Hello all! As you know, Goldmine has been removed from Steam because the communist Chinese review bombed it and complained to Valve to get it banned. It's ok, they aren't the true China - Taiwan is. Anyway, the debacle worked out better than expected. I am now taking time to rewrite it from scratch, add new features, rebalance, and re-pace the whole thing. Once I'm done it will be released on itch.io where I will continue to donate 100% of all proceeds to Ukraine. Unlike Valve's 30%, itch.io only takes 10% of developers' earnings, so more of the purchasers' money will go directly to charity! If you want to playtest the upcoming version 2, let me know! I started a Discord channel where you'll be able to download and test the latest builds as well as provide feedback on features, pacing, etc., to help me make it more fun! Here's an incomplete list of changes so far:

A significant rewrite of the codebase
The endgame Dragonsweeper (minesweeper) is removed and is now a standalone free game
Game menu
- There is now a new game menu displayed pre-game
- The menu can be accessed from the game via the Esc button (in addition to cog)
- Players can now save the game
- Players can now load saved games
Worker info tooltip shows crit chance and crit multiplier
Crits now show as numbers instead of expressions
Flasks are now color coded instead of just the liquid
Flasks are no longer empty when buying a worker upgrade
Buying click upgrades now has a sound effect
Buying a prestige level now includes a confirmation dialog
Buttons now slightly change appearance on click to show feedback
Overall accessibility improved
- Game buttons are now tabable and keyboard accessible
- Game buttons now have selection boxes
- Dialog buttons are now tabbable and keyboard accessible
- Dialog buttons now have selection highlights
- Dialogs can now be closed with Esc key
Unused / unpopular information removed (time running)
Upgrade information is consolidated into a single button with name and price
The first underground level now needs to be bought
Cobolds need lower numbers to reach an upgrade and have high crit
Goblins, if left at the same factor of 5 number for a minute, gain another goblin, but cannot be sold
Goblins have a permanent x50 crit multiplier, but only gain 1% crit chance per level

[ 2024-06-01 03:10:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 1.3

Hello, miners! Version 1.3 is out today! It does only one thing, but it's a major one. The size of the game's files is now reduced from 202MB to 15MB. This means the game will take up less space on your computer and will be much faster to download. This comes with a bit of a catch, though... 1. Your previous game state could not be preserved. I tried, but because the platform was being changed completely (not just updated) it wasn't really possible to do that. 2. Windows will likely show you a warning like this:
Click on the "More info" link and you will see these options:
Click on the "Run Anyway" button, and this warning shouldn't appear again until the next update. The reason for this warning is that I did not supply a certificate. These cost about $350 a year and it's just under what the game makes in a year. I felt that this money would be best spent on charity. I apologize for these inconveniences. Hopefully the smaller size and better performance will make up for them. As always, please let me know if you encounter any issues. With a major change like this, some bugs may have found their way in, although I haven't seen any in my testing. Do alert me if you happen to find any! Thank you!

[ 2023-12-05 04:58:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update on the donations

It's been a while since the last update, but the money has been collecting and now it's time to make another donation. The last time we donated in April of 2022, meaning the last payment that Valve sent me was for March of 2022. This current donation will comprise the payments I received from April 2022 to May of 2023. The payments for June, July, August, September, and October of 2023 haven't arrived yet, but I expect to receive them next month and will donate them next time. Here is the breakdown: From April 2022 to May of 2023, after refunds, VAT, and Valve's cut the game made a total of $535.83. Here is the breakdown. It's more granular than last year, because I felt I should be more transparent with this data. [table] [tr] [td]2022 [/td] [td]net copies sold (after returns)[/td] [td]net steam sales (after vat and refunds)[/td] [td]revenue (after valve's cut)[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]apr[/td][td]143[/td][td]$53.81[/td][td]$37.66[/td][/tr] [tr][td]may[/td][td]64[/td][td]$21.03[/td][td]$14.71[/td][/tr] [tr][td]jun[/td][td]50[/td][td]$12.28[/td][td]$8.52[/td][/tr] [tr][td]jul[/td][td]61[/td][td]$16.12[/td][td]$11.28[/td][/tr] [tr][td]aug[/td][td]75[/td][td]$16.77[/td][td]$11.73[/td][/tr] [tr][td]sep[/td][td]174[/td][td]$42.64[/td][td]$29.84[/td][/tr] [tr][td]oct[/td][td]87[/td][td]$28.04[/td][td]$19.62[/td][/tr] [tr][td]nov[/td][td]231[/td][td]$86.51[/td][td]$60.54[/td][/tr] [tr][td]dec[/td][td]269[/td][td]$137.60[/td][td]$96.32[/td][/tr] [tr] [td]2023 [/td] [td]net copies sold (after returns)[/td] [td]net steam sales (after vat and refunds)[/td] [td]revenue (after valve's cut)[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]jan[/td][td]200[/td][td]$151.92[/td][td]$106.34[/td][/tr] [tr][td]feb[/td][td]44[/td][td]$39.74[/td][td]$27.82[/td][/tr] [tr][td]mar[/td][td]54[/td][td]$34.91[/td][td]$24.44[/td][/tr] [tr][td]apr[/td][td]40[/td][td]$34.54[/td][td]$24.19[/td][/tr] [tr][td]may[/td][td]106[/td][td]$98.75[/td][td]$62.82[/td][/tr] [/table] I matched this donation with $535.83 of my own for a total of $1,071.66 and my company added double that ($2,143.32) for a grand total of $3,214.98, which was sent to this charity. Overall, we've donated $6,214.98 to Ukraine so far and it couldn't have been done without your support! Thank you all so much for the second year in a row!!! Sincerely, Alaric von Teplitz.

