SteamWorld Dig

A Surprise Hit – Even for a Non-Platformer Fan! I’ve never been into platformers — in fact, I usually avoid them. So when I started this game, I didn’t expect much. But wow… it completely won me over. The controls feel tight and responsive, the gameplay is smooth and satisfying, and the story pulls you in more than you'd expect. What really stood out to me was the music — it's beautifully done and sets the mood perfectly. The animations are clean, the RPG mechanics add just enough depth without being overwhelming, and the overall atmosphere is just… captivating. This game turned out to be a real gem. For someone like me, it’s easily an 8/10. Totally worth your time.

SteamWorld Dig by Image & Form is a cleverly designed action-platformer that blends mining, exploration, and light puzzle-solving into a tight, satisfying experience. Set in a steampunk-infused Wild West, you play as Rusty, a lone steam-powered robot who inherits a mine in a dusty frontier town. What follows is a steadily deepening adventure—both literally and figuratively—as you dig downward into ancient caverns, uncovering secrets, upgrades, and danger at every level. What sets SteamWorld Dig apart is its elegant gameplay loop. You mine resources, sell them in town, and use the profits to buy upgrades like stronger pickaxes, improved lights, and faster movement. Each return trip to the surface feels meaningful, and the upgrades you earn significantly improve your ability to descend deeper and survive longer. This progression system is one of the game's strongest features—rewarding, consistent, and never overcomplicated. Beneath the surface lies a well-paced mixture of procedurally generated tunnels and hand-crafted challenge rooms. While mining is relaxing and almost zen-like, the deeper layers introduce hazards such as collapsing tunnels, hostile creatures, and environmental traps that require careful navigation. It’s this balance of calm digging and sudden tension that keeps the game engaging across its relatively short but well-rounded runtime. Visually, SteamWorld Dig is a treat. The character designs are charming, with expressive robots and beautifully animated environments. The steampunk Western aesthetic is both unique and memorable, complemented by a fitting soundtrack that mixes twangy guitars with mechanical ambiance. The town above serves not just as a hub, but as a lively contrast to the lonely depths below, giving players a sense of progress and purpose. In conclusion, SteamWorld Dig is a compact yet rewarding experience that knows exactly what it wants to be. It doesn’t bloat its systems or overstay its welcome, instead delivering a focused, polished game filled with charm, satisfying mechanics, and a strong sense of discovery. Whether you’re a fan of platformers, mining games, or simply want a well-crafted indie gem, SteamWorld Dig is absolutely worth the dig. Rating: 9/10

If you were to inherit a mine, would you go digging ? Rusty, our hero, does so in hopes of fortune and glory. But what will he find down there ? Dirt, for sure, and a lot of it. But maybe something else, more valuable ? An adventure perhaps ? Upon reaching Tumbleton, you'll notice that the town and its inhabitants have a very particular design, and it looks nice. Warm colors giving the desert a real sense of heat, shiny diamonds catching your eye as you dig deeper... All of this creates a cute world you'll enjoy exploring, even if it's only for 4 to 5 hours. You dig, you find treasures, you come back up. Simple enough ! You exchange those rare minerals in town for money that will be used to upgrade the town itself, but more importantly, your tools ! As you upgrade those, they'll allow you to dig even deeper, faster, and find minerals you never knew existed ! This little routine is repetitive, but the game is short and doesn't really have the time to overstay its welcome. There are small caves on the way down that provide a short change of scenery, with basic puzzles or platforming challenges, and some teleportation stations to save time on your way back up. Even the mystery of what is hiding down there is quite engaging, until an ending that sets up the second game pretty well. The combat, done with your trusty pickaxe, is a little clunky. This clunkiness doesn't make the game challenging, but it's almost the only reason you'll ever take damage. The world's resources are also finite (yes, in-game too), so if you have a habit of staying under falling rocks, you may not be able to afford all the upgrades, because dying hurts your capital (yes, in-game too). I like to take my time when I'm digging, and this may be the reason I always felt like the light source you carry around faded too quickly. But maybe you're brighter than I am and that will compensate for this light issue ! These are just minor annoyances in a game that really doesn't do anything wrong. It looks good and is fun to play through, even if it won't take very long. It's a [b] 6[/b]. Short and sweet, you dig ? Because I definitely did !

If you're after pure relaxation, this game delivers. It's funny, well-made, and focuses on casual digging and enjoyable puzzles rather than a complex plot.

Overall it was a pretty nice game. I think the 5-ish ours it will take to beat the game is pretty good, just before it gets old. I really enjoyed the upgrades along the way, both the ones you purchase and the ones you find in your journey. The only thing that got me annoyed was the travel back and forth and not being able to quick travel to a specific point. Would recommend!

