Deep Miner

Deep Miner is a slow, cozy mining tycoon set inside a cut-away 3D mountain. Your crew digs ore at the end of each tunnel, the lift carries it up, carts wheel it to the smelter and workshop, and the warehouse sells what comes out. You watch the whole chain at once and decide where the next coins should go.

The key idea is that the mine only runs as fast as its slowest part. If the tunnels dig more than the lift can carry, ore piles up; if the carts are slow, the lift waits. The game tells you which station is the bottleneck, and every upgrade is a small decision about where to spend. At first you tap the tunnels, the lift and the carts to set the crew to work. Later you hire managers, junior, senior or executive, who run a station on their own and have a skill to trigger, such as Rush for extra speed or Bargain for cheaper upgrades.

Tunnels, the lift, the carts, the smelter and the workshop all level up to 400, with bigger jumps at each tier. The smelter melts ore into bars worth more, and the workshop crafts bars into nails, tools, lanterns, clocks and crowns. Gems from milestones, geodes and expeditions pay for a research tree with five branches: Mining, Logistics, Industry, Crew and Trade. There are five mines, Clover Hills, Sunset Canyon, Frostpeak, Ember Depths and Crystal Hollow, with six ores each, and you open the next one by digging all six tunnels in the current mine. More than 170 milestones lead from the first coal seam to the starstone caves.

Some tips: always upgrade the slowest part of the chain first, since a fast tunnel feeding a slow lift earns nothing extra. Build the smelter and workshop early, because bars and crafted goods sell for much more than raw ore. Tap glinting geodes for gems, and use rich veins and merchant caravans, which briefly multiply output or prices. Levelling the tunnels of one mine earns mastery stars that raise sale prices everywhere.

When progress slows, an expedition sells your claims and starts you over with survey maps, each raising every sale price by 10% for good, while gems, research and milestones stay. Managed stations keep earning for up to two hours while you are away, longer with the Night Shift research. Deep Miner suits players who enjoy steady numbers and short check-ins, and it plays on computers, tablets and phones in any orientation.

At first you tap the tunnels, the lift and the carts to put the crew to work. Use what you earn to upgrade stations, check where the bottleneck is and invest there. As you hire managers, stations keep running without your taps.

Managers keep earning while you are away, so there is money waiting when you come back. Expeditions trade your claims for survey maps that raise every price for good, so each fresh start moves faster than the last.