How DEEPLODE works

DEEPLODE is a browser game played with a keyboard. Each shift lasts five minutes. You dig ore, carry it in a sack and sell it at the assay office. Your score is the coins you hold when the shift ends.

Quick start

Press Start the shift. You begin in the Assay Camp, in the middle of the mine.
Walk to an ore vein (coloured rock in a wall) and hold Space while standing next to it.
When the sack has a few pieces, walk back to the counter in front of the assay office and press E.
Watch the ceiling. If cracks and falling dust appear around you, step away.
At the end, connect a wallet to save the points of the quests you finished. This step is optional.

Controls

Key	Action
`W` `A` `S` `D` or arrow keys	Walk. Diagonals work.
`Space` (or `J`), hold	Dig the ore vein next to you. You stand still while digging. Releasing resets the progress bar.
`E` (or `Enter`)	At the counter: sell everything in the sack. Next to a person: talk, deliver or sell to them.
`1` `2` `3`	At the counter: buy the big sack, hobnail boots or steel pick.

The game is built for a desktop keyboard. There are no touch controls.

The shift

A shift is 300 seconds. The game runs at a fixed 60 steps per second.
The sack holds 8 pieces (14 with the big sack).
Coins come from selling. Ore still in your sack when the shift ends is worth nothing.
Everyone gets the same mine on the same day (UTC date): the same ore spots, prices, cave-ins and visitors. A new mine opens at 00:00 UTC.
Nothing carries over between shifts. Gear, coins and ore reset every time.

Ores and zones

The map is 72 by 32 tiles, about three screens wide and two high. Walking from one end to the other takes about 25 seconds, more through water.

Ore	Zone	Dig time	Base price	Grows back after
Copper	Copper Tunnels (west of camp)	0.5 s	6	30 s
Silver	Flooded Gallery (far west, water slows you to 60%)	0.9 s	13	40 s
Crystal	Crystal Grotto (east of camp)	1.4 s	20	60 s
Gold	Deep Vein (far east)	2.3 s	32	90 s

The steel pick cuts every dig time by 40%. A dug vein shows as an empty pocket until it grows back.

Assay board prices

Each ore has its own price, shown on the assay board next to the game. Prices drift all shift: every 15 seconds the board heads toward a new level between 80% and 122% of the base price. On top of that, a few times per shift one ore pumps (rises to 1.7 to 2.15 times base for 16 to 25 seconds) or dumps (falls to about half). The board tags those moments PUMP and DUMP, and the feed announces them.

A sale is paid at the price of that second. A piece counts as "sold while pumping" when its price is at least 1.4 times the base price.

Cave-ins

Cave-ins happen near ore veins, roughly every 1.5 to 3 seconds somewhere in the mine, most often in the Deep Vein. Each one gives a warning first:

2.5 seconds before: cracks appear on the floor around one tile and dust starts falling. The crack spreads to the full 3 by 3 area.
At the moment of the cave-in: if you stand anywhere in that 3 by 3 area, you lose half your sack (rounded up, the most recent pieces first) and are stunned for 1.5 seconds.
Rubble stays visible for 4 seconds. It does not block the way.

People

The foreman

Stands next to the lift in the camp. He has four orders per shift, shown one at a time in the Foreman's list panel. Bring the full amount and press E next to him: he pays the board price for those pieces plus a bonus. An exclamation mark over his head means your sack can fill the current order.

Order	Bonus
5 copper	+25
3 silver	+35
2 crystal	+40
2 gold	+60

The gem buyer

Arrives twice per shift with his cart at a tunnel mouth on the main gallery and stays 55 seconds. He buys one kind of ore (silver, crystal or gold, shown in his speech bubble) at 1.6 times the board price. He takes all pieces of that kind you carry.

The claim jumper

Shows up three times per shift, each time for 40 seconds, somewhere in the tunnels. He offers twice the board price for one kind of ore. On some visits he pays. On others he takes the ore and runs off without paying. Every day has at least one honest visit and one dishonest one.

The tell: an honest jumper's helmet lamp is lit and throws light, and his scale hangs level. A jumper who will rob you has a dark lamp and a tipped scale. Both are visible before you press E.

Gear

Bought at the counter with coins, for the current shift only. Buying lowers your coins, so it only pays off if the gear earns its price back.

Key	Gear	Effect	Cost
`1`	Big sack	Carry 14 pieces instead of 8	80
`2`	Hobnail boots	Walk 30% faster	60
`3`	Steel pick	Dig 40% faster	70

Daily quests

Each day three quests are drawn from this list. All players get the same three. Each pays its points once per day per wallet.

Quest	Points
End the shift with 600 coins	30
Sell 8 gold nuggets	25
Sell 10 crystals	25
Fill 2 orders for the foreman	30
Sell 4 pieces to the gem buyer	20
Sell to an honest claim jumper, never get robbed	30
End with 400 coins and no cave-in hits	30
Sell 2 pieces while their price is pumping	20
Buy gear and still end with 500 coins	25

A quest must be finished within one shift. Each threshold was tested with an automatic player over 30 different days.

Points and rewards

Connecting a wallet asks you to sign a short text message. It proves the wallet is yours. It is not a transaction and spends nothing. The session lasts 12 hours in this browser tab.

The points board ranks wallets by total quest points, with the best single-shift coin total as the tiebreaker. When you sell during a shift, the feed shows where you would stand on the board and that place's SOL reward.

Board place	Reward
#1	1 SOL
#2	0.5 SOL
#3	0.3 SOL
#4 to #5	0.2 SOL each
#6 to #10	0.1 SOL each

Rewards are paid in SOL, by hand, from our payout wallet. They go out in rounds as creator fees come in. Each round is announced on X, and the board at that moment decides who gets paid. Points are not a token. No code on this site sends money.

Fair play

The game records only which keys are held and when they change. When you save points, the server plays that recording back with the same game code and the same day's mine, then checks the quests. A run from another day, a recording with steps out of order or more than 20,000 key changes is refused. The automatic player you can watch with #autoplay uses A* path finding and never saves points.

Errors

You cancelled the signature: The wallet asked to sign and you declined. Press save again when ready.
This wallet cannot sign messages: Use Phantom, Solflare or Backpack.
This run is from another day: The mine changed at 00:00 UTC. Runs are accepted for 15 minutes after midnight, then play the new mine.
Sign in again: The 12-hour session ended or the tab was closed. Connect again; your points stay.
Points board not set up: The server has no storage for points yet. The game still works.

Glossary

Assay office: Where ore is weighed and bought. In camp, in the middle of the map.
Assay board: The live price list of the four ores.
Pump / dump: A short price spike or fall for one ore.
Cave-in: A ceiling collapse, the mine's version of a rug. Always warned 2.5 seconds ahead.
Claim jumper: Someone who takes another miner's claim. Here, the trader who sometimes runs off with your ore.
Lode: A rich vein of ore. The deep lode is the gold at the far east end.