Hey everyone!
In the coming time leading up to release I'll be posting a series of devblogs to spotlight certain elements of my upcoming game Mining Merchant.
I figured for the first post, I’d start with the basics of the game and go over the core gameplay loop. From here on, I’ll cover each element in a dedicated devblog. So with this one, I aim to give you a bit of an overview of the game and what’s to come.
👉Before we get into it, please add the game to your Steam wishlist to be notified when it launches!
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The basics
In Mining Merchant, your uncle’s once-thriving jewelry shop is crumbling, and it’s your job to bring it back to life. The core gameplay loop is like this:
Mining → Crafting → Shopkeeping → Upgrading → Repeat!
All while the story progresses alongside every stage. Let’s go over each part in more detail.
Mining
The day starts when you wake up and hop in your truck to head to a mining location of your choice. Once there, you select your mech and companion bot, and get to mining!
Each mech and companion bot has their own ability.
- Mechs have active abilities like Rock Breaker (which breaks any rock on screen) or Resource Magnet (which instantly collects all resources on screen).
- Companion bots have passive abilities like Magnify (10% chance to double collected resources) or Dirtbag (10% chance that collected dirt is destroyed instead of stored).
New in Mining Merchant is a leveling system! You now gain exp as you mine resources, earning skill points with each level-up. These points can be used to improve your mining stats, which apply to any mech you use. So every mech has its own pros and cons throughout the whole game.
Crafting
After extracting resources from underground, you’re ready to craft them into valuable jewelry to sell in your store. The crafting process consists of several stages:
- Smelting: turn raw metals into ingots
- Smithing: shape ingots into basic jewelry like rings and bracelets
- Gem Setting: add valuable gems to your jewelry pieces
- Packaging: polish and package your pieces to increase their value!
Shopkeeping
Once you've mined your resources and crafted them into valuable jewerly, it's time to return to your shop and make some money. Select which jewerly pieces you want to stock up and put on display, clean up, add some decorations and open up shop!
Customers will walk in to see if you've got something on display that they like. This can get hectic! Make sure your displays are stocked, help customers check out before they get impatient, and clean up trash to keep customers happy. Some customers will request custom orders from you and will return the next day to pick it up.
Upgrades
Once we've earned some exp and made some money, it's time to upgrade! There are 4 main upgrade categories:
- The shop: upgrade the shop by adding additional displays, storage racks, trash cans and decorations, or expand your floor space by adding entirely new floors.
- The truck: upgrade the crafting stations inside your truck to craft higher quality goods, and improve your truck's drill, dirt capacity and consumables to improve your mining efficiency.
- Mechs & Compation Bots: purchase and upgrade mechs and companion bots and acquire perks to improve their stats and abilities.
- Your character: your character levels up as you mine, earning you skill points used to improve your mining stats. These stats apply to any mech you enter!
Story
The story of Mining Merchant starts when you get called in to help your uncle in the big city. Your uncle’s once-thriving jewelry shop is crumbling, and he needs your help to bring it back to life.
But as you explore the underground and expand your shop, you quickly realize there's more than meets the eye. Mysterious earthquakes happen every night at midnight, collapsing the tunnels you dug the other day, thus keeping you from reaching new depths. But what's causing this, and why?
Please wishlist!
In the coming months, I’ll be writing dedicated devblogs for each of the topics above. Make sure you don’t miss anything by adding the game to your Steam wishlist and following the Mining Merchant Community Hub. Got questions or thoughts? Drop them in the comments below or ping me on Discord!
Wishlist Mining Merchant Follow the Franchise Page Join the Discord