Midnight Miner review (iPhone)

10 word description: Endless vertical auto-run depth-driller. Permanent upgrades, leaderboard, achievements. 

10 word review: Addictive, challenging fun. Free with unobtrusive ads – recommended.

You will like this if you enjoy: Endless runners/diggers. Mining games. Permanent upgrades. 

The good news: Clean, attractive graphical style that is retro without going into the realms of extreme pixel graphics. Reliable, responsive controls. Great sense of constant progression through affordable (game currency) permanent upgrades and unlockable minerals. No single-use consumable items – yay! Despite being a free game, there is no need to buy any IAPs – progress is constant and swift using just the easily obtainable in-game currency. 

The bad news: There are adverts, but it’s a free game so what do you expect? They’re not particularly obtrusive and they can be instantly dismissed, not the type with timers where you have to wait before clicking the X to close them.

Arcadelife verdict: It’s a bit like a twitchy, fast-forward version of Mr Driller or Doug dug, with a lot less strategy but loads more upgrades and unlockable stuff. I tend to avoid free games on principle, but this one actually gives the player a really fun, fully functional game that can be played, rather than an empty hole to throw money into. The upgrades and unlockable minerals can be earned very quickly, rapidly contributing to larger and larger scores. It’s extremely addictive and stands out as a shining light of the free game genre, something against which the majority of other free games, plus a whole slew of paid ones, would struggle to match for pure gaming fun.

Arcadelife rating

Presentation – 9/10
Visuals – 8.5/10
Controls – 9/10
Content – 8/10
Fun – 9.5/10
Final rating – 9/10

ROCKING

Rating categories explained here.

Version reviewed by Arcadelife is 1.0

Developer website link

Arcadelife played and reviewed this game on:
iPhone 6 (iOS 8.2)

This review was typed on a Das Keyboard Model S mechanical keyboard – check them out, they’re really rather groovy.