SteamWorld Dig was originally developed for the 3DS shop and after finding popularity, was ported to other platforms including the PC. This is a great example of how important a well executed mechanic can be, but I just wish that there was more to unearth.
Going Down:
In SteamWorld Dig, you play as Rusty who lives in a steampunk western world run by robots, which is a pretty awesome setting in of itself. Rusty finds himself the owner of his uncle’s mine after he was found deactivated in a small town, leaving Rusty to continue the family business and find out what happened.
Your main task is to dig into the earth using your uncle’s pickaxe and to keep going down until you discover the truth. Gem deposits can be recovered and taken back to town to be sold for money. Money by the way acts as experience and unlocks new items that can be bought.
As you continue going down, the earth becomes harder requiring you to upgrade your pickaxe to keep going at a quick pace. Besides a limited inventory, your other constraint is your light represented by the bar in the upper right corner of the screen. When your light runs out, it becomes harder to see, forcing you to return to the surface.
Besides gems you can also find upgrade orbs that can be used to buy higher quality upgrades that can make the game easier, but these are a lot rarer to find. At specific points you can find caves that act as little puzzle rooms while plot required caves holding upgrades for Rusty, upgrades which unlock new abilities and make things a bit easier.
The shops are where you’ll spend your hard earned riches for upgrades.
The game mechanics have a good flow to them as you continue going further down, getting more gems and orbs and then returning to the surface to make Rusty better.
While you can die, death will simply cost you some money while leaving your accumulated gems on the ground for you to pick up on your next life.
There really isn’t much else to say about SteamWorld Dig, for good or for bad which is actually a problem. The game is pretty much one note and never seeks or attempts to do anything else to surprise the player with new mechanics. New enemies are slowly introduced but they are not the focus of the game. While there are technically “worlds” or different areas to explore, the game remains the same: Keep digging down.
The game also becomes somewhat repetitive as limited light and inventory will force you to keep backtracking the way you came to reach the nearest teleporter or exit. While you can buy teleporters with orbs, you really want to save them for the upgrades as they do pay off dramatically.
It took me about four hours to beat the game and that was generous as I did some backtracking to unlock all the upgrades. The only real challenge came at the game’s sole boss fight which wasn’t that far removed from the basic gameplay.
Digging your way to treasure can be a compelling experience, but there isn’t anything else to do.
SteamWorld Dig’s gameplay was good and does have that “one more trip” feel to it, but it’s one of those games where you can really only get one play through out of it.
I would love to see the developers elevate the mechanics and give the player a giant world to explore while expanding on the upgrade system and gameplay.
As the game has a great hook, I just wish that there was more to discover. Neither deep nor challenging, SteamWorld Dig is what it is: A great game meant for a few hours of entertainment.
