Overburden

Overburden is a  mining game. You pilot a drill cart into procedurally generated earth, prospect for buried ore and gems, and haul them back up to sell before your fuel runs out.

THE GOAL

Dig, sell, upgrade, go deeper. Four shards are buried, one in each depth zone, and they hum when you're close. Collect all four to unlock the vault at the bottom of the world. Open it, grab the treasure inside, and the deep starts flooding. Outclimb it to the surface to win.

HOW IT PLAYS

Your scanner points toward the richest nearby deposit, vaguely at first and sharper as you upgrade it. Extra needles appear when a shard (purple) or an unbuilt depot (yellow) is in range.

Hazards telegraph: a creak, hiss, or drip during a dig means that tile is about to cave in, blast gas, or flood. Back off or continue digging with risk.

Plan your digs. A tall open chimney above you will collapse and seal it.

Fuel is tight. The surface refuels you free, and buyable underground depots (found at fixed depths, listen for the faint signal) move home deeper.

Dying costs the run's unsold cargo. Your money, upgrades, tunnels, and shards survive.

Everything autosaves in your browser. Close the tab, come back, and you're exactly where you left off.

CONTROLS

WASD / Arrows - move and dig (hold a direction to drill the tile ahead)

Up - jet upward (burns fuel fast)

Space - hover, and drill sideways while floating. After death: retry

F - drill on/off (off to save fuel)

E - workshop at the surface, build/sell at depots, open the vault

Tab - stats

H - help

P - pause

M - mute

S on the title screen: settings (volume)

Hold R on the title screen: erase all progress