UnderMine

Ah, yes, rogue -lites and -likes. I don't usually play them, as I said in a previous review. This thing about dying and losing everything is kinda bothersome, even though the -lites diminish the losses when compared to the -likes. Nevertheless, I saw UnderMine on sale years ago and decided to purchase it because, frankly, it looked cute. Now, after playing this title for a while and seeing most of what it offers, I think I can provide a reasonable opinion about the product. I'm giving it a thumbs-up in goodwill, but consider this a mixed analysis — I found way too many nagging problems which disappointed me greatly. It can be alluring to some people, though. Let's take a look.
First, a basic summary. UnderMine revolves around completing a randomized dungeon that is divided in five major areas, each one containing a boss at its end. Each run takes perhaps 90 minutes, if you're fast and lucky enough. A successful full run increases the difficulty level of the next. This mode is the -lite facet of the game, and you're expected to improve your character before facing further matches. After you complete your first run, the final boss arena is unlocked, but the story only requires you to kill him once in order to "finish" the main campaign. There's this optional slime boss that can be acessed through a door somewhere in this dungeon, but reaching and defeating it is too much of a pointless hassle. For the masochists out there, the developers created a secondary dungeon designed to function like a true -like experience, forcing players to start each attempt basically nude. I didn't waste much time on this one, honestly, due to its unforgiving nature.
Now, UnderMine's gameplay is quite simple. The camera's perspective is top-down, à la A Link to the Past. Your little dude has a pickaxe for a weapon. It can be swung in close range or thrown in the direction of your mouse pointer. He can also jump, which serves not only to cross chasms, but also to dodge harmful attacks and traps. Aside from whacking foes with your Trotsky killer, you can use it to mine gold from certain rocks and walls. This money can be brought back to the main hub after beating (or dying in) a run and be exchanged for consumable items and permanent stat upgrades for your adventurer. There's also a special currency, a purple crystal, which is seldom found and mined in the main dungeon. It is used to purchase tickets to the secondary dungeon and to acquire special recipes from select NPCs. These characters are encountered as you go spelunking in the mines, and they usually move to the hub after you complete their sidequests.
Three major elements influence your combat effectiveness and survival capabilities during a run: relics, potions and familiars. The first two are usually looted from chests and cannot be carried over to future runs, so you'll have to find them again constantly. Your familiar, on the other hand, is picked before starting the dungeon and stays with you until it is replaced with another. Relics, found in special containers, bestow special abilities or passive skills that are extremely handy or practically useless. Potions show up in common chests, but can also be dropped by certain monsters, or even looted from the special boxes. These are, obviously, consumed to provide a specific boon or temporary effect. Familiars may level up during a run and become more proficient at their job — their progress is reset in subsequent runs, however. The recipes that I mentioned earlier must be acquired before their respective relics and potions start showing up in the dungeon.
Not to be forgotten, you'll be constantly graced or punished during your runs by blessings and curses. Both are obtained in these altar rooms scattered throughout the dungeon, but they might also be encountered in containers or inflicted by enemies. Unlike the previous elements, these two are actually cumulative, meaning that you can get multiple blessings or curses of the same kind, potentially unleashing catastrophic outcomes. Blessings tend to stick with you until the end of a run. Curses, however, may be removed at altars for a health cost. Well, except the major ones, which really cause a lot of pain. This is where the fuckery of this game begins, ladies and gentlemen, so let's talk about my gripes with it.
As you probably imagined, one of my complaints here is the accumulation of curses. Depending on the circumstances, enemies may flood you with them. This becomes a major issue when you are unable to find good relics and potions to counterbalance all the bad mojo. The compounded negative effects will severely cripple your character, making your life excessively hard, especially after completing many runs and increasing the difficulty of the dungeon to a significant level. Moreover, some of the major curses are so debilitating that catching them effectively ends the run, so you have to be extra careful not to get afflicted. This imbalance highlights another problem: the usefulness of each item and the chances of their spawning.
See, this game has a gigantic amount of relics and potions, and they all provide specific benefits. As you perform runs, lots and lots of recipes show up. The urge to unlock them all will overcome you. Unfortunately, this isn't exactly the best idea, and I only realised this later in my playthroughs. In reality, some boons vastly outperform most of the others. The more you unlock different relics, the rarer it will be to find the ones that really matter. In other words, you might eventually put yourself in a position to be constantly overloaded with crap that won't contribute much to your survival, as the shoddy items end up taking the place of the good stuff. This problem is even more pronounced regarding potions. I saw myself finding loads of highly situational and impractical drinks, when all that I needed at those moments was a health elixir. Still, this isn't the issue that annoyed me the most.
Enemies in UnderMine come in many different varieties and may prove to be quite dangerous. There's definitely no shortage of strange creatures to fight here, and you'll have to quickly adapt yourself to each danger. Foes almost always hit hard and some can take a beating before perishing, forcing you to purchase those health and damage upgrades as soon as possible. I suppose the bosses, given their methodical nature, at least become easier to fight as you memorize their patterns. Ordinary creatures, though, tend to act more erratically. Your poor adventurer, I'm afraid, will eventually find him or herself struggling in general combat for two main reasons.
First, your repertoire of abilities is, as I implied earlier, rather limited. Get used to swinging that pickaxe, since it's basically the only weapon available. Sure, dropping bombs could help dispatch your foes, but the explosives might easily obliterate your character in the blink of an eye — you'll want to save them to remove obstructions, by the way. Yes, you may find that good stuff and gain some nice powers, but good luck with that endeavor. And second, it is not unusual to enter a random room and suddenly face a whole army of critters, which will proceed to unload a barrage of relentless attacks against the protagonist. Rest assured that your little jump maneuver sometimes won't be enough to avoid them. I should emphasize this: expect the game to unabashedly pack small rooms with hordes of enemies. Because screw you, that's why. I lost count of the runs that I failed due to this stupidity.
Wrapping this up, I should mention that UnderMine's graphics are reasonably nice. I enjoyed looking at the colorful sprites and fluid animations, but the randomized architecture of the dungeons sadly became somewhat drab and dull as I progressed in the game. I noticed no audio issues, at all, and the soundtrack was forgettable, honestly. So, if you enjoy rogue games, keep in mind the issues I exposed here.

