Retromine - New Demo Out Now!
Retromine is an ultra-satisfying, highly replayable, tough-as-nails deckbuilding roguelike. Delve into the caves, mine resources, and escape before the caverns collapse! Spend ore to buy new cards, upgrade your deck, and discover powerful synergies on your way to the bottom of the world.
Wishlist the full version on Steam:
Retromine is a super challenging game - if you manage to win, post a screenshot of your victory in the comments!
- Gameplay -
- Roguelike deckbuilding: Delve into the mines, play cards to mine resources, and escape with your life - then use those resources to buy new cards, upgrade your deck, and power up!
- Strike a perfect balance: Survive by mining scorium to narrowly escape danger, get stronger by mining ore to buy new cards
- Discover powerful synergies: Unearth super-powered synergies and exploit game breaking combos
- Test your mettle: Challenge yourself and put your decision making and problem solving abilities to the test
- Enter flow state: Unwind with an experience expressly created to place you in a state of meditative deep focus
- Features -
- Dig your way to mastery: Collect over 50 unique resource, tool, and action cards to use on your expeditions.
- Shape your run: Harness the power of over 10 unique utility cards to change the way you play
- Immerse yourself: Tunnel through a curious subterranean fantasy beneath a classic retro-pixel aesthetic
- Dreamy, hypnotic synthwave: Relax with over 40 minutes of soothing synthwave music by Airglow
- Dig, Die, Learn, Repeat! -
Enjoy infinite procedurally generated content in a game specifically designed for endless replayability.
Business Inquiries: Check discord for email
If you get WEBGL CONTEXT ERROR or OUT OF MEMORY ERROR:
These are rare errors conflicting with specific settings on your browser. For most players, it fixes after loading up the game, refreshing the page, and loading it a second time. If that doesn't work, a desktop version is available on Steam which will work for you.
If you get BLUE SCREEN IN GAME ERROR:
Refresh the page. On the main menu, under options, go disable CRT shader, background motion, and card motion. Then, you can proceed to play the game as normal.
Development log
- Demo 4.0 Hotfix Patch22 days ago
- Powerful Passive Abilities, Boss Rounds, Total Visual Overhaul, & Steam Demo Rel...25 days ago
- Retromine Steam Demo - Official Announcement Trailer!39 days ago
- Powerful Passive Abilities are coming in Retromine v4!45 days ago
- The Future of RetromineMay 05, 2026
- Rare Cards, New Synergies, & More New Cards Than Ever! Demo v3.0!Mar 31, 2026
- Power Cards, Booster Packs, New Cards, Quality of Life! Demo v2!Jan 29, 2026
- 100,000 Players - Thank you!Jan 07, 2026
Comments
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it's not loading
it stopped at about this much
what do I do if that happens?
this means it's having a conflict with your browser or settings. try downloading the demo from steam, or use a different browser (firefox, chrome, microsoft edge)
some green
what is duck? is that new?
it's bird, not duck. I don't know if it's new
cool mole is cool
this wasn't that hard
honestly i think the cube is better than the bubble
what happened
Finally broke the 10k mark!
Now that I've won nightmare, some thoughts:
0. The reworked Prospect is excellent, just the right balance of usefulness/cost. No longer too weak nor too strong.
1. Level 1 is still boring especially having to play it over and over again - I wish you'd just remove it from the harder levels and start them in the shop. It was briefly a lot more interesting (the variable sizes looked fun), until I realised that its the identical cards every time. No point playing the level, its almost identical, no choices to make. BETTER IF: you randomise the starting cards
1b. ... EVEN BETTER IF: you randomise their 'inert' levels: that would immediately provide interesting choices (which to upgrade?). This would also help nightmare by making some currently "worthless" cards (upgrade-related) potentially useful
2. There are now a few different outcomes to level 1, if you play perfectly you can finish with 54, 53, or 52 in most games, or 51,50,49,48, if you play imperfectly, or less if you play stupidly. But the shop prices are so huge that there's no effective difference between 50/51 and 53, and the easy path is to always get 52, so ... the level and the skill is useless.
3. Pricing in the shop is still broken. There are multiple rare cards that if you buy them early in the game you INSTANTLY lose the game (e.g. Crystallium == instant death, e.g. the mace (cant remember the name) = usually instant death, etc), simply because the price is so high. Note that Crystallium in the early levels not only takes all your cash (killing you) but ALSO is comepletly useless since until it's been upgraded a few times it has no special feature (on first two shops it only has 4 strength, I think I even saw it at 3 strength a few times).
