Ship Miner
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  • Jul 15, 2026

    To prepare for EA release I started working on adding more replayability through metagame unlocks. Having different ships sounds like a reasonable first thing to have in a game named “Ship” Miner.

    Introduction

    In order to increase replayability, playing with a new ship should provide a different experience when playing the game again. That doesn’t mean the core game should change but more like looking at the same game with different lenses.

    The approach I want is more like Dome Keeper or FTL where playing with unlocked content is optional and not like Wall World for example where you have to unlock metagame content in order to progress inside the game and in order to beat it.

    How to unlock the new Ships

    My plan for unlocking ships is to complete different objectives, could be complete the game, complete a specific achievement or complete missions inside the game (same asteroid or not).

    However, since I don’t have support for that right now, I suppose I initially would unlock them by completing asteroids or the game itself, and once I start having more content then improve how/when to unlock it.

    First ships and thoughts on playing

    Right now I am working on a couple of ships that will be there for next playtest version.

    Dual Rays (or the one that is the same but not the same for now)

    One of them starts with double rays (now mining devices) and different initial stats, it is faster while not using the mining device but slower while using it and it is a bit more fragile.

    • Fast
    • Fragile
    • Powerful

    I didn’t play too much with this Ship but I liked the double ray on start, it feels more powerful, and I like it moves faster than the other one. I still don’t feel it so different than the main one but maybe it is ok since I needed a test of having a different “starting” values.

    However, I want to continue playing with its balance and with how the weapon behaves. I imagine one change could be that the rays do some attack pattern or increase a bit the speed penalty while using the mining device but make it really more powerful. Or maybe change it to be more like a electric/lighting charges that do some random spot attacks and some stat improvements could be to control it a bit better.

    The Bomber

    The other one is a long range one, it fires mining bombs from the “mining devices” (not weapons!). It doesn’t have movement penalty while using the mining device (at least for now) and it is a bit more resistant but it is slower in general. It has stats to upgrade for the bombs blast damage and radius.

    • Slow
    • Long range
    • Area damage

    For this one, it feels the gameplay is already different, I played more from long distance and that changed a bit how I normally approach the asteroid. Mining the asteroid feels a bit more chaotic but also more powerful (might have some balance to do yet). It is easier to kill current big enemies since I am in a safe place most of the time and since it has no movement penalty I could dodge while charging attacks at the same time. I believe I need to nerf it a bit or find some interesting enemies that make the game harder in some situations with this ship.

    Other ideas to try

    • The builder: it relies on building drones or mining stations (or something similar) close to the asteroid, could recycle them or move them with the main mining device.
    • The driller: it is pretty good for mining in close distance, could be faster if going in straight line for example and/or needs to charge the drill and then can’t change direction. Could also be more “active” ability type, where the main device charge does some kind of dash forward and that’s how it mines differently from others.
    • The bouncer: it accelerates fast and breaks the asteroid by hitting it, similar to dome keeper (and similar to one of the tech upgrades I have right now).

    In all of them the core thing to have in mind is how they use the current controls of the game, what can I do as a player when using that ship. That’s something more clear for some ships than others.

    One thing that happened while iterating on ships is that it feels that some of the current tech I have for the main ship doesn’t work well for the other ships, so I deactivated them for those ships but also made me realize that maybe each ship could have its own special tech that could either maximize some of the ship’s uniqueness or could minimize some of its weaknesses.

    I like the driller as a really different version, maybe I change the double ray with that one and then share it in the playtest version and stop working for now. I will let it bake for a bit, wait for feedback, work on the rest of the game, get new ideas and/or inspiration from other things in the game, and then come back to add more ships, probably closer to the EA release and/or while in EA.

    Selecting ship screen (the hangar)

    For the selection screen, I am not super sure what to do but I really like games where there is a mix of ingame and ui in order to do metagame actions, and in this case I created a selection level where you use a small shuttle ship and take control of the ship you want to use for the game. There you can experience a bit the basic stuff and see the stats, etc, and once you are decided, you can start the game.

    For the future I still prefer having something like this but maybe adding some ui to show other information like the ship is locked and maybe show hint in how to unlock it or show the specific way to unlock it, for example: complete the game once.

