How do you take something that should be boring and make it engaging? That’s an honest to god question I ask myself with some of the games I’ve played for this site, and the reason for that is because some of these have very niche audiences and are just kinda weird. There’s one simple answer to this question and that is the gameplay loop. It’s what you’ll be doing throughout the entire game in a repetitive manner, but the catch is that if you can switch up the gameplay loop in such a way it won’t become annoying. You don’t remove the overall focus, but find unique ways to challenge the player. One method you could try out is throwing a random blend of ideas into the mix.
Let’s take Return of The Obra Dinn by Lucas Pope for instance. Solving a murder sounds plain on paper, but Lucas Pope forces the player to use key deduction and process of elimination to figure out what happened to sixty individuals aboard a trade ship. The player isn’t told who is exactly who and it's this curiosity that motivates the player to figure stuff out overtime so that they piece together more of the puzzle. That wasn’t the first time Lucas Pope took a basic idea and made it into an engaging gameplay loop. His previous game Papers, Please took the idea of stamping passports and made it engaging by ramping up the difficulty with each passing day and forcing the player to work more efficiently so they can determine who gets to cross the border and how much they get paid so they can feed their family. Not only that, but it was also difficult to be a good person in Papers, Please as your action could determine whether the world around you became a better place and the endings NPCs got. That’s enough about Lucas Pope and his one-two punch combo. Another good example of a gameplay loop that captured my attention was with Death Stranding. You walk across open fields and deliver packages. Pretty boring stuff, but it’s all the elements in between that made this cycle engaging. Planning out each trip, figuring out what to bring, and eventually taking your time as the terrain tried to work against you. That and how the journey of Sam became personal. We’re not here for Death Stranding either. We’re here to talk about one of the few most unique indie franchises to come out in the last decade. Image & Form was a small studio founded in 1997 by Brian Sigurgeirsson and one of his friends who remains unknown to this day.
Brian and his friend were trying to decide whether to name the studio Imagination or Monkey Business, so they decided to put it to a vote with the rest of the development team and the team opted for the third option which was Image & Form. Probably for the best. The team started their careers off by developing edutainment games which were made specifically to educate young children through interactive gameplay. Image & Form made about thirty or so edutainment games until they sold their edutainment franchises to a Danish Publisher who then went out of business in 2009. Image & Form was getting quite tired of making edutainment, and decided to go ahead and make actual video games. They developed and published several games on iOS which is a pretty decent start for an indie company. It wasn’t until 2010 that they published their first game on consoles, SteamWorld Tower Defense for the Nintendo DS. It was okay, I mean I don’t know why you would start off with a tower defense game of all things.
However, Image & Form were quite fond of the SteamWorld idea so they decided to stretch it even further. How about we take these steampunk punks and put them in the wild west? Wait even better! Let’s make them coal miners. That is what eventually led to the idea for SteamWorld Dig which came out in 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS and PC. How do you take digging underground and turn it into a successful idea? Well Image & Form somehow pulled it off. They made digging underground for minerals actually fun. Well, there’s Minecraft but digging wasn’t the main point of that game. SteamWorld Dig received quite a bit of praise from critics for how it blended together digging, progression, the steampunk setting, and metroidvania styled exploration all so perfectly. It wasn’t a perfect video game, but it was innovative for it’s time and a nice diversion from all the action games at the time. Image & Form saw the success of their latest game and decided to take SteamWorld and turn it into a full fledged franchise.
They released SteamWorld Heist in 2015, a turn based tactical RPG where you raid ships across a vast solar system. SteamWorld Quest in 2019, a deck building RPG that took place in a fantasy setting. Then back in 2017 they released a sequel to SteamWorld Dig simply known as SteamWorld Dig 2. A lot of fans of the first SteamWorld Dig were really hyped for the sequel and hoped it would fix some of the core problems the first game had while continuing the adventure with the characters they grew to love. Luckily, SteamWorld Dig 2 did exactly that. It was more of the underground mining they knew from the first time, but bigger and brighter than ever. Recently I took the time to sit down and see what all the fuss was about SteamWorld Dig 2. I’m going to be clear with you right now. I have no knowledge of the SteamWorld series and I haven’t even played the original SteamWorld Dig, but SteamWorld Dig 2 delivers on what it sets out to do. I didn’t expect digging deep into the earth would be this engaging and while it’s not the best metroidvania I’ve played it is certainly one of the more interesting ones. So today we’ll be talking about why I quite liked SteamWorld Dig 2 and why it deserves your attention. So pick up your pickaxe and prepare to dig deep in this steampunk world.
