Retromine
Dig to the center of the earth in Retromine, an incremental mining & deckbuilding roguelike! Delve into the mines, where you can play cards to mine resources and score points, and escape before the caves collapse. When you survive an expedition, spend resources you gathered to buy new cards, upgrade your deck, and create powerful card combos. Reach the core to win!
Retromine is a super challenging game - if you manage to win, post a screenshot of your victory in the comments!
Controls
General
Esc - Pause Menu
LShift - Show hotkeys
Expedition
Left click - Play cards & interact
Right click - Reorder cards in your hand & cancel a selected tool
E - End turn
D - View deck
A - View draw pile
S - View discard pile
Shop Controls
D - View deck
G - Start next expedition
R - Reroll
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Download
Development log
- Huge new update! Demo v2!19 days ago
- Retromine full demo release!78 days ago
Comments
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with the minecarts i got to draw my whole deck every turn
I have encountered a bug that causes things to sometimes cost way more than the listed ore and leave you with negative ore.
sorry to hear that - please let me know if you can have further details or can find a reliable way to replicate this bug and i'll have it patched right quick <3
from what I can tell, it only does it after the first time you lose or win, and i think it's keeping the previous cost underneath or it's pressing the button twice in the same moment. best I can do
I did eventually end up winning regardless, the fix to the bug is uninstall, reinstall. the way to beat the game is prioritize boosting one scorium as high as possible while getting energy and positive card draw from minecart and the creature
This game is so addicting and fun!! The new card system looks absolutely amazing! My fave card is the creature <3
omg finally did it with a single big beefy scorium!
so good, awesome game : ) i love the polish on the cards, music, sfx, overall mood.
Neat thing! Beat it in two. The two separate resources make for fun multi-dimensional decisionmaking. Always fun to see what happens to the deckbuilder design space when a different mechanic becomes central - in this case, meta-scaling.
On that front, the non-scaling payload cards (i.e. axolotl, map, mole) feel like a trap to me. Maybe they help you out at the start, but they only bog you down near the end of the game. May some sort of action-card-specific synergies are in order? "The next action card you play is played twice"? "Action cards are free this turn"?
More broadly, I think the game could use some more diversity of viable strategies. Right now I suspect all winning decks are roughly the same-- one or two big, pumped-up scoriums that you try to play as often as possible. There's decent flexibility even within that, but it'd be nice to have some other win conditions. Something with action cards? Lots of smaller scoriums?
Anywho, fun game! Looking forward to see where you go with it!
ty for the feedback - totally get what you're saying. i'm simmering on a card & content update right now and i could totally use some ideas like this for some secondary archetypes that would make the game more interesting!
Cool! I'll do some pondering and see what I can come up with.
Lot's of fun :)
Super Fun!
Nah I'd win
Congrats, such an awesome game! Got to the end with a very thin deck and big multiplying score and ore-ium! Great work!
What a fantastic little game, had me hooked nearly the whole morning trying to figure out how to beat it. Super cool :)
Almost bizarrely delightful and extremely satisfying. Well done!
Awe, I wanted to continue playing with my broken deck
I do have a minor comment though - any idea why the game is so resource intensive? I've noticed quite a bit of fan activity, not quite sure why as nothing too fancy seems to be going on.
so sorry you're having trouble! i haven't been able to replicate this on my machine but i'll look into it, thanks so much for keeping up with the project <3
Just dropping by to say it is so nice to see a great little jam game continue to be supported and lots of people mentioning they played it at a game jam.
Keep up the great work!
My friends and i absolutely loved playing the demo at PRGE! It was great to meet you and I hope you'll keep developing this :)
My girlfriend and I had so much fun playing this game at PRGE!! I definitely can see the Dominion inspiration in it, I'm excited for any updates you make to it!
Love the game! My 7 y.o. daughter and I met you at Portland Retro Game Expo and enjoyed the demo there! I'm happy to say I the first thing I did upon getting home was download the demo and play full run of my own. I completed a run and really the enjoyed getting some amazing synergy of Smelter + Minecart. I love it! Best of luck!
had the best time meeting you two, you and your daughter were so cute!! thanks for playing + supporting!!
I like the game, but it would be nice if there was an endless mode
I didn't like the fact that I must play exactly as intended, otherwise would die. Every time I play a room I can just die no matter the tactic. The only thing that matters is my card loadout, that is filled randomly. I would really like for the cards to shuffle in a way, so that there will always be a way to clear the room, and the only thing that will be punished is my choice of what resource/action I have picked(activated, not bought).
Also, just a nitpick, but could you change the yellow resource to something else or explain its value? Because now it looks like the character is so greedy, they can't get out of the collapsing cave because they still want some gold.
Other than that, the game is really good. I was flown away with the addictiveness of this gameplay(but unfair punishments pulled me out)
Amazing game so far! I can't wait for updates!