4. ... cost to re-roll the shop is much too high. Would be better if it was a constant low value - there's no need for the escalating cost, money is already tight enough that any reroll cost > 0 is punitive.
5. a lot of cards are mostly useless on nightmare, would be better to remove them from the game or rebalance them. They dont make it harder, they are just literally wasted slots that cannot do anything (fun in easier levels, but useless in nightmare).
6. Raise the cards-in-hand limit in nightmare (this would immediately unblock some of the cards that currently dont work: hard to build a large hand in nightmare, but at least it would make those cards useful. Right now they scale too slowly and/or provide no tangible benefit, they are less valuable than the starting cards).
7. nigthmare's final level is great, a suitably hard challenge (requiring you to spend the entire game planning for the ending, which I think is right for this difficulty) .. BUT .. it feels weird that there's no foreshadowing, nothing to indicate it will happen. This isnt so bad,after you see it the first time you know whats coming, but it feels like there's a missing story beat to explain it / warn about it.
8. the reworked pickaxe thats the only way to mine a card while spending 0 (and unlike the old dagger (?) that did that, it's a useful card in its own right so you buy and use them) is great. It means that a well-designed deck typically has a few of them in and when you've got one last energy and a choice between playing a higher score/money card or triggering card pickups (eg with axe) ... there's real value to the card pickups (previously there was none: you have 0 energy left and the smelter, torch, etc require at least 1). This makes the choice meaningful.
Overall great, by far the best iteration of the game.
thanks so much for all the thoughtful feedback! i will definitely take this into account in future patches ^^
Nightmare is now suitably difficult - completed but tough. Technique: buy a 18-yellow sunstone and immediately scramble it and hope for somethign that doesnt suck (I got the 0-cost meteorite) ... then just try to survive until you get a yellow cube ... then cross your fingers for a cave painting. With the cave painting you can upgrade the cube every turn, and eventually it gets big enough (100 or so) that you can actually win the final level.
Canary plus Bubblite is an awesome comination. And Cool Mole gives you plenty of score.
Cool mole is a game breaker, especially with canary. Most of the actions can be if you stack them. The ancient relic is the only one that is total garbage.
idk I find the space they take up in the deck is often less consistent than just more energy+card draw, but it's true that if you don't get unlucky they have a higher ceiling usually.
ive been playing this game every chance i get for the last week. its really well done.
display error: when you upgrade the cube with the in-shop hammer. the hammer gives +3 and the cube triples that but when it counts up it says +4, +4, +4. when it should say +3. luckily the upgrading itself works correctly.
another way to destroy cards would be nice. i like that sphere resource that mines and destroys your lowest res card. and when you dont want to destroy you can just use all other res first.
one of the strongest cards is the resource that gives you 1 card for every 5 size. theres also one that gives energy per 5 size. it might be overpowered but at least it caps at 25 size.
a survival mode would be cool. where it generates new levels as long as you can last and it gets harder each time. — having multiple properties for the same resource would add a lot of strategy; they do that in Die in the Dungeon. a cube with retain would be really good; it would sit taking upgrades until you get a pickaxe.
Have not been able to break 10k yet
Keeps crashing on my Mac M5 after only 2-3 rounds, the web player keeps reloading due to significant memory usage even though I've already turned off every animation :( it was fun, I would love to see a Mac demo if possible!
Much better balanced now - a far cry from the early builds where most things were useless in the long run. The starter upgrade card works well with the +5 bonus.
The persistent green cards are great, and finally give enough control that you don't continually snowball / fail entire runs purely based on random draw-order (because they persist, the player has some deck control).
I am VERY SAD at the 10-card hand limit, takes a lot of the fun away at the harder levels - also makes some of the new cards (eg the one that prevents discards) not only 'useless' but 'actively harmful' because you almost immediately have a full hand and it actively prevents you from picking up the cards you would need in order to spend the hand.
TL;DR: If you're keeping the 10 card limit I hink you need a 'discard hand' button. But I'd prefer relaxing the 10 card limit on harder difficulties - let the snowball runs return!
My best final cash is now just over 1k on Brutal.
I couldn't get nightmare to work at all - I think I had to win on brutal first? - but it seems unlocked now ... so off to see how high I can get (But with the 10 card limit I think very little).
