The Mole and the Lantern

Your lantern burns down as you dig, and the dark closes in as it fades. Turn back with what you have, or push one layer deeper? You will answer that again and again.

Your lantern is burning down the whole time you are digging.

WHEN THE LIGHT GOES, SO DOES THE GROUND

As the flame weakens your view of the world closes in, until you cannot make out your own feet. Ore and coal burn as fuel, so there is exactly one way to keep the light alive: keep digging.

Stand still and it gets darker. Press on and you may not get back. That single tension is the whole game.

ORE ONLY COUNTS ONCE IT IS HOME

Everything you mine is hauled back as crafting material. But:

• Smash the Core Crystal at the bottom and escape, and you keep all of it
• Fall before you get there, and half of it stays in the pit

One greedy swing can cost you half a day's haul. The pull of "just one more block" against the sense to leave with what you have — that tug of war is the spine of it.

A MOLE DIGS BESIDE YOU

Adopt a mole and it trots along behind you, always facing the opposite way you are. Between you, the shaft opens out to both sides.

It will take a bite out of the stubborn rock you have already softened. But it cannot chew through anything above its own strength, so it stays a companion rather than a substitute.

What raises a mole is not ore but treasure. Gift it one relic from a chest and it comes along with you; every relic after that is a gift it grows on, and the rarer the relic the bigger the leap.

FIVE MINES, 27 KINDS OF BLOCK

• Green Shaft (52m deep)
• Frozen Cavern (66m)
• Magma Depths (80m)
• Ancient Ruins (92m)
• The Abyss (110m)

Each mine has its own sky, its own music and its own seams. Copper turns up only in the Green Shaft, sapphire in the Frozen Cavern, ruby in the Magma Depths, mythril at the bottom of the Abyss. Choosing where to go based on what you need to craft is the strategy, and that choice lives in the loadout screen.

Eleven ores from coal to diamond and mythril. Creeping lava, TNT with a lit fuse, sealed chests, and the Core Crystal waiting at the very bottom.

FORGE YOUR GEAR FROM WHAT YOU DIG

Pickaxe (mining speed), Lantern (fuel and light), Boots (speed and landing), Armor (max hearts). Each goes to Lv5, paid for in gold and ore. Recipes show have/need side by side and highlight only what you are missing, so you always know where to dig next.

MINERS WHO WORK WHILE YOU ARE AWAY

Hire Hori, Nomi and Saguri and they keep working the seams while the app is closed, up to eight hours' worth. Each favours different ore and each produces more as you train them.

Open the game again and one screen hands you the haul along with your daily login bonus. The bonus runs on a seven day cycle, with diamonds waiting on day seven.

THINGS TO COLLECT

• Block codex: 27 entries, filled in as you dig
• Treasures: 12 relics, from a plain coin to a legendary pickaxe — and the only thing your mole will grow on
• Achievements: 13
• Three conditions per mine, up to three stars each

ALSO

• Japanese / English, switchable at any time
• AUTO mode mines for you when you would rather watch
• All music and sound effects synthesised on the spot; every mine has its own key and tempo
• Playable offline
• One-handed portrait controls

The light does not last. Please know when to turn back.