    First game experience

    Another thing to consider is not overwhelm the players showing too much from the beginning but at the same time show the game has different ships. I suppose one path here is to delegate that information to the trailer, steam page, description, etc, and then have an initial clean experience where the game goes directly to the ingame and doesn’t show there are different ships or anything.

    However, I believe the best place to communicate what the game has is the game. So I might end up with a mixed solution like showing the hangar button but not allowing you to enter but still show some information like “Select different ships. Complete a small asteroid to unlock” when you press the button. Since I am still undecided I will wait to be closer to the EA release to define this.

    Conclusion

    If you have ideas for different ships or unlockable content you want to see in the game, feel free to add a comment here, in steam discussions or join discord.

    As always, Thanks so much for reading!

  • Sep 19, 2025

    Your browser does not support the video tag. Demo Announcement Video

    I’ve just released the Demo of Ship Miner :rocket: Weeee!!! But, does that means the game is almost done? No, it is far from over. In this blogpost I will explain what happened from the last Roadmap update, the new importance for having a Demo and the updated Roadmap.

    In a previous post I explained that one of the reasons for having a Demo was to start getting feedback of the game. My mental plan at that time was to release it by the end of June but that didn’t happen. However, while working for the Demo I decided to start a private Playtest in mid July and it kinda covered the initial feedback reason pretty well.

    The private Playtest ended up having 490 subscribers (today data) where around 184 of those players actually played the game. From those, some of them joined Discord to share feedback and ideas, others filled the feedback form, others sent me emails and some of them even recorded videos and shared to me. It was so awesome and I am so grateful :pray:.

    My evaluation is that, in general, it was a good feedback and most of it aligned with my vision for the game. It also helped me confirming some of the game strengths and weaknesses so I can attack them more focused now.

    Ended up having some players really addicted like me :heart:

    From those numbers I believe there are some important things to understand and fix but also the game shows potential to play a lot, even without having too much content and without some other features, so I have space to work on.

    At some point I wasn’t sure anymore about having a Demo since the players from the playtest were helping me so much but at the same time after analyzing the reasons for having a Demo and also taking advice from others I decided to publish a Demo with the objectives of participate in festivals, contact content creators and also reach a broader audience to get even more feedback.

    It is a great milestone and I am super happy with it :beers:.

    Roadmap

    The game is far from being done. From the last time I shared the current state, I was wondering if the game should be more base building in one asteroid or keep the travel to asteroids, among other things. Well, I ended up deciding to keep the original plan of traveling from asteroid to asteroid and deciding destinations and also having some minimal base building in each asteroid. However, the destination selection is not in the Demo right now because I had no time to make it as I wanted. The good thing is that the game right now shares the general experience in terms of mood, controls, feelings, etc, so it still makes sense to have it public for everyone while I continue working on the rest of the features.

    So the current roadmap includes now:

    • Destination selection (this includes making interesting changes among asteroids)
    • More content (enemies with different patterns, more technology, different ships to start the game)
    • Game modes (custom, sandbox, etc)
    • Localization in at least 4 languages.
    • More options to customize game.
    • Accessibility features
    • Achievements
    • Retro visual effects like scanlines, crt, etc.
    • Better Savegame System (continue where you were)
    • Mouse support

    What about the private Playtest

    (Some players asked what I am going to do with the Playtest, so I added this section.)

    Before the Demo was published, the idea of the private Playtest was to test the build for the Demo, so once I published it I removed the join Playtest button. However, my plan for the private Playtest is to continue using it but now to test the final game itself. I will re activate the join Playtest button on Steam for players wanting to continue playing and testing the real game, they can join there or by asking me for a key on Discord. The Demo will continue getting some feature related updates, and maybe some content updates too.

    I am still unsure on how much time I need to complete the game considering I am working part time on it, right now I feel like I need at least 6 months more to have the game close to the state I want to.

    Again, I want to thank so much all to the playtesters for taking time to play the game and give me feedback, it means a lot to me :beers:.

    Thanks for reading.

  • Jul 16, 2025

    Hi Everyone!