Not a fan of roguelikes, and never have been. Something about spending hours getting to a point, only for it to all be lost. But this game man, I love this game. I don't know what about it makes it so appealing but it IS appealing. It was one of the first games I got on my computer, then I bought it again on steam. For four years, I've had this game, and it still hasn't gotten old. Recently 100% it, not because I was close, but because it was just fun enough to keep going. Can't recommend this enough, it's a crime it's so poorly known. (also seed 13812176 for a consistent potion loop)

Undermine is a fun and addictive rouge-like, but it is not without it's faults. If the faults didn't steamroll into each other they wouldn't even be as problematic. I'm recommending the game only cause there is no middle ground on steam reviews.
Issues:
Depth- This game has a lot of inconsistencies with mechanics, but the most glaring is depth. This game plays like an isometric, but it's really a top-down. You can stand behind walls, stones, and other objects in the game. These things give cover, and clearly shows that the world has a depth about it. This effect however is misleading as you have no depth as a player despite your shadow being directly under your feet showing a concept of depth. If a ranged attack comes at you from the left or right, you still have to move your entire body (which is very large when considering the size of most enemies) out of range. Which isn't an issue if the game sets this concept up for you by not allowing you to be "behind" other objects in the game or if they would make the player smaller.
Jumping-
The dodge mechanic in the game is jumping, but again there's inconsistencies with this. Jumping or leaping enemies can still be attack about half the time, so the idea of jumping being free of damage feels unreliable. This rolls into the issue with depth that just makes it more frustrating.
Hitboxes-
There's a lot of times in the game where I watch my character take damage from an attack that hasn't fully executed. The game freezes when you die, and I have lost count how many times I stared at the space between me and the enemy that killed me.

