somewhat replayable, it feels feature complete, it's absolutely great. Maybe the jam theme could be established with a little more depth, no pun intended, but the game is very nice as it is.
I believe the controls could be a little bit improved with having separate keys for each of the active items, or at least some commands to change item selection would be useful.
There is a conceptual problem with the TNT--it's cheaper than the picks, it destroys multiple blocs at the same time, it costs one dig to use, and it collects the money regardless. It's absolutely the best item in the game by far, and I managed to pay the whole debt in one day using the TNT alone once I unlocked it.
There were two issues I encountered. One was with the ladder, in a specific column of the world, which creates a ladder visually all the way to the top, past diggable terrain, rather than only in open space. This happened in multiple playthroughs (starting from scratch). The other issue was that, when I got to the end of the world, the game slowed down to a crawl that made it difficult to continue, but thankfully I was almost out of digs and managed to end the game at that point.
I also missed some kind of narrative for the end game, but the cinematic was enjoyable as well.
I would definitely be interested in seeing an upgraded version of this game after the jam, with more features, procedural terrain generation or randomization, and other challenges to overcome.
It was a truly interesting experience, congratulations for the work you made. Good luck in the jam!