    I am working towards having a public Steam Demo (and maybe itchio too) in the next couple of months. In order to achieve that, I need to polish and define more stuff, and I need help from players in doing that.

    I started a Steam Playtest at https://store.steampowered.com/app/3113690/Ship_Miner/ If you want to be part of it you can join through the steam button that looks like this:

    I will add more and more testers overtime. If you request access and get the chance to be part of this Playtest, please also join Discord and/or fill the Feedback Form from within the game, your opinion means a lot, and will help me making the best possible game I can.

    By the way, if you join the Discord and write to me I could also give you a Playtest key directly to be sure you have access to the game.

  • Jul 4, 2025

    Multiple people requested color palettes and I decided to experiment, here is a video.

    One Discord member said: “how the heck this game is able to look good in every color?” 🫶

    Your browser does not support the video tag.

  • Mar 7, 2025

    Updated gameplay video.

    Your browser does not support the video tag.

  • Feb 2, 2025

    Just some random gameplay gifs of the latest version of the game.

    Finding new tech.
    Explosive terrain, and finding new tech as well xD.

  • Dec 24, 2024

    Miner was traveling in his Ship and found a unique asteroid with the form of a Christmas Tree🎄….

    He thinks It looks a bit …. unstable? and decides to leave before something happe….. AHHHHHH!!!

    All the Ship Miners in the galaxy wish you a🎉Merry Christmas🎉

  • Aug 29, 2024

    All Ship Miners work together in saving the univ….. Wait a minute!! those minerals are mine!!

  • Aug 28, 2024

    Ship Miner is a twin stick 1bit cozy pixel art mining game where you can get notcozingly 😜 killed by hidden threats?

  • Aug 12, 2024

    Ship Miner among some monsters in my Steam Deck xD

    (library capsule needs some work btw but it looks better than I expected beforehand)

  • Jul 28, 2024

    Ship Miner is on Steam!! This is a great milestone and an awesome achievement.

  • Jul 26, 2024

    Big announcement coming up in the next days!!

  • May 30, 2024

    Ups I accidentally rotated the notification text with the ship.

  • May 19, 2024

    Testing fog changes, now terrain blocks vision and mining ray reveals part of the terrain when mining.

  • Mar 20, 2024

    Some enemy structure animations mockups for Ship Miner, I really like low resolution abstract elements.

  • Mar 17, 2024

    This kind of station enemy collects/steals your minerals. It can be attacked to temporary block its ability or destroyed to get some scrap.

  • Mar 16, 2024

    In the process of deciding what to do next, I started some mockups for new content, mainly thinking in some enemies but could be anything.

    To recap, the idea of the game is something like an anomaly from a different universe is trying to get into this one by materializing through some elements in asteroids.

    Spawners

    Considering that, some elements could be are spawners from the void that could spawn both enemies or new terrain. For example:

    Turrets

    These are enemies that fire bolts or rays to the ship from the terrain or from space itself.

    One idea is that Ship loses some resources when it gets hit, and some enemies could absorb minerals too. For example these ones:

    There there are other enemies that walk through the terrain and jump to the ship, can just die on hit or maybe attach themselves to the ship, doing damage over time.

    That was it, just some mockups + ideas for next things to do mainly thinking in enemies but some generic mechanics arise.

    Thanks for reading.

  • Mar 3, 2024

    Added button to travel to next asteroid field which is just a restart level but was useful to keep playing for a while after mining current asteroid field.

  • Dec 12, 2023

    Mining scrap from space debris (from destroyed ships and other space structures).

  • Nov 28, 2023

    Initial ui to show collected resources and changed to mine iron over time not on terrain destroyed.

  • Nov 23, 2023

    Testing ideas generating terrain/asteroides in different iterations over time (slowed down in the gif to show how it works).

  • Nov 13, 2023

    Playing with terrain generation from image files to create marketing gifs. This idea the ship enters from a location, gather some minerals and leave, the terrain is reset and the cycle is repeated from different locations.

    This was a previous idea, the ship enters from the left, mine minerals and leave to the right.

    (Note: there is a typo in that image xD)

  • Nov 12, 2023

    Smaller fog of war to cover a similar size to terrain grid.

  • Nov 10, 2023

    Different terrain states while mining.

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