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☑ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☑ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☑ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☑ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Game Size }--- ☑ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☐ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☑ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☑ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☐ Worth the price ☑ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☑ 7 ☐ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10 ---{ Author }--- ☑ https://vojtastruhar.github.io/steam-review-template

Got this in the steamworld essentials bundle and was so hooked i played it from start to finish in the same day. Achievement hunt allows replayability which I will do after I've played the other steam world games.

Lovely game innit. Just as great as the rest of the Steamworld stuff (except Steamworld Build). Lagom hard. Took me almost 9 hours of gameplay to complete.

Honestly, if it had not been on sale for a couple dollars I likely would not have considered purchasing this game... so glad it was on sale and I took a chance. While I may not be into western themes or robots, this was fun.

I originally played it on 3ds so I don't even have to finish it again to know that this is a short but amazing platformer.

This is the perfect game for a handheld. It's fully 2D, lightweight, doesn't have performance issues even in battery saving mode, and sips battery all while being super fun and looking great and not dated. The killer feature is that it's not a big time commitment; you don't have to set aside a block of time to play. It's not the kind of game where you worry about losing hours of progress. It's pretty short--5 to 10 hours to beat. You mine stuff, you explore, and whenever your pack gets full you return to town to sell the stuff you mined and upgrade your equipment. It's also great to play on larger screens, since the things it has going for it for handheld play aren't things that detract from desktop play. During my less than 10 hours of play, I probably spent 6 or 7 hours on my handheld and 3 or 4 hours on my gaming laptop. Honestly, not knowing anything about this game going in, I was blown away. I'm not some connoisseur of 2D platformers, but for me this feels like the best thing since 2D Mario and 2D Rayman. I'm looking forward to playing the sequel, which I got in a bundle with this game at a steep discount.

Good and short metroidvania game but the second one is way better. This one don't feel as good to play as the second but for a good price it's worth playing.

Skip this one and go straight to the sequel, it's an improvement in every way.

Pretty fun little platformer. Nothing wildly ambitious but the whole cycle of digging and upgrading is fairly addictive. Even though I've got a bunch of stuff in my backlog I kept coming back to this until I finished it. My only complaint is that I wish dualsense support was better. Button icons are xbox only and for some reason I have to disable/re-enable steam input most of the time for it to recognize my controller. Yeah, this game came to PC in 2013 before anyone acknowledged sony controllers, but it's this studio's flagship series; it'd be nice if they revisited it.

I played this game on the Nintendo 2DS, I have like 14 hours on it there, and it holds up on the computer :D Its a fun game in my opinion, the mining for better ores gameplay loop and getting upgrades is entertaining. Pretty good icl + goes on massive sales relatively often

A short but sweet game, lots of fun and super addicting once you get a bit in to it. Combat could have been a bit more diverse but there's not much to ask from a port of a 3DS eshop game, it's all it needs to be.

A really great game. Definitely grab the Steamworld bundle!

I really don’t have much to say about this game. It's one of those short experiences that has a simple mechanical base which doesn’t go much deeper than first impressions. You dig further and further down both to navigate to deeper areas and to dig up gems which can be sold to purchase upgrades. You’ll occasionally hit obstacles which require upgrades to get past which you then get those upgrades either through the store or small challenge areas. Nothing you unlock is particularly surprising or innovative and by the end of the game you only feel marginally stronger than how you started. The main gameplay loop revolves around frequent trips back to the surface because of the limited inventory space with a handful of enemies and obstacles to keep things slightly dangerous. It's not until you reach the third area that the game starts to have any semblance of difficulty but even that doesn’t have much going for it thanks to the short remaining runtime and simple enemies. The moment-to-moment experience is fine, but in retrospect a lot of earlier actions feel meaningless. The upgrades get almost no use because of how quickly the game ends so spending time collecting gems to upgrade them might just be a net loss of time. It’s not a bad system or anything. The game is short enough that my interest survived long enough to reach the credits. Go deeper underground until your inventory is full, return to the surface to sell your loot and upgrade, then go back down and do the same thing but getting somewhat deeper. It's fine. Not particularly difficult or interesting, but sufficient to keep my attention for a few hours. I guess the simplest explanation is that it's a very simplified version of Spleunky but even that seems misleading thanks to how limited this game really is. All I can really say is that it was fine. This is about as neutral of an experience as you can get where it's just enough to keep my mind occupied without being either interesting enough to remember or good enough to enjoy.

12 years later and I still is the best indie game and it goes on sale a lot just playing the game and the franchise is great!

Pretty nice game, although too easy and short.

