About Mining Champions:
Galactic Mining Corp is one of those games where I don’t really know why I like it, and I probably should be doing something better with my time, but I still find myself addictively playing it. Put on some music or your favourite Netflix show, chill out, and start drilling. A solid 90% of the game is drilling down (or occasionally sideways, maybe even back up if you’re feeling fancy) through blocks of many different types of resource on a variety of planets that have different creatures trying to eat you and different damage eroding your ship. The other 10% of the game is clicking upgrade. You upgrade your blocks, you upgrade the items, you upgrade your crew, and your rooms, and your drill (in many different ways). There’s a huge upgrade tree from the core pieces you’re rewarded with, and there’s a big research panel that’s basically you just collecting all these items and then clicking to research it. Your upgrades have upgrades, your unlocks have more unlocks. And that’s it. That’s the game. You build rooms, you hire crew, you collect things and you drill. Then you repeat until you’ve achieved 100% achievements (since there’s no story, I’m marking that as the endgame, since you’ll have unlocked and upgraded everything.) There’s no way to lose; even if you get eaten by a weird alien monster, you don’t lose your resources. There’s no way to go backwards in progression. It’s as casual as casual gets. Are you already bored reading this review? Then you won’t enjoy this game. And that’s okay, it’s not going to be for everyone. For me though, there’s a zen-like charm to the addictive progressive gameplay loop. The art style is colourful and charming and I adore the character art on the crew – very creative and unique so I enjoy unlocking the next room or crew. I like collecting things. I like upgrading things. I like seeing my money go up. I like achievements. Galactic Mining Corp hits the sweet spot of “I didn’t really do anything but I enjoyed doing it anyway and now I feel more relaxed.” Any video game that I can close out of feeling more chill these days gets a thumbs up from me. Galactic Mining Corp is a fun chill game where you need to mine astroids, moons, planets and gas giants for materials, items, experience, research and cores. Gameplay is extremely basic and repetitive. You fly a drilling craft trying to get to the core of each astronomical body on any of the three maps by drilling through all sorts of interestingly colorful square blocks. Bodies can have a certain dangerous element (like fire, cold, radiation) which increases in strength the closer you get to the core. There are also monsters following you around or moving in sometimes predictable, sometimes very chaotic patterns and you can find powerups like headlights, temporary elemental resistance, health restores and booster packs. Everything you find can be upgraded. Your crew, the company’s building, the rooms, bonus stats from sucessfully drilling cores and even the materials and items themselves. And a few other things outside on the three space maps. Since you’re constantly upgrading things, the reward ratio is extremely high and works very addictive. Graphics are nice too and I really liked these drum’n base music tracks. Now the bad part: The last stage of the game turns into a monumental grind of biblical proportions and you’d have wished armageddon started yesterday. Getting to 100% on the achievements was already pushing it to the limits, but even that pales in comparison to actually finishing the game. Some of the blocks on the last few planets/bodies on the final map are so hard, your drill gets destroyed instantly if you even touch them slightly. Even with hours of farming for extra upgrades I just couldn’t get through to the final core. Almost 50 hours in and I couldn’t do it. My eyes are now bleeding from the grind. So, do I recommend it? Yes, for several hours of chill gaming with colorful graphics and cool music. No, if you are a completionist. That said, I did enjoy most of the time, so, Final verdict: yes? sort of..