My Score: 9/10
Prologue
Gold, such a valuable and coveted yellow metal, has been used since ancient times as currency and a symbol of value, having been used to finance both good and bad things. With this historical size and prestige, it makes sense that even in fantasy worlds like this, Gold is so desired and valuable, and when the king of the kingdom of Delvemore, a medieval fantasy kingdom, discovers a huge mine full of gold to be explored, he immediately orders his servants to begin exploring the depths in search of the valuable metal to fill the kingdom's coffers, and perhaps a little of the pockets of the mine workers. ^^
Unfortunately for everyone, it doesn't take long to discover that these mines were far from ordinary, presenting very strange characteristics, such as every time a miner enters it is organized differently, full of monsters with an insatiable desire to eliminate humans, full of the most treacherous traps and falls, the environment and creatures changing completely every few levels down, and perhaps the most heinous of all, a veritable gang of Slimes that can appear anywhere in the mine and will shamelessly try to steal the precious gold. I hope you are ready to face all of this and even more new miner. ^^
Pros:
+ A true Roguelite where the deeper you go into the mines, the greater the dangers but also the rewards.
+ Different environments as we go deeper, each with their own unique creatures.
+ Very creative creatures, not all of them will attack you directly, some will summon allies, others will leave "gifts", and some of the attacks will do nothing, unless you attack them too, just to name a few.
+ Your trusty pickaxe, in addition to being used for hitting, can also be used as a boomerang that always finds its way back.
+ Very charismatic characters that can be found along the way, and sell very useful improvements.
+ Very nice graphics in pixelated style.
Cons:
- Like any good Roguelite, death will smile at you many, many times, so be prepared.
- Unfortunately, the protagonist's appearance is decided by drawing lots, but if you don't like the first one, you can draw lots again as many times as you want in the mirror.
- Throughout the game you can create new relics, as soon as you equip your character, but whether you end up winning or losing, from the next attempt onwards you will need to rely on luck to get the same relic again.
Game mechanics
And here begins the journey of our protagonist, one of many men and women ready to explore these mines in search of gold, equipped with they trusty pickaxe, as main weapon for melee attacks, and which curiously is also an excellent boomerang, always returning to its owner on they journey downwards. With every four floors changing to a new environment with new creatures, but also new ones finding new allies, who will return to your base and will be very happy to sell you improvements to make you better able to survive, or those who will come after you. ^^
I say this because there are two paths, you reach the bottom of the mine and return with all your gold and glory, or you die through one of the countless ways, leaving only a part of the gold you collected and all the improvements you bought for the next miner, who will try to follow the same path, but remember, we are talking about a mine that is always changing, like every good Roguelite, so always be ready for the unpredictable, for the creatures and traps will do everything to stop you, but nothing that a few good hits from your pickaxe, bombs, jumps to escape the traps and lots of food to recover health cannot solve. ^^
Art and sound
Produced by the Thorium studio team, I must say that I really liked the game's pixelated art and graphics, each type of environment that we encounter as we descend is unique, from the creatures including the bosses and characters to the walls and decorations, made in such a way that even passing through the same environments several times, they didn't seem repetitive or always the same thing. The soundtrack and effects are also good and pleasant to the ears, I just found it unfortunate that it was a bit easy to get distracted from it, especially when you're struggling in the last remnants of life. ^^
Conclusion
UnderMine, an experience I had full of ups and some very down, pardon the pun, the game is a very good Roguelite, with a very slow start, having to be careful in each new room so as not to be the last, but as you gather resources and knowledge, you become more and more powerful and better equipped to go further and further in the next attempt, but always with death ready to smile at you again and again, but never unfairly. Thus becoming a game that I highly recommend especially for those who like the genre, I guarantee that you will have many and many hours of fun, besides the sequel is a little over a month away from being released at the time I write this review. ^^

I think this was the first rogue-like game I have ever played. It was a brand new experience for me. It was quite hard initially getting used to the control especially because I was a newbie for action game as well. But eventually I was able to complete the main story, which really surprised me. I don't think I will ever muster up the will to finish another game like this so I will cherish this achievement in my heart for a long time to come.

Undermine is really fun and challenging, even after all these years. I keep coming back to it. Bring the sequel!

great game, typical rouge-like. It's my go to when I want a game that's not stressful