Deepcut

About Deepcut

Deepcut gives you a pickaxe, a headlamp that lights about twelve metres, and one goal: reach the gem at the bottom of an 800 metre shaft as fast as you can. There are no menus, inventory or shop once you start. Touching ore upgrades you on the spot, adding armour, a better pickaxe or explosive charges, but every mineral you go after is a detour that costs time.

Falling is faster than digging, and far more dangerous. The real choice in every run is how big a drop you will risk with the health you have left. Shale caves in on your head when you mine beneath it, magma can be heard across a chamber before you see it, gas pockets vent on a three second cycle and blind you, and fulminite blows up three seconds after you hit it.

On the menu you pick between the DAILY world and a CUSTOM seed. The daily seed is built from the UTC date, so everyone plays the same world that day, and the menu counts down to the next one. You can run it as often as you like; your streak counts days rather than attempts, and once you have set a time, splits appear every 100 metres. A Casual mode turns the clock off for those who just want to go down.

There are 35 achievements for depth, gems and finishing under 25, 20, 15 and 10 minutes, ten pickaxe skins to earn, and music that changes as you go deeper. Keys can be rebound, and field of view and screen shake can be adjusted. The itch page notes that you should go fullscreen before starting, or mouse look will not work in the browser.

How to play Deepcut

1. Open the itch page, press Run game and go fullscreen.
2. On the menu leave MODE on TIMED and WORLD on DAILY, then press DESCEND.
3. Move with WASD and jump with Space; left click mines, right click is a heavy break, and Q uses a charge.
4. Grab ore when it is close to upgrade your armour, pickaxe and charges, and decide when a drop is worth the health.
5. Reach the gem 800 metres down; run the daily again to beat your time, using the splits every 100 metres.

Screenshots

Tips

• A long drop saves more time than digging, so keep enough health to survive one when you see an opening.
• Listen for magma: it can be heard across a chamber before your headlamp reaches it.
• Step away after hitting fulminite; it explodes three seconds later and takes part of the wall with it.
• Do not mine directly under shale, which falls on whoever dug beneath it.

Questions