Story
What I’m about to do is exaggerate the universe of Steamworld right now for the sake of entertaining you readers, but what I’m about to say is somewhat close to the steampunk world Image & Form intended. The SteamWorld series takes place several years in the future where mankind is practically nonexistent and robots now roam the empty world they left behind. These robots adopted some of the daily tasks and traits of mankind’s past and began to rebuild society. They established small villages stylized after old western cities, and dug deep into the earth for minerals to help build these towns and economy. In the last entry we played as Rusty, a small cowboy miner who dug deep into the earth to see what mysteries may lie down there. Along his journey he discovered mysterious machines that once belonged to the human race and figured out what led to the mass extinction of mankind. A group of robots known as Vectron were getting ready to wipe out whatever was left on the surface, but Rusty located their leader and blew up their base before they could carry out their devious plan. Rusty now wanders the vast desert in search of other robots that may need his help.
However, during one of Rusty’s most recent adventures he went missing and hasn’t been seen since. Luckily one of his close friends, Dorothy, who is also a mining robot has decided to seek his whereabouts. Dorothy is told the last village Rusty went to was the happy town of El Machino, so she makes her way there to ask the residents where he went next during his travels. On her way there the ground begins to shake and she falls into some unknown ruins. While locating the way out she fights an ancient machine possessing an amonous blue glow, and once she blows it up she meets a flying ball of energy named Fenn. Fenn is a remnant of whatever is left of Vectron, and plans to help Dorothy locate where Rusty could possibly be. Once Dorothy makes it to El Manchino the residents tell her a series of earthquakes have been happening recently and they have gotten more violent overtime. Rusty was sent down below the surface to see if the earthquakes were being caused by some living force and that is what led to his disappearance. So now it’s up to Dorothy to find where Rusty may be.
Gameplay
The main core gameplay loop of SteamWorld Dig 2 is of course digging, but the game can mainly be classified as a metroidvania due to its emphasis on exploration and unlocking upgrades that open up new mandatory portions of the world. You could just blast through areas by digging straight paths, but the game does want you to be careful of where you decide to dig. You need to dig yourself a safe path so you can avoid dangerous hazards like falling debris and enemies navigating the tunnels, reach mineral deposits, and be able to backtrack to areas you ventured through before so if you dig into a solid stone wall you can climb back up and start digging a new path. So basically in simpler terms, digging straight down or in a straight path isn’t always going to be a viable option. You can unlock warp pipes that allow you to backtrack to previous areas, but the paths you dug will still remain and won’t reset when you come back.
The minerals you collect are extremely important, because you can exchange them with a merchant named Mr. Barnacle for gold. The gold you acquire can then be used to improve the efficiency of your gear which in turn will help you survive longer and pick up more minerals along your journey. You can already see how certain elements are coming into play to form the core gameplay loop. If you die which will either be from taking too much damage or getting crushed by a stone block you’ll lose some of the minerals you have acquired and be spawned back at El Machino. There are a few enemies that will try to kill you like bugs and giant birds, but luckily you can defeat them using the pickaxe you have. Combat isn’t encouraged though, because your pickaxe isn’t designed for fighting and enemies knock your health bar down quickly.
Besides emptying your pockets of collected minerals there are other reasons to travel back up to El Machino. To refill your health bar and refuel your lantern. The lantern is what allows you to see what minerals and hazards lie ahead of you. Once the fuel for it runs out you’ll be unable to see where you are digging. So you always want to make sure you have your lantern fueled and that you light torches along the way. Every so often you’ll encounter caves or hidden passages. These hidden areas will either contain collectibles like relics or upgrade gears. Gears can be used to give Dorothy special equipable perks. These perks include more resistance to certain damage types and much more. With the right combination of perks you can dig more efficiently. However, certain perks can only be acquired when you are a certain level. To level up you need to accumulate experience points, and experience points can only be earned by killing enemies or completely story objectives. Which is how most level up systems work in video games, so I don’t even know why I needed to explain this.
