Undermine - Switch Review

Undermine by developer Thorium and publisher Thorium Entertainment—Nintendo Switch review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Hello and welcome back friends, to another episode of “pray to RNJesus”, where your prayer gets thrown back in your face like a wet slug. Today's offering to the Goddess of random coin flips is Undermine, a randomly generated rogue-like where your digging through a mine to try and find the source of the mysterious earthquakes that have been shaking the mine.

In Undermine you play as a peasant, or legion of peasants, I suppose, trying to fight your way through the archmage's mine in order to discover and prevent the aforementioned earthquakes. Armed with only your pickaxe, a sack for collecting gold, and your peasant garb, off you delve into the mine to throw your life away for some gold nuggets and an awful boss. And throw your life away you shall, many, MANY times. But fear not, for your death will help your successors, as your handy canary outlives you to return a portion of the gold you've collected to the surface to help the future peasants.

Like many a good roguelike, every delve into the mine of death produces randomly generated terrain, rife with enemies, chests, and potentially helpful characters and shops. As you explore the mine, you may come across people in need. Help them, and they will set up shop at the top of the mine, before you start your delve. This way you can purchase permanent upgrades, passive skills, or bonus relics to help you in your delving. While delving the mine, you can swing your pickaxe at enemies, throw it like a boomerang, drop bombs, if you have them, and jump around to avoid attacks.

This is about all you've really got, and it's all you should need. Chances are you'll pick up rather quickly which enemies you don't want to be anywhere close to, and which enemies you can comfortably smack in the face. Along the way you will discover chests and relics. Chests may contain a number of items, such as: gold, bombs, keys for locks, and possibly relics. Be wary though, as there are also cursed chests, that can be opened at the cost of you taking on a curse.

So what are these relics and curses? Well, your 2D top down dungeon crawling adventure would get a little stale if you didn't get any upgrades or anything along the way, right? Well, that's where relics come in. Having possible effects such as “chance to poison on hit” or “not hindered by oil”, or “increased throwing speed”, these relics are what give a little more uniqueness to the game. There are plenty of relics, and curses are basically the “opposite” of relics, giving you a detriment instead of a bonus. You'll probably see curses building up either through opening cursed chests or from making deals with the devil. The curses can stack by the way, so don't think you can get away with opening a curse chest and not “actually” getting another curse.

As you progress further down the mine, you will discover it is separated into strata, with each strata consisting of a series of rooms per floor laid out in the style of Binding of Isaac, or similar to how you see older Legend of Zelda dungeon minimaps. You can get a sneak preview of what might be in the rooms adjacent to the room you are in on the minimap, indicating if there is a boss, shop, object of interest, relic, or something else important. On each floor is a pit you can jump in to head down to the next floor. At the end of a stratum you will find a boss awaiting you. Challenge your foe, and come out on top in order to unlock the next stratum! But fear not for subsequent runs, as you don't need to re-defeat the bosses, as they remain defeated and the next area is still unlocked. You can also fast travel to the start of strata you've unlocked, but I preferred going through them again in order to find useful relics. Or 7 cursed chests in, like, three floors. That also happens. Bleh.

But I digress, while you're probably well aware of how awful my luck is by this point, you're here for content, not mockery. I am pleased to say that Undermine, as a roguelike, is very reasonable, if not cruel. Not once did I encounter something I couldn't deal with either through getting gud or laying down a carpet of bombs and running around screaming. The plus side is that those bombs might discover hidden rooms. Occasionally you may see a shimmer on the walls of one of the rooms you are in. If this isn't gold embedded in the wall, it may be a hidden route to a room not on your map.

Usually there is something interesting in these rooms: possibly a relic or a lot of money. Sometimes it's a dud with nothing in it, but that's all part of the adventure. Speaking of gold on walls, Undermine has a really interesting concept on currency. Basically, as you explore you will come across statues and area walls with gold in them. Smack it a few times and the gold comes flying out. Make sure you pick it up quickly though, as there are little slime buggers that come in and steal your cash if you aren't quick enough. A good smack will drive them away, but it's the principle of the matter.

I am pleased to say that the soundtrack was a good choice for Undermine. One thing you pick up playing games where you are forced to run through the same areas over and over is what music you really don't want looping through your head for the next 8 hours. Undermine has a solid score in that sense, with some fairly catchy but unobtrusive tracks to travel to. Another positive in Undermine's favour is the fact that the graphics are pretty good. There isn't anything super fancy, but it doesn't get cluttered, it's pretty much always easy enough to see your character and what's going on.

Overall Undermine is a really good roguelike with a lot of well implemented mechanics. Is it breaking any molds? Not really, but the implementation was well done. The environments are large enough that you don't feel guided, but stages are small enough that you don't start getting frustrated being in the same location. There are plenty of randomized power boosts, and the upgrade system is pretty fair about when you need upgrades vs. How much they cost.

Summary

While my luck may have screwed me over, there wasn't a design choice that did. I was really pleased with Undermine as a roguelike, and with the shorter nature of the stages, it lends itself really well to the Switch and its portable nature.

