Rockslide

Good 3d graphics and stressful gameplay. The coal mechanic could be explained better. Also, the jump height felt to short and the fall speed felt a bit floaty.

I agree with pika. Very stressful. xD
I'm guessing the map is generated randomly out of certain segments. There's one section where there's a ledge I had to jump onto, but the jumps were floaty and the physics didn't quite feel right. This made it quite a bit harder than it should've been to climb that section.
Aside from the movement issues, the gameplay flow was good and entertaining. I'm not sure if this is implemented, but some luck proof on the coal would've been nice. I don't know if I missed some, but I want a pretty long stretch while only seeing 3 coal, so I ran out and got stuck.

Two more suggestions:

• It would've been nice if I could see a little bit farther. The "fog" was a bit too strong.
• The diamonds should've been shinier. :>

The foley was actually pretty impressive in my opinion. The environment looked nice as well, although a bit more visual decor to break up the brown in the cave would've gone a long way.
Good work!

A really nice idea and take on the theme, the mechanics felt great together and the first time I notice the cave crumbling behind me, I genuinly panicked xD Very well done!

Stressful? Nah, this is fun!

Good audio-visuals and a rather original idea too apart from slight Minecraft vibes. Unsurprisingly, I do have many pointers.

The recipe of success here correlates strongly with a rather peculiar feature of this mining operation. The dwarf's pockets are directly linked to the mining cart, even if it is hundreds of meters away! The dwarf can also walk faster than the cart, which can keep moving forward while the miner mines on. This strategy starts to falter only once the rockslide speeds up, although at that point there is a lot of coal to burn for a last big haul.

I was initially confused about the "progress" meter at the bottom. The cart seemed to move backwards even if it was not moving at all! Of course the mine is infinite so this is the only way to do it, yet it got me thinking.

You see, this time I would have actually preferred a finite level! Not only would the progress meter work, but there would also be a reason not to collect everything early on (using the aforementioned trick) and to be very tactical about when to burn coal and where to mine. The rockslide could be timed precisely and the coal/gold/diamond deposits along the way could be balanced to provide a randomized yet fair distribution.

Another feature (which you probably thought about or even meant to implement) is actually having to drop the current haul into the cart. It would be one more button press and a GUI label, but it would add an immersion factor as well as get rid of the trick (partially).

Talking of button presses… The mouse driven interface is neat, but prone to miss clicks. Using the wheel would be easier if the dwarf rotated with the cart. Mining while standing in the cart is also tricky. It should probably be disabled to begin with.

Lastly, the theme isn't present in the interactivity at all. The mine is deep underground, yes, but the dwarf is actually trying to get to the surface, not to explore the depths. Getting further along the track doesn't really change anything either. Inevitable death is simply closer as usual. I'm used to that.

Let’s not muddle the bottom line: good work!

Overall: Good (7.0)
Graphics: Good (7.0)
Audio: Good (7.0)
Gameplay: Good (7.0)
Originality: Good (7.0)
Theme: Average (5.0)

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

@HuvaaKoodia Regarding bringing an ending to the level, it was actually our plan to make it possible to win the game. Unfortunately the lack of time made us cut it out! Our idea was to introduce junctions in the game, where you'd be able to stop and switch the rails to go to the exit instead of continuing down the mine… The consequence being that getting caught by the rockslide would harm your score. I'm not 100% sure it would have made the game more fun, but I feel it would have brought some interesting decision-taking/risk mangement.

We also have some missed opportunities for integrating the theme tighter into the game… I guess that's what we get for being too ambitious once again! Anyway we're still happy with the result overall.

Awesome entry, I enjoyed riding the little cart through the darkness and doing some intense mining in between! I think an atmospheric soundscape instead of music would have been a better fit (with maybe intense music only getting louder when the falling rocks are getting near), but that's just nitpicking.

This is awesome, best game I've played so far. Very tense when the rockslide is coming up behind you, with the threatening sound and the music. I love how you can actually mine from inside the cart, but when you mis-click, you jump out and have to walk until the thing runs out of coal… so it's a high-risk, high-reward option. Good job on the minimalistic but effective tutorial in the form of mouse cursor changes.

@HuvaaKoodia

I was initially confused about the "progress" meter at the bottom. The cart seemed to move backwards even if it was not moving at all! Of course the mine is infinite so this is the only way to do it, yet it got me thinking.

Maybe just some left-scrolling tick marks on the horizontal line could have solved this.

Maybe just some left-scrolling tick marks on the horizontal line could have solved this.

Ooh clever idea

Very nice game! Mining them minerals be very addictive. Though I think maybe there should have been some way to teleport back onto the cart, just in case you set it to a high speed then accidently went off it (maybe you would have to pay a certain amount of points?). Also, if you never start the cart and just run off the rocks never come after you so you can't really lose (or at least that's how it seemed to me), seems kinda exploitable for sick high score gains. Regardless, I really like the game's idea and it's execution is pretty good as well, so very fun overall.