Mine Depths

Overview

Mine Depths is an excavation game built around a small expedition rather than an endless resource counter. You begin at the surface of a nine-column mine with a basic drill, an eight-item backpack and a lamp that reveals only nearby cells. Each underground row adds five metres of depth. The ancient relic lies at five hundred metres, but reaching it requires opening real tunnels through increasingly hard blocks. Ore becomes more valuable as you descend through copper, silver, gold and gemstone layers.

Your limits are cargo space and oxygen. Valuable ore occupies one backpack slot, while plain rock does not. Air is consumed while you remain underground and when you drill an intact block, with greater depth increasing the ongoing drain. Running out ends the expedition. Returning before that happens gives you a chance to sell, upgrade and continue through the shaft you already opened.

How to Play

Choose Begin Expedition. Use the arrow keys to move toward the next cell. If it is intact, the same input drills it; hard blocks can need multiple hits before the miner enters. Space repeats drilling in the last chosen direction. Hold a direction on the keyboard or touch controls for repeated excavation. Clicking a grid cell chooses a direction toward it, not an instant destination.

Press E or the lift button to recall from underground. Cargo is sold automatically and oxygen returns to its full value of one hundred ten. At the surface, E resumes at your last entered underground position. It cannot create a deeper shaft or move you into unexplored rock. Walking back up to the surface also sells cargo and replenishes air.

Buy upgrades at the surface with 1 for the drill, 2 for the backpack and 3 for the lamp, or tap their labeled buttons. Prices and availability appear on screen. P pauses the expedition and R restarts from the surface with the mine, gold and equipment reset. Recover the relic to finish successfully; New Expedition starts another attempt after either ending.

Tips & Strategy

Use early copper trips to improve the drill. Base drill power removes one hardness per hit, and every drill upgrade adds another. Deeper blocks require more work, so stronger equipment saves both action time and the oxygen spent on repeated excavation. Copper sells for five gold, silver for twelve, gold for twenty-five and gems for fifty. Richer layers can fund later upgrades quickly, but their depth also makes lingering more dangerous.

Read the cargo display before choosing the next block. A full bag stops another ore pickup, even when the block is almost broken. Recall and sell rather than trying to force a ninth item into the initial eight-slot backpack. Bag upgrades increase capacity to fourteen, twenty-two and thirty-two, allowing longer trips between sales. An already opened tunnel remains usable, and previously collected ore does not reappear on a revisit.

A lamp upgrade widens the revealed area. That is useful when deciding whether to continue downward or explore a nearby vein; it does not make the drill stronger or add oxygen. Leave an air reserve for the next difficult block instead of watching only the depth number. The lift is immediate while the expedition is still active, but a zero-oxygen ending cannot be undone by pressing recall afterward.

Keep the relic as the objective. Extra side tunnels may provide upgrade money, yet every excavation consumes part of the expedition's safety margin. The lift preserves access to your last safe position, so a timely sale is progress rather than a lost descent.

What Makes It Distinct

A visible block grid connects the economy directly to exploration. Hardness, bag space, lamp reach and air supply each change a different decision. The recall lift removes repeated climbing while preserving the requirement to excavate every newly reached layer on the way to the five-hundred-metre relic.