Score: 8.25 / 10

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Games of the Year 2020 - 2nd Runner Up

 

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

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Nick: Genshin Impact

This is a game that the developers could have easily charged people full AAA price for and it would have been bought up. That it is a free-to-play and so polished is kind of amazing really. The microtransactions are there of course (they need to make some money on it), and they’re pretty unobtrusive as the levels are all accessible right off of the bat. There is a very Breath of the Wild influence at play here, with tons to do over an ever-growing map. The game’s not complete, and I was reluctant to include it on my list because of this, but Chris and I have spent so much time playing it already that even as a living game that will continue to expand, what is here is pretty fantastic.

Pierre-Yves: Undermine

I've been a fan of Roguelikes for a long time. There's just something about the challenge that will either make or break you that I find interesting. With nothing more than your wits and a bit of luck, Undermine captures the magic of a more traditional Roguelike only allowing you to bring back some money in hopes of buying better gear to make your next run through the mines easier. Taking it a step up from that however, and now, instead of just making your life easier by getting new gear, once you do get the new and shiny equipment bonuses to help, the mine itself will start to throw nastier things at you keeping you on your toes at all times. It was brilliant and I'm glad that I had the chance to see what both the Xbox and the PC versions had in store as they weren't quite identical at the time with one coming out of Early Access.

Susan N: Pumpkin Jack

My second runner up is Pumpkin Jack for a couple of reasons. First, it is just an amusing character. Sure, it’s a pseudo 3D platformer that I’m generally terrible at playing, but I had a fantastic time with this title. When I think back on my playthrough of the game, I wickedly laugh at the idea that the skins you can purchase throughout the game were actual skins. From other characters. Thankfully, you don’t see how those skins are acquired. I also was amused at the fact that there were times where Jack had to literally take off his head to complete a couple of puzzles! Overall, the uniqueness of certain elements as well as the biting wit of certain characters places Pumpkin Jack on my list of favorite games from this year.

Richard: Prinny 1 & 2 Exploded and Reloaded

I'll admit, I'm a sucker for side scrolling platformers, Disgaea, and almost anything NISA puts out. But Prinny 1 & 2 came around just as I was thinking "most of the stuff I've played recently is either too easy, or the difficulty is artificial". Yeah, Prinny 1 & 2 will make you cry, but it's an enjoyable cry.

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Undermine - XB1 Review

Undermine by developer and publisher Thorium—Microsoft Xbox One review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Have you been craving crazy Roguelike adventures through super dangerous dungeon terrain? How about never being the same person? Don’t even want the pressure of resurrection? Then do we ever have a deal for you! Welcome to Undermine where you are nothing more than a series of peasants being sent to their deaths against crazy monsters and even crazier bosses while the heroes don’t seem to be in the picture. Figures, good help is so hard to find…

Seriously though, good help is hard to find and short of your amazing little canary as you delve into the depths, any help that you want you’re going to have to rescue or do favours for first. Undermine is a top down, interconnected room based Roguelike that has you, a mere peasant with a pickaxe, delving at the whim of a wizard in order to solve all of the problems that are currently plaguing the place. The bigger problem to start off with is that everything is shaking so you already know you’re in for it but first, you have to make it there.

Straight up, this is one of those times where you either “have it” or have to “git gud”. Undermine is tough but as long as you play your cards right it’s not unfair. A lot like Rogue Legacy in some regards, as you are never the same person, you’ll be leveling up the gear that can be taken with you on your spelunking. Upgrading your pickaxe lets you do more damage, upgrading your clothes gives you more health, adding a counter-balance lets you boomerang throw your pickaxe further and sporting a nice pair of leather gloves lets you increase the damage output. For all of these shiny upgrades though, you’ll need gold and in the beginning, and as there’s no way back, you’ll basically be losing half of it and crying about it.

So what’s a peasant to do? Upgrade your gold bag! By doing so you’ll lose less and less on every return which is going to allow you to buy more upgrades. I was a little disappointed that there was no “bank” so Undermine really runs on a use it or lose it philosophy. This can at times be rather unfortunate as you are for example carrying 678 gold pieces yet what you want to buy is 700. Whelp, tough luck, you aren’t getting that upgrade this time. So what’s a peasant to do? Take it with them or try to spend it on little things if you’ve rescued the help for it such as a bomb or a key to start off a run through the mines.

Undermine is brilliant in what it does. Truly. Sure you can’t bank your gold but the progress, or lack thereof that you seem to make, is truly calculated and you only tend to start to notice this several runs in. In your first attempts while making your way to the first mid-boss, things seem, balanced? Slightly easy on the first floor, slightly tougher on the next, but nothing that you cannot handle. Then the midboss. Tough in the beginning until you learn the attack patterns, it’ll be a bit tough, but that’s basically the name of the game. Then you unlock a few things, you go a bit further, maybe make it to the first boss, and then probably die. Well you do if you’re me at any rate.