[ 2023-11-30 02:42:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

I stand with Ukraine!

The last announcement got deleted, but all I said there still stands. I support Ukraine and am horrified and absolutely disgusted by the Russian invasion, the Russian war crimes, and all the Russian lies. Furthermore, I am disgusted by the support that Russia is receiving from a number of other non-free countries such as China. To this end I'm announcing the following changes: [olist]

Prices in Russia and China have been raised to 1,000,000 rubles and yuan respectively. This is to signify that I do not want their money.

100% of all proceeds from the sale of Goldmine beginning August 2020 will be donated to Ukraine.

In addition to that I will make a personal donation.

A 200% of the sum of #2 and #3 will be further donated by my employer. [/olist] Also, I would like to say thank you to all of you who bought the game recently despite all the review bombing. In the past two weeks there have been more sales than in the last few years combined. I will see to it that your financial support makes it to a trusted Ukrainian charity by the end of this month. Special thanks to the free people of Hong Kong (which is not China) and Turkey, who have contributed 40% and 20% of revenue respectively!

[ 2022-03-13 22:21:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

! / Stop the invasion!

: . , . , , . . , ! ! ! , ! . . . , , . . . , 20- . . . . . . . . . , , . ! ! To Westerners: I wonder how many Ukrainians have to be murdered by Russian war criminals before the West gets over its cowardice and realizes that fighting Russia in 2022 is necessary even at a risk to ourselves, just as fighting Germany and Japan was necessary in 1939. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some gung-ho warmonger. I don't want any kind of war, I don't want to kill people, and I don't want to die. To a nuke or otherwise. But I also don't really want to continue on, knowing that this was being done and we just ignored it so that we could proceed with our comfortable lives. We, as humans, have an obligation to stop Putin just like our ancestors had an obligation to stop Hitler. Even those of them who weren't directly attacked by him. nmsl

[ 2022-03-02 20:49:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 1.2.1 Quality of Life.

Hello, miners! This patch is a followup to patch 1.2 and includes several improvements that were implemented thanks to the feedback from the community. In particular I want to express my appreciation to those players who commented in this discussion thread. Their suggestions and ideas were instrumental to getting this patch out the door. On to the changes themselves, these are several:

Marked & Total Eggs

There is now a counter on the bottom of the screen, what will keep track of how many eggs you've marked by right-clicking. It will also display a total number of eggs, so that you have a good idea of how many remain. This is in line with the classical Minesweeper, and should make life easier for those who enjoy the puzzle game.

Drow Crystalmancer

To the left of the egg counter you will see a portrait of a Drow. If you hover your cursor over it, he will introduce himself and offer to reveal the type of gems that are hidden on the level. While he won't be able to tell where they are, he will be helpful to those who are hunting for a particular gem. His services cost a lot, which also helps to make money useful and meaningful after getting that Quadrillion achievement. Click on him to buy the spell.

