We talk about games a lot here on Fandom. A whole bunch. In fact, we figured it’s about time we made one ourselves — so we partnered up with Thorium Entertainment and did exactly that. The result is UnderMine, a roguelite about plumbing the depths of the earth for gold and glory.
Have a gander at how it plays here:
UnderMine takes the block-bombing, pickaxe-swinging style of Spelunky and raises the camera for a top-down view. The doors to each room won’t open until you’ve dealt with the chaos of eliminating enemies without stepping on traps.
You’ll take on the smallest of foes, swatting at rats and moths before eventually coming across the game’s bosses, which are a good deal tougher. Levels are randomly arranged each time, and we’re pretty sure that’s not how mines work, but it makes for a better game so let’s just go with it.
Luckily, most of your gold from each attempt is saved by your pet canary (geddit?). Thus completes the addictive cycle of the roguelite — you upgrade what you can, set off into the mine again, and try to get further than you did before.
We do love game criticism (and of course we’ve got the official UnderMine wiki), but seeing as we’re distributing this one, we’ll leave the qualitative statements to everyone else. Instead, we’ll just throw references at you. Rogue Legacy? Yep, it’s a lot like that. Binding of Isaac? Mmhmm, you’re on the money.
Perhaps it’s not too far a leap to even compare it to Dead Cells, seeing as UnderMine does seem to have some invincibility frames, albeit on a jump instead of a roll. True to form for a roguelike, sometimes you won’t get what you want, forcing you to improvise and bow down to the will of RNGesus.
UnderMine is available now on Steam Early Access, and it’ll also be on Xbox Game Pass and Switch sometime in 2020. Thorium will also be updating the game every two weeks or so with new content, which will likely include new items to promote varied styles of play. After six months, it’ll be ready for its full launch.