I love how its actually hard to win
Very good game, that has a lot of space for further improvement. Solid foundation! Please keep the mac builds coming =)
really like this game. Super clean interface, easy-to-understand rule set that unfolds into a fairly deep decision tree. I <3 the graphics and graphic design! I could see myself playing this on steamdeck for exteded play sessions or on my phone while waiting for a train or something. (I think it could use a hyper-geometric probabilities analysis? ) Not sure if the intent is to force me to lose on some runs. In any case, I don’t believe there is a fundamental flaw in the design or anything like that. I think we just need to fine tune the distribution curve a bit to push the player in an intentional direction – at least in the beginning. I don’t know though. I find it quite enjoyable as is. (awesome cantrips btw!!)
Oh, this has potential to be very addicting
It looks really good and the UX for hovering, and clicking is exceptional. The appearance is very clean and professional. Although the tutorial page was helpful, it was a lot at once, so a little overwhelming and I had to interpret text and imagine gameplay rather than relevant text apparent during gameplay.
It would really help if you added specific, concise player feedback or instruction in context, such as on the buy a card page, to say "buy cards with ore" something like that. "Collect scorium to escape"
Tooltips: Tooltips could really help a newbie like me. Here's a pic of what I mean, tooltips in godot: https://www.screencast.com/t/CFS17hiNY
Balance: It felt like success was out of my control when I selected max scorium on all turns and couldn't collect enough. this was on round 4.
Replayability: There was no currency that allowed me to purchase persistent upgrades, so I expected to be short scorium again without me being able to control it, so I didn't play again. I would have played multiple times if I was earning something persistent.
Great work, hopefully this is helpful!
I love this game! The pixel art is so cute and really well done, and it's so fun to try and strategize with all the different cards! Great job <3
This was my favorite game of the jam! I wish there were more than 10 levels just to see how far I can go, but that won't stop me from replaying this again and again trying to maximize my score.
such a high compliment, thank you so much!!!! i would love to expand the game to more levels in the future
this is an awesome game!! I love the art style, the crunchy sfx, and I really enjoyed the balance between the two resources! Really scratches that "just one more round" itch!
thanks so much! i will def be checking out your submission as well <3
Love this game! The art is really cute (cave bug and fruit bat my beloveds) and it feels super great to play !!
Have already spent several hours on it, and I plan on spending many more :D
<3 <3 THANK YOUUU
Awesome game, very satisfying and clean
thanks ryan!!! :D
Such good stuff! I got an infinite combo which felt immensely satisfying to pull off.
SO COOL!! i tried to create an infinite when i was making the game but couldn't manage it. if you remember, which cards did you pull it off with?
It was a combination of the zero cost card that let you draw 2 cards and the card that drew one card and gave you energy. I had duplicates for both of those and a trimmed deck. Again, really nice stuff!
wow, awesome, i'll have to try it... can't wait to check out ratatoskr as well :D ty!
This is very cute and fun! Love the pixel art cards as well, really well done!
thank you so much wren!
The game is cool! It feels a bit like a puzzle instead of just only a deckbuilder right now, which is good in my opinion.
I hope you will add to it, as it's a good start :)
Some feedbacks:
- The first round is always strategically the same, with a reward of 6 ore.
- The mineshaft seams too strong, as it gives 10 ores and score for 1 energy, where even a big chuck of ore have a 5 for 1 ratio.
- Some cards are basically free to play while in your hand, like the helmet, the smeltery or the fruit bat, but maybe it's on purpose. They take an hand slots and cost 1 energy, but make you draw 1 and gain 2 energy, so you're in the same situation after playing them than before. They are just no brainier to get.
- And so, if you focus on those cards, the game become easy to beat.
Some ideas:
- Having various starter deck. Usually, deckbuilder have basic cards and one or two more specific.
- Adding trade-off for cards. For instance, reduce the cost of one resource card but increase the cost of an other. Or draw 3 cards then discard 2. Or increase a resource card value but increase is cost too. That way, the choice made will be more meaningful.
thanks so much ben, this super thoughtful feedback :D
i have noticed the first round is always the same, i considered adding a special card to the deck at the start but couldn't balance it before the deadline (same reason i didn't add starter decks - just out of the scope basically)
as for the "freebie" style cards, this game is heavily inspired by the board game dominion which revolves a lot around "cantrip" cards which are free to play and provide a small benefit. in this game, the "cost" is simply adding them to your deck. i think you might be right though, perhaps they are a little overtuned :)
i love your idea about the trade off cards as well, i think that would add a lot to the game! i would definitely like to make the choices between cards more meaningful. i can definitely tell from your comment you played a bunch and that means the world <3 i will def use these ideas to improve the game!!
Fun little game!
thank you!! <3