Rare Gems and Playtime

The timer at the top of the screen will now have a new purpose. In addition to telling you how long you've played Goldmine, it will also increase your chances at both rare gems. Here is how it will work: Every 24 hours of real time since the mine opened, you will receive the following: 1. a 0.2% chance to randomly receive a 7-gem upon completing a sweeper game. The maximum chance for this gem will be capped at 4%. 2. a 0.075% chance to randomly receive an 8-gem upon completing a sweeper game. The maximum chance for this gem will be capped at 1.5%. It will, therefore, take a total of 20 days to reach the maximum. Once in the game, a chance to receive a 7-gem will be determined. If that chance fails, then the chance to receive an 8-gem will be determined. This will happen once per instance of the sweeper mini-game. The gems will not be drawn on the board, but will be included in the total tally on the results screen. The percentages might seem really small, but actually a 4% chance of something happening in a repeatable mini-game is pretty huge. Oh and this is, of course, on top of any normal chances to receive those gems. At the same time, the amount of gold you will receive for the 8-gem will be reduced from 30 trillion to 3 trillion in order to make up for the substantially increased chances of getting the gem. I hope you find these changes helpful and, as always, please feel free to comment and share your thoughts!

[ 2019-01-10 01:41:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 1.2 Dragon Eggs!

Hello, miners! I'm happy to welcome you to patch 1.2! It addresses the most common concern that you (the players) have voiced since the release: the lack of content upon reaching the endgame. In this update, those of you who've reached prestige level 10, will notice a dangerous-looking egg. Click on it and you will find a cave with dozens of dragon eggs inside. Quite a few of them contain precious gems that can be sold for huge sums of money. Be careful, however! Some of those eggs contain little baby dragons that are about to hatch. Don't wake them up if at all possible. This mini-game can be replayed as many times as you like, which should make it much easier to reach the coveted "Quadrillion" achievement. It also comes with 10 new achievements for you to reach and showcase in your Steam profile! I hope you enjoy this free update! Both myself and the artist put quite a bit of time and effort into it, even working on New Year's eve and the 1st of the year to bring it to you before the Steam sale ends. We'd love to hear what you think, and, just so you know, every positive review brings us a lot of joy! Happy New Year, and thank you for playing Goldmine!

[ 2019-01-02 01:11:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Click limiting fix and plans for the future.

Hello, miners! Version 1.1.2 is now out. It addresses the common complaint about the click rate limit.

You will be able to use auto-clickers again at up to 20 clicks per second.
The message telling you to act "like a boss" is now gone.

In addition to this change, I would like to talk about why the limiting was implemented initially, why it is being rolled back, and what I'm doing in order to make the endgame more interesting and to put the "Quadrillion" achievement within your reach.

The click limit

Initially I added it for several reasons. The main one being the frequent complaints by those who tended to abuse auto-clickers. At certain click-rated the game couldn't process the incoming input and slowed down to a crawl. I also felt that extreme auto-clicking takes away from the intended slow and ambient feel of the game. In my testing, limiting the click rate and using the pop-up message seemed to fix those issues. Of course, now that we have achievements, it created another issue, which I did not realize at the time.

The rollback

Since the intent wasn't to mess with the players' enjoyment of the game, I have removed the pop-up, and substantially increased the rate at which you can auto-click. You will still be unable to auto-click at ridiculous levels, but the game will no longer experience slowdowns either, so I think that's the best of both worlds.

The future

In order to make the endgame more interesting and interactive, and also to allow players to make more gold without having to rely on mindless and boring auto-clicking, I will be adding a mini-game, which will be unlocked at prestige level 10. Right now I am working with an artist to create the necessary assets, and as soon as we are gone, it will be integrated into Goldmine. I don't want to spoil too much right now, but it will involve gems. And also eggs. Here are a few bits of concept art: https://imgur.com/a/r76mwZR Hope you enjoy them! =)

[ 2018-12-29 00:32:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Achievements!

Hello, miners! Version 1.1.0 is out for Windows today and with it comes the most requested feature: the achievements! steamhappy I've also updated all of the dependencies to their latest versions, making them more stable and secure. This comes with a few trade-offs: the package size is somewhat increased and the support for 32-bit systems is gone. Overall, though, very few people (if anyone) should be affected. As to getting the achievements, please make sure the game is launched after Steam is launched. While there's still no DRM and you can play the game without Steam, it does need to talk to Steam in order to grant you those sweet golden icons. I hope you enjoy this update! Happy Holidays!

[ 2018-12-24 17:15:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Goldmine
Alaric von Teplitz

Developer

Alaric von Teplitz

Publisher

Coming Soon

Release

Indie Strategy Simulation Singleplayer