UnderMine

Can you dig it?

With pickaxe in hand and gold to find, UnderMine has you delving underground to search for riches, rescue people, and fight off an awful lot of monsters at the behest of an Archmage who isn’t at all squeamish about the fact that you’re a peasant. To him, that just makes you expendable. While you may enter the mine feeling a strong sense of empathy for your working-class brothers and sisters, you’ll probably end up feeling the same way towards your characters eventually. Because you get with a new one every time you die, and you die an awful lot.1

UnderMine has no qualms about being punishing, because it’s also more than happy to let you become more powerful. As you beat enemies down with your pickaxe and explore new rooms, you find gold stuffed into rocks, statues, and the occasional box. You can grab the gold from these and use it to buy items for that run, such as bombs, keys, or a tasty steak, or take back a percentage of it when you die and use it to upgrade yourself, getting a better pickaxe or a berry that’ll make potions last longer.

Those ‘permanent’ upgrades mean you’ll find yourself pushing ever-so-slightly deeper than before with every run, and while that can be frustrating, UnderMine has a cute style and a good sense of humour to keep you going. Digging your way into the depths as you accrue more power does feel good, even if it’s a little basic. Sure, the game takes more than a little bit from The Binding Of Isaac in terms what you actually do, but it’s a lot less gruesome than running around hitting your own trauma.2 Undermine isn’t a particularly complicated roguelike, then, but it’s a fun one, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Jason Coles