This is one of those laid back kind of games. There isn't much here, but what you get is enjoyable. You dig down and collect some stuff, go to the surface to sell and upgrade, go back down to collect some stuff and repeat the process. You can find enemies and traps, but they aren't really an issue once you understand how they work. There's also secret areas that you can find and unlock. Overall the game play is very simple and many may find it too simple, but its great for a Friday night play through with some pizza and beer. I got this game fairly cheap. This game, a long with many of its sequels go on sale a lot so if your looking for something to play on a friday night than I recommend this.

Extremely neat and fun bite sized metroidvania. Constantly gives you interesting new mechanics to play with and knows when it's ready to end. A couple gripes about how much money you get versus the cost of getting everything, as well as some annoying enemies, but it's a great game to play in an afternoon.

Cool and chill game that is fun on the Steam Deck. It still holds up. A yes from me!

fun little game to play pretty addicting going into the mine and finding new areas and upgrading

It is quite good with 90% discount. It is almost good for full price. I liked the world and most of the enemies, and whole atmosphere. Some puzzles I had to look up on Youtube for solutions, as hitting partially covered tile was not something I could understand/ pick up myself. Game also takes around 7-8 hours of game play time, so it is great for a short weekend session. Probably pick it up if you like digging games with some story elements in it.

If you like mining stuff, upgrading, a slight bit of puzzeling and getting stuck in holes of your own making, then this is the game for you :-) Its a lovely sweet and short lil game, finished it myself with all the available upgrades in 4 hours, I quite liked the primary gameplay loop of SteamWorld Dig (and of part two) of digigng down, finding resources, heading back up, selling them, upgrading and repeating. The holes you dig do require some platforming skills to get out of, sometimes, though there are buyable ladders for those who want them. Overall SteamWorld Dig has been a good experience for me, though it was a short one, it can easily be beat in a single day, Due to the short playtime I am not sure if its worth everyones money, myself I bought it at a good discount, and I am not disapointed, I enjoyed my time, but If it had cost me the normal price of €10 I'd be on the fence on if it was worth it

A very fun game that layers in new challenges all along the way. Digging your way down is a fun and satisfying loop. Basecamp is full of charming characters. This is a family friendly favorite. A game I loved, and the kids love.

can't believe i slept on this for so long was fantastic glad i got it on the sail had tons of fun could see even doing more play throughs to get better times ect.

Everyone craves the mines. This game delivers on filling that need plus adds a nice steampunk robot vibe to the adventure. A little short though. Finished in 9 hours.

This game is one of my favourite steam game ever. Its got really nice visuals, its got a cool story and has a very fun form of progression. In the game you mine and collect ores to sell for better tools to get more ores. The final world is very frustrating and the ending is crazy. Big plot twist there.

Great game. Play this first then the second one. Short and sweet. I think it is well written and funny, but that is subjective. The loop is addictive. 7/10.

Terrible controls, dated game mechanics without anything obviously fresh (I didn't make it far). With the exception of the graphics this could've been made in the early 90s. Ran into a softlock within the first 5min and had to restart the level.

This is the best Miner like I've played. Back when games were enjoyable by simpler designs.

The first and the best SteamWorld game. Nuff said.

"I remember the first time he came into my shop. It was on a Tuesday." Great short metroidvania you can finish in one sitting or two. Definitely play the second game also!

Kinda obnoxiously designed. Started getting annoying by the third cave. Finite treasure that is tied to progression and can be destroyed is stupid imo.

Lovely, chill digging and upgrade game!

A very enjoyable and relaxing game, i highly recommend it.

This is my second play-through. The first time I played this, it was the first Metroidvania I had ever played and, at the time, I really loved it. Having played many more games in the subgenre since, I found the game to be a lot sloppier this time around. The controls often feel clunky. The character has a lot of weight to him, but at the same time, he feels very floaty when jumping, often leading to me missing my mark. The game really only has one boss level. I understood how to defeat him, but I struggled because the fight was demanding a precision that the game wasn’t up-to-par on offering. Overall though, it’s an entertaining enough game if bought on sale for a dollar or two. I remember the sequel being a lot smoother.

A great Game that was origanally released for the Nintendo 3DS! 8,5/10

I COULD HAVE SAVED A DOLLAR, WHY IS IT FREE NOW?!?!?!?!?! (Great game btw)

Short but fun! Beat it in one day but I'm a no-life.

good game (wait for a sale it goes down to like 1 dollar)

Cool game, worth every penny even when its free !!

A great short metroidvania about digging!

I'm autistic and I really enjoy this game

Fun and adventurous

Short and Great

childhood game, peak

Boring dig game...