Mining Escape

A 2D side-scrolling game where you dig through destructible terrain until a cave-in catches up to you and do it again after upgrading your character with the ore you received.

Prototype 1

The very early stages of prototyping, with it being made in Godot. This initial prototype is a barebones representation of the game, lasting well under a minute and the player only having a pick durability of 30. The goal is to get to the end without using up all of the durability on mining blocks, while avoiding going off the left side of the screen.

This initial prototype has no end conditions or vertical movement constraints, so you can see the full layout by moving the player character above the map. In the future, this would boot you to a game over screen on losing, and the player would not be able to leave the map.

The prototype I created was representative of the core loop I wanted to an extent – obviously not perfect as it was very barebones, but it got the idea across decently well. As far as answering the question I wanted it to – that is, that the core concept had the potential to be enjoyable – the feedback I received suggested that the answer was that it did. Of course, it has a long way to go to become a proper, enjoyable game, and I received a general suggestion that it be made more challenging. Changes I would make would be speeding up the game and creating a more challenging prebuilt layout, as well as adding blocks of varying durability. Where I would take the concept next would be to figure out procedural generation of the blocks to prevent layout memorization from making the game trivial, as well as testing out different stages of progression and adding blocks with special effects.

Game Loops

1.  Roguelite Loop - The player makes progress through a series of 'runs', trying to reach certain goals before they die. Some things persist through runs, which allows progress despite run resets. Each run is procedurally generated.
   Comparable to games such as Dead Cells, FTL: Faster Than Light, and The Binding of Isaac.
2. Mining & Escaping - The core gameplay, the mining mechanic has you escaping from an encroaching cave-in while trying to gather valuable ore. The loop consists of mining obstacles, moving away from the game over that the cave-in represents, and repeating, with mining ore sprinkled in if the player thinks it is safe to do so.
   The mining aspect is comparable to Minecraft and Terraria (early version pictured), while the constant movement to one side of the screen is found in runner platformers like Super Mario Run.
3. Resource Collection & Upgrading - During the core gameplay loop, the player will mine valuable ore which, after they die, can be used in the menu to upgrade their character, thus allowing them to make progress and improve their performance during a run.
   Comparable to some mobile games such as Jetpack Joyride.