So what’s the point of the rambling? Each time you start off from the beginning and work your way down, you’ll be collecting gold. Each time you die, you’ll be spending that gold. As you spend that gold and get tougher, so does the dungeon. New mobs start to show up to make even the beginning floors interesting as time moves forward which I really appreciated. More than this though, Undermine doesn’t use your traditional shortcuts as you defeat bosses and make it further and further. Instead, you’ll have to plan some of your upgrades carefully in order to unlock new ways forward which in turn, allow you to skip over the starting zones and get right to where you need to be.

HOWEVER, the beginning floors, the Gold Mines, are where you’ll want to spend several runs there alone just to increase the power of your gear as each new dungeon seriously raises the difficulty and while learning attack patterns is one thing, surviving them is another. You’ll be wanting the health boosts. You’ll be wanting more attack power. And finally, you’ll be wanting new and shiny items from both the blacksmith and the alchemist in order to help you out. These items, unlike everything else, use crystals that need to be handed in and the first times that you do, they are unlocked and from there, available to pick up in the dungeon. Sadly, you can’t just buy one of these to dive back in like “resurrection” or a “damage reduction cream” but you’ll be seeing them again soon enough after a few runs.

From here it’s a lot of rinse, repeat, have fun, die, die again, die again again, try a new boss, die again, beat the boss, get into a new dungeon and then die again. Spend some gold, get tougher, spend some more gold, increase the tools at your disposal, and keep on rinsing and repeating BUT never does it feel unwelcome. Undermine is designed in such a manner that it’s just fun even if you died again and again. Part of that is the Roguelike charm, the other part is that it looks a bit like A Link to the Past and it’s just fun to keep playing. Only helping this is that most runs will net you about 10-25 minutes so you’ll get a few in within an hour and then you notice that you’ve been playing for six hours and should have gone to bed a while ago because you have to be up for work in six hours. Whoops.

So overall, Thorium’s Undermine is a fantastic Roguelike on both the PC where it has released from Early Access and on the XB1 where players are now playing for the first time. Top down and only designed to keep being entertaining hours down the line as you push further and further into the mine, here is a Roguelike that is both accessible to players new to the style and to long time veterans looking for a new challenge. Check back next week for some Let’s Plays as we were wonderfully treated to both an XB1 and a PC code to cover Undermine!

Score: 9 / 10

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Undermine Releasing for Xbox One and PC in August!

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – June 30, 2020 – UnderMine, the action-adventure roguelike brimming with secrets from developer Thorium Entertainment, digs up version 1.0 on Aug. 6 for Xbox One, Windows PC, Mac, and Linux. Enjoyed by nearly 120,000 players during Steam Early Access, UnderMine will be available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers day-and-date across both Xbox One and Windows 10 with a host of new content and improvements.

Version 1.0 introduces a new final boss encounter with a cinematic ending, post-credits story content, additional scenarios, plus new items, enemies, challenges, and, of course, secrets. The full game arrives after nearly a year in Early Access, which spanned five major content updates that added new levels, bosses, the “Othermine” true roguelike mode, and more.

Grab a pickaxe and delve into a mysterious mine where danger and riches await. Explore a hostile environment deep within the earth as a lowly peasant seeking freedom and fortune. Press further into the cavernous depths until that worker meets an untimely end and then send in the next poor sod, who will pick up their predecessor’s gear and hope a better fate.

Make the best of each peasant’s lot in life, using whatever’s on hand to aid in their subterranean travels and discover powerful relics, potions, gold, and more that someone, someday, might use to forge the perfect run. Along the way, miners will be forced to make tough decisions about whether to pinch pennies or spend their savings, going all-in to purchase a key item or upgrade.

Bomb walls and blow up rocks to uncover hidden passages, loot, and new allies buried within the mine while fending off the creatures that call its tunnels home. Then, at the end of each level, square off with massive, room-filling bosses that require strategy and skill to slay.

“We’re almost there!” said Derek Johnson, Founder, Thorium Entertainment. “We’ve spent years toiling away in the mines and we’re finally nearing the end of this run. Whether you’ve been with us the whole way or are just joining this journey, we look forward to showing you what lies at the end of the tunnel when UnderMine hits Xbox One, PC, and Game Pass this August.”

UnderMine launches Aug. 6 via the Xbox Game Pass subscription service and for $19.99 on Xbox One, Windows PC, Mac, and Linux. It is currently available via Steam Early Access for $14.99. UnderMine supports English, French, German, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian language options.

For more information, please visit UnderMine’s official website, check out the game on Twitter and Instagram, join the official Discord server, and follow Thorium on YouTube and Twitch.

 

About Thorium Entertainment

Founded in 2015 by Derek Johnson, with his fellow former Relic Entertainment co-worker Clint Tasker joining him, the two-person Vancouver studio brought together by their passion for games. The duo was inspired by their experience in AAA development and the processes that make those games great while having the benefits of independent development, such as artistic integrity and being true to themselves. At the end of the day, Thorium knows games are meant to be fun, and if they’re not enjoying the process, their players aren’t going to enjoy the game. UnderMine is the studio’s debut title, initially released for Steam Early Access in 2019.

Article by: Susan N.

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