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Gem Miner

drumcrazy

Newbie
Nov 6, 2009
27
0
If you have an addicting personality, or already addicted to games like RoboDefense, then I will warn you that Gem Miner will steal your soul as well. :)

I love this game!! New random generated mine every time. It advertises that it has a paid version but I can't find it on the market :( I will buy this game the second I find it.
 
I bought it as well for my Droid and really like it though it could benefit greatly from an in-depth manual. It took a while to realize you could connect elevators for example by just adding them while at the bottom of an existing one.

Great effort from the dev and I've been in game development circles most of my life. So many things that could be done with this moving forward. I'd love to have the these:

1. Stop the elevator at any point (or at least at the next "floor" where the old one stopped) and get out to have access to points all along the descent.

2. Buy lighting to fully lighten the mines by placing lights at key points.

3. Have generators where the generator can go out leaving me in the dark and needing to use a battery/light on my helmet with minimal visual depth and limited battery (built-in no need to buy or maybe better generations for longer life and deeper light but NO map when using it. You screwed up-deal with it or request rescue). Generators would have ratings of draw. The more things on them including length to each item would potentially wear it out. They also use gas so if that runs out so does my lighting. Thus I need to keep an eye on upgrading generators. Bigger ones could run more and be more fuel efficient.

4. Get dynamite to blast granite except for the borders.

5. Have the game keep track of my ability to get out of the tunnel with enough stamina (but not tell me) and allow me an option to "warp" out. In the lower levels it's tedious to get back through a long path.

6. In the reverse the ability to zip to the bottom of the elevator shaft. We're talking like 30 seconds to get to the bottom of a full run.

7. Secret minerals that can only be found with special equipment. Iridescent rock with the right helmet showing some rare mineral. Silt can't be seen with the naked eye and could lead to #13.

8. Why the huge pay-out at the end when you really can't use the cash for anything else at that point?

9. Ability to remove supports and ladders for say, raw material that can be used not to build 1-to-1 replacements but maybe 3-to-1. I also want it to be able to undo mistakes with granite that forever get stuck because I built a single support.

10. Option to make putting ladders up harder. I have to select a support. Why not a ladder? I've ruined many a trek simply because on trying to get out I ended up getting a bit quick and putting up extra ladders I don't need.

11. Also some smarts for mining around ladders. How many times have you walked forward only to dig out an extra unnecessary hole or dig out a horizontal block holding up a necessary ladder. If a ladder is on or next to a block make me double click before starting to remove it.

12. Rope. It'd be nice to buy and then if I go over a ledge just use it to climb down using it up in the process. Maybe I can even climb out with it using extra stamina. It would only be used when the fall would kill me. If the fall is longer than the rope I hang there and can climb up or dig my way out from the side.

13. Floods. I tap into an underground lake and it fills the terrain below me (or threatens to drown me if I don't have anything below me requiring me to rush out). I'd then need to buy pumps and get the water out.

14. Different-sized blocks. Some are several blocks tall, wide or both and I may spend all that time only to find it's not worth it thus causing the Seismic tool to become a lot more useful. I haven't used a single one in my current game.

15. Get rid of underground maps with #14. No one could put them there. They make no sense really. Make it an option.

16. Speaking of options let there be lots of them all rated. Forget Easy, Medium, Hard. Start me at easy and as I select various options it raises the difficulty bar.

17. Rats! Give me some life down there. I tap into an open area to find it infested with rats who can steal my stamina by biting me or making me ill. Then I go buy some traps. The more I use the less time it takes to eradicate the lair. Imagine rats with the lights off. Eeek eeek eeek. Ouch....

That's all just off the top of my head. What are others curious about?
 
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I had a UK Hero 1.5 and I bought Dig Deeper after trying the demo version, it's excellent. However, Dig Deeper isn't on the market on my new phone, the Desire 2.1, because Google are taking an age to authorise the firmware on the Desire, among others.

From the developer after I enquired about it missing a few days ago:
As you mention, the problem is that Google needs to authorize the HTC desire firmware on the market before copy protected apps appear. Unfortunately I can't push the issue as it's up to HTC to submit the firmware to Google. I expect they have already done so, but my experience with other phones is that it still takes at least a few weeks before everything filters through.

So thanks to copy protection, we can't buy it while people can pirate it. Way to go DRM, counter productive yet again.
 
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I've been playing this quite a bit.
Got quite a bit down by attaching elevators.

Teleport would be more useful if if worked both ways. Helps getting instantly back to the surface but takes ages to get to where you left it especailly if no lifts near by.

Only thing that really bothers me is that rock doesn't tend to fall when off screen. You sometimes get the vibrate feature, yet unless you can see it, it won't fall. Same with ladders....sometimes a whole line of them vanish due to you removing the bottom ones with the saw.

Added: Found the bottom of the mine and a large purple gem worth around $100,000.

Is there anything better than diamond? Found loads near the bottom and they're only worth around $115 each.
Added: Uranium at $120.

Tried the basic drill and it took 10x longer than the pickaxe to remove the simplest thing. Even the most advanced one is no better, unless it's just for decreasing stamina drop?
 
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Once you finish collecting all the minerals in the free game whats next? I've explored the entire mine, found everything there is to find and nothing happened. No congrats you cleared the level or anything. I was going to buy the full version but i don't know that it will give me any more satisfaction than the free version. Also the challenges don't seem to be very fun at all. I dunno maybe i was just expecting more.
 
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The full game has a few extra challenges such as:
Collect X amount of Y without using ladders.
Collect X amount of Y by only digging from beneath.

The full version is the same game although there's more mine, a few extra things to mine including a big gem at the bottom which gies around $100,000. Cash doesn't help much at that point as you pretty much have everything.
 
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(I'm using a Droid)

When I search Dig Deeper, all that comes up is Gem Miner and it says that it is already installed.

I think it's Gem Miner: Dig Deeper (by Psym Mobile). It's listed at UK currency 1.35 (about $1.99)...I think it adds walkways and a few other things, including medium and hard difficulty.

Any good gameplay strategies? I usually going straight down looking for the gold and other items.
 
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1. Stop the elevator at any point (or at least at the next "floor" where the old one stopped) and get out to have access to points all along the descent.

You can stop the lift at any point by pressing sideways, but you don't seem to be able to get off or dig sideways so I don't really see the point. Maybe this is a possible upgrade in the paid version?
 
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You can stop the lift at any point by pressing sideways, but you don't seem to be able to get off or dig sideways so I don't really see the point. Maybe this is a possible upgrade in the paid version?
Point to side ways stop for lift, is if you join 2 lifts in single vertical line,
without sideways stop it will keep going right through the pulley and you can't stop at midpoint. With sideways stop , then you can use the mid point again.
BTW thanks for the advice on sideways stop, up to now i'd been unable to figure how to do at top of second lift
 
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