Teach the Game
A read-aloud introduction to drilling, collecting minerals, and surfacing safely.
How you win
You are a driller sending a mech into a forgotten mine. Drill corridors, collect minerals, and improve your mech at the surface. When a player fills their progress track, the mine becomes unstable; after the final turns, the player with the most points wins.
Your score comes from the mine tiles and minerals you collect, milestones, spare credits, and the condition of your mech and deck. The core choice each turn is how far to descend for valuable minerals while leaving enough fuel and time to return.
The board
The mine has a surface, an entrance, and five underground floors. Each floor can hold minerals, a corridor stack, a floor card, or a barrier. The shop board sits above the mine; your dashboard tracks fuel, movement, drilling, storage, drones, market sales, overflow, and your progress toward ending the game.
- Main mine board — the surface and five underground floors.
- Starting minerals — match each floor’s printed mineral spaces.
- Starting floor card — shuffle the three starting floor cards and place one face up beside floor 2.
- Deep floor cards — shuffle the nine and deal one face down on each floor that shows a floor-card marker; the rest go back in the box.
- Barriers — block the four lowest mine floors.
- Corridor stacks — sort and shuffle tiles for each floor.
- Shops and decks — sort the cards and seed the Advanced shop.
- Milestones — place their tokens beside the shop.
- Mechs — each player starts on the surface.
- Shared mineral supply — set the remaining minerals beside the mine.
- Shop board — place both board pieces above the mine.
- Credits — keep the credit supply beside the shop.
- Starting deck — shuffle seven cards, then put TORSO face up on top.
- Shop-refresh tile — keep it beside your dashboard.
- Starting resources — take credits and cards based on player count and turn order.
- Dashboard — set the gauges, fuel cap, storage cap and drones.
A turn
- Operations: play cards, move, drill, use default functions and activate drones in any order. Fuel pays for card effects and default functions.
- Surfacing: only if your mech ends Operations on the surface. Sell minerals, buy cards, improve your rig, repair, discard cards, refresh a shop, and refuel.
- Upkeep: keep cards by paying fuel, discard played cards, reset movement and drill gauges, draw three cards, and refill empty shop slots.
Read Operations, Surfacing and Upkeep for the full sequence.
How the game ends
When the tiles on your progress track meet the minerals in your overflow zone, your track is complete. If your overflow zone is empty, the game ends when your track fills. You take the final milestone worth 18 points; everyone else gets one last turn. The player who triggered the end does not take another turn.
Ways to score
| Score source | How it counts |
|---|---|
| Mine tiles | Add the points printed in each tile’s upper-right corner. |
| Minerals | Score minerals in your market, overflow zone, and storage: Silver 2, Gold 3, Sapphire 4, Emerald 5, Ruby 6. |
| Credits | Every 5 credits left is 1 point. |
| Milestones and shop-refresh tile | Add each token’s printed points; the refresh tile scores only if unused. |
| Penalties | Lose points for ending underground and for every card marked with negative points that you still own. |
Ties go to the player with more credits, then more fuel. See Game End and Scoring.
What each resource is for
| Resource | Why you need it | How you get or use it |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel | Pay card and default-function costs and 1 fuel per extra card kept through Upkeep. | Gain it from card effects or refuel on the surface. |
| Movement | Move one open floor up or down. | Cards and the default function (3 fuel) add it. |
| Drills | Collect minerals, excavate corridors, or remove barriers. | Cards and the default function (4 fuel) add them. |
| Minerals | Score points, sell for credits, or pay Advanced-card battery costs with tile battery icons. | Collect from floors and corridors; exhaust battery mine tiles to pay battery costs. |
| Credits | Buy cards and upgrades, repair a card, or score leftover credits. | Gain them from sales, effects, rewards, or card discards. |
| Cards | Use their main effects or gain fuel; permanent cards stay beside your dashboard. | Buy from shops or gain them from effects; keep extra hand cards by paying fuel in Upkeep. |
| Drones | Sell one mineral or buy one card during Operations. | Start with one active drone; some effects refresh a used drone. |
| Mine tiles | Advance progress and score; their effects and battery icons can be used. | Excavate a corridor or remove a barrier, then exhaust a tile to use its effect. |
| Milestones | Give immediate rewards and end-game points. | Be first to cross a milestone line on the progress track. |
Teaching tips
- Teach fuel first: every turn is a choice between spending cards for actions and saving fuel for depth, upkeep, or a return to the surface.
- Show how movement and drilling combine. A new corridor adds minerals to its floor, which can often be collected with leftover drills.
- Explain that a surface visit matters only when Operations ends there; otherwise you skip directly to Upkeep.
- Point out that all minerals score even if they remain in storage or overflow, but minerals in overflow also shorten the progress track.