Research into other games

Before I start the development on my project, I thought it would be a good idea to look into other games. Part of the inspiration for Mini Miner came from the game “Motherload”, a game that I used to play a lot in my teenage years. It was an epic game for it’s time, and all the kids at school had played it at least once. So as research for my project I decided to play it to look at some of the core elements of gameplay. While performing my playtest, I asked myself questions such as “What made this game so fun?” and “What mechanics are vital to this game’s success?”.

As the Player in this game, you are in charge of controlling a small mining ship. The game is fast-paced from the get-go, with the Player starting with the most minimal fuel. Fuel drains at a steady rate over time, but it’s not the only thing to be careful of. Flying down a hole and hitting the ground too hard incurs damage to the hull and hitting it too hard even blows the ship up in an instant. The main idea of the game is to mine ores, sell them at the shop to upgrade your ship, allowing you to mine further and further down. Some rocks block the way and require explosives to move. As you get further into the game, ores become harder to mine unless you upgrade the drill. The Player is notified at certain levels of depth that they are getting closer and closer to the Motherload via a transmission, and once you reach it (spoiler alert) there is an epic boss fight.

So, to quickly summarise: The Player must upgrade their ship as they go, be wary of fall damage, fuel usage and cargo capacity, all while heading towards one goal: hitting the motherload. I believe the what keeps the fun in this game is the requirement to manage many mechanics at once. The further you go, the harder it gets and so the higher the risk. But in this game risk really does equal reward.