The upgrades you unlock through pure exploration and discovery, metroidvania styled, will give Dorothy new gadgets to traverse the underground. These upgrades include a sticky bomb that can be attached to surfaces, a grappling hook that pulls Dorothy towards where she aims it, a jackhammer that drills through brick blocks, and much more. These items may even help you collect more hard to reach minerals. Adding to that core gameplay loop. Dig, collect, get stronger, collect, and dig some more. Some items like the jackhammer and sticky bomb are fueled by water and once your water meter runs out you can no longer use them. You can either travel back up to El Machino to refuel on water or find water deposits which become really common the deeper you go. Fun tip though. The sticky bomb is useful for eliminating enemies from afar, and the jackhammer can deal damage much faster than your standarized pickaxe. Make use of them while you can. That’s all I can really say about SteamWorld Dig 2 and how it’s gameplay loop works. A core loop that expands overtime and becomes more engaging with each upgrade you unlock. Hopefully you can find Rusty, bring him back to the surface, and discover the mysteries lying deep beneath the earth.
Thoughts
SteamWorld Dig 2 is a great follow up that I was not expecting to like so much. There’s quite a few things this game gets right, and elements I was not expecting to work but ended up surprising me and loving the game even more. Planning where to dig so that you not only form a safe path to where you want to go, but you can also reach your destination and resources needed to grow stronger. The player always wants to pick up minerals so you can exchange them for the upgrades you want. Knowing when to backtrack to certain areas so you can either farm for more minerals, dig new paths forward, or progress with the main story if that is your priority.
I really liked the artstyle for this game. It’s all hand drawn, makes use of polygons, and has this very shiny texture. Makes sense for two different reasons. You are digging into the earth for gems, and gems are often known for the shine they possess. The world takes place in a steampunk robot filled universe, so the metal they are made out of shines as the sun beats down on them. It’s very charming as all hand drawn artstyles are, and helps the game separate itself from other metroidvanias. There is nothing wrong with pixel graphics, and to be honest I like pixel graphics a tad bit more than realism because you can do amazing stuff with pixel art. However, if you’re making a game which takes place in a two dimensional plane I prefer hand drawn animation. It not only fits in more, but just… well it just looks good okay!?
The game is about five to seven hours depending on whether you decide to get as many upgrades as possible or go on straight ahead and progress with the story, but that’s a pretty good run time since the game doesn't overstay its welcome. Plus the gameplay loop digging would get really tedious if the game was about ten to fifthteen plus hours long. There is a fair amount of replay value to be had with SteamWorld Dig 2. Mainly with the amount of secrets to discover, upgrades to unlock, the satisfaction of knowing that the minerals you went out of your way to collect led to something good, and how you can navigate the game differently on new playthroughs. Would have been nice if there was a NG+ mode, especially since some upgrades take awhile to unlock.
I looked this up, but the original SteamWorld Dig relied on procedural generation while the sequel doesn’t rely so much on it. A procedurally generated metroidvania isn’t such a good idea, because there’s not much distinction of where things are and having a set outmap just feels more natural. SteamWorld Dig is one of the games that benefits from procedural generation, but it’s probably for the best that they removed it in the sequel. Maybe speedrunners can have an easier time going through a memorizable world. The game is pretty fair, not easy, just fair. You may die a few times from either accidents or trying to dig to areas you weren’t supposed to go, but the challenge ramps up consistently and the player is never overwhelmed with several odds.
While I quite enjoyed SteamWorld Dig 2 there are few problems this game has. I don’t really understand why you can only use your pickaxe when standing on a solid surface. Would have helped out a lot if you could swing it while in midair or clinging on walls, especially since it's easy to miss certain mineral deposits and when they're floating slightly above you. It’s also kinda stupid how the game has three reasons for you to revisit the surface. Refilling your health bar and emptying your pockets of minerals is something I can understand, but the third option which is refueling your lantern is something I don’t understand. It would have been nice if the warp pipes had stations where you can refuel the lantern like a tube that deposits oil since the warp pipes are basically steam valves, but now we have to warp back to El Machino. I guess warping isn’t a major problem, you don’t have to sit through a loading screen just to go back to El Machino then back to where you originally were. My last problem is that it lacks the interconnectedness of a majority of metroidvanias, but at the same time it would have been more confusing to navigate the underground if there were several dead ends. So the linearity helps justify just digging straight down, and that’s all you really need.
Problems aside, SteamWorld Dig 2 is one of the few gems I played recently and I can happily recommend it to those who love to have a good sense of progression. Not many games have taken on a gameplay loop like SteamWorld Dig, but I don’t mind since Image & Form obviously got the idea. It’s well paced and can offer a nice break from all the action heavy stuff you probably been playing recently. Especially me right now, because I’m going through some intense action games right now like for future reviews.. In the end I give SteamWorld Dig 2 an 8.5/10 for being pretty good.
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