In my introductory piece on this game I had mentioned how Delve Deeper looked to be an astounding addition the mining game genre, assuming, of course, that the game was going to play similarly to other games in the niche genre. I was wrong. As it turns out Delve Deeper is much, much more than those other games. But before we get to the review allow me to give a brief synopsis on the game.

In Delve Deeper you’ll be creating mines, literally. You’ll be deciding what your tunnels look like, whether they go up or down, etc. Then you’ll be sending in your Dwarves to remove all the valuables to take back to your king. The deeper you go, the farther you are away from base camp and the harder things get.

But I feel like I’m putting to much emphasis on the “mining” part. Delve Deeper is a game that is only loosely about mining. Mining is just the theme of the game. Delve Deeper is really about strategy, tactics, and exploration all with just a smidgen of RPG thrown in for good measure. It’s a game that, really, would make an excellent board game. Although that’s not to say it’s a bad video game. In fact, it’s a fantastic one.

Gameplay

As mentioned above Delve Deeper is, loosely, about mining. It’s the theme of the game. You control a squad of Dwarves that are tasked with getting the most amount of treasure to bring back to your king. Actually getting it, however, is where the other three core elements of the game come into play, all meshed together in a brilliant turn-based strategy that hearkens back to the old “just one more turn” formula.

Beginning a new game in Delve Deeper you don’t start out with a huge, already-built mine to begin to explore. No, you have to do this yourself. At the start of each turn you’re given the choice of using a tile to expand your mine in small hexagonal increments. These titles can send your mine up, down, left, right, or any combination of the aformentioned. This, in my opinion, is one of the best parts about the game. The fact that you could, literally, shape the mine the way you see fit means you have more control over your game and you’ll be less reliant on simple luck.

Now, that doesn’t mean you should just go wild and start creating mines haphazardly. There is a certain strategy involved that you’ll need to adhere to if you want to win. You see, while most of the mine is left for you to create, there will also be “pockets” that you can build into. These usually have something special within them, but they’ll also, more often than not, be filled with monsters. Additionally, you’ll probably want to avoid building into one of the other team’s mines, as you can very much attack each other to steal valuable treasure. While that may seem tempting, remember, you’re already dealing with a monster filled mine, adding other players into the midst is going to make things even more difficult.

Of course, when facing so many various challenges you’ll also need a few different types of Dwarves to manage. Delve Deeper supplies you with three types of Dwarves to get the job done: the fighter, the scout, and the miner. Each can do anything the other ones can, but each also specializes in one aspect. The fighter, for example is good at killing monsters (surprise!), the scout can mover farther, and the miner can hold more treasure. This gives the game some added tactics that you’ll want to consider before rushing off. After all, do you want to send your scout ahead to explore as much as possible first, or would you rather send your fighter in and make sure there isn’t going to be anything down there that’s going to kill you.

The only thing that really irked me about the actual Dwarves you control, is that you can’t queue up their movement, like you can in other turn based games. For example, let’s say you’re trying to get your Dwarf scout back to homebase, which is 13 hexagon tiles away. Each scout can only move 6 hexagons each turn. This means each turn you’ll have to manually set them back on the course for where they want to go as opposed to the game just doing it automatically. This is something that really annoyed me, especially after my years of playing Heroes of Might and Magic where this was such a common feature.

Immediately from the onset you’ll notice that Delve Deeper has a lot to offer. While it’s not a game that really provides hours of entertainment within the bounds of a single game, there is plenty of replay value. Delve Deeper comes with a number of pre-made maps, each of which has its own turn limit and unique map layout. However, should you feel like these maps are woefully inadequate, feel free to create your own. The game comes with a very extensive map editor, if not a little confusing at first. Still though, the fact that they included this at all is good seeing as how it can only add to the game.

The only feature that’s really missing from a game such as this, is any sort of multiplayer. Which is kind of a shame. I mean, I’m not one to play a game like this online, but I can definitely get into a good game of “pass-the-laptop” hotseat every once in a while. Plus, this game has short enough turns that it certainly wouldn’t hamper the experience at all. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be. Maybe the Xbox version will get a multiplayer mode. Nevermind, I’m daft. There is multiplayer, I just didn’t realize where it was. When selecting your choice of team, a player only has to plug in an extra controller and you’re good to go. Each person selects a team and you guys are set up for some hotseat multiplayer action. There is still no online mltiplayer, however.

Finally, and I just have to mention this, Delve Deeper comes with full support for an Xbox 360 gamepad on the PC. This should be a mandatory requirement for almost all PC games. I love the mouse/keyboard combo for some types of games — RTS’s mostly — but for a game such as this, it’s far more comfortable to be able to just sit back and use a gamepad. Kudos to the developers for including this.

Style

Graphically, Delve Deeper is very charming. I won’t say it has the best graphics or that they’re particularly unique. But the game looks good, and there’s really nothing to complain about. I wouldn’t even go so far as to call it “retro.” It’s just a decent lookng game.

The audio, on the other hand, was done really well. The music all sounds very epic and Dwarven-like, if that makes any sense at all. It’s loud, orchestral, and comes with plenty of booming drums. That’s the best way I can describe it.

Story

There’s really no story to Delve Deeper. You’re basically just trying to score the most treasure for your king. That said, however, I will acknowledge whoever wrote the descriptions for the various treasures. While not directly story related, the treasure descriptions were well done and often funny.

Everything Else

Despite being a relatively short game, usually less than an hour, for some reason the developer didn’t include a save/load feature. Which means if you want to quit, but come back to your game later, you’re just going to have to leave the program open, in pause, and come back later. I don’t know why this wasn’t included, but it definitely makes me more reluctant to load the game if I’m under any sort of time constraint.

Regardless of a few key problems, Delve Deeper is a great experience and you’re getting it all for $5. For a game like this, that’s a great price. In fact, I’d say $10 wouldn’t be unreasonable were the developer to include some missing “features.” Still though, I highly recommend at least giving the game’s demo a run through. It’s totally worth it!

[Buy/Try]

[The developers of Delve Deeper, Lunar Giant, gave us a copy for reviewing purposes. This, in no way, affected the outcome of the review.]