I'm not too fussed about it, I clicked on this more out of curiosity so if it doesn't work I'm ok with that! :3 Just thought I'd mention it!
on the main menu, in options, try going to accessibility and turning off background animations and that should work :)
Same issue for me, turning off background animations did not change it. I clicked around randomly and was able to still begin the game. Playing on a Mac, in Chrome.
Second round, after playing a round of cards the new cards deal out but are invisible until I click one of them. Hope that's helpful, good luck w a fix for it. Looking forward to checking out the new version.
try disabling the CRT filter + card motion in options and see if that fixes it!
Ok did some fiddling in settings and accessibility options didn't seem to do anything, in the end it was specifically the CRT setting that fixed it :D And I'm very glad it did bc this is SO much fun oh my god I've been playing for 4 hours now skjdhgkdfjd, finally beat it!!!!!
I love how even after I'd played quite a few runs, I was still encountering new cards, even this very last winning run after hours of playtime!! The variety in the cards makes so many different strategies possible and it's super fun trying different things, like for instance this run my strategy was lots and lots of 0 energy cards, I got a badger early on and upgraded everything I could and bought 0 energy ores! That along with the Bubblite + Canary combo (which is an INSANE combo I love it so much) got me my win :D But I'm sure other strategies will work too!! It feels like just the right balance of luck and skill, with still so much to explore in terms of gameplay!!
Also the graphics and UI are absolutely lovely, same with the sound effects and music <3 My favourite card is the Jerboa, I was so excited when I saw it- Jerboa has been a username I've used for many years now, and they're still a rather niche animal so it's so cool to see them c:
Genuinely had so much fun with this and I WILL play more, onto hard more now >:D And excellent work!!!!! <3<3
Edit: One card that did confuse me was the Baby Mole, it said it worked for Inert cards, but I wasn't sure if that meant cards with the Inert factor mentioned on them, or cards that had actually hit their Inert number :0 So I blew that mf up with dynamite (hope the parents don't find me :I)
so so glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for the feedback! i will make sure to keep your secret mwahaha
I played the game and did a video on it. It's my blind take on it, but I hope it's helpful.
Played this game a second time. It has lovely art and cute sounds. The deckbuilding combos are quite nice once you get a hold of it.
The biggest issues right now are learnability. The cards descriptions are to vague and on many occasions I had no idea how a card would work or what it would count. I needed more than 1 game to understand some of the symbols.
I recommend adding tooltips like in Slay the Spire so that I can learn what each symbol means.
Descriptions like "For every 5 size" are the main culprit. I was not sure whether it is cards that have 5 size player already, or such cards in hand, or is it for every 5 on the card I am playing.
You've got something pretty good! Good luck further!
thanks for the feedback and checking back in! the "size" stuff does typically confuse ppl! there is a glossary in the game with all the symbols, though you're right that i don't do a good enough job of actually communicating that it's there to the player. in the full version, there will be a more robust encyclopedia that explains all the mechanics :)
Yup, once I found the encyclopedia it was easier. But I would heavily recommend adding tooltips. Stuff that you can read on the fly and be reminded what does what. It might be difficult with the current way the game is built as you can only hover on the whole card and not parts of it, but believe me a change towards that direction would do wonders in learnability of this game.
Abilities let you play your whole deck!
Won the run on 'brutal' with six turns left.
The original and revamped demo were both available for Mac. Any chance this one will be too in the future, even though it's now only downloadable through Steam (or I am I misunderstanding)? Have been following since the beginning and was really looking forward to playing this release!
unfortunately i am a solo dev so i can't carve out time for a mac port on release :( i do hope to port the game to mac if the game does well, so do keep checking back in!
Revisiting since I first played about a month ago.
Huge improvements.
The confirmation prompts - yes.
The new abilities - yes.
The reworked starting hand so you're not forced to play the exact same 5+5+5 each turn each new run - double yes.
The new transition screen when entering a new area and the thematic background is a very nice touch, and you can definitely "feel" more overall when navigating through each menu. Builds are bound to get pretty interesting now it seems with these new super commons alongside the introduction of abilites, wonder if you'll consider a "God Pack" in the shop? Crazy price tag for a chance at Charizard or Dark Magician or something? Still exploring more, but wanted to compliment you on your progress and this recent update. Keep it up, you've got a really fun thing going here. 👍👍
so glad you're enjoying it, and thank you for the feedback!!
I was looking forward to testing the new update, but it doesn't seem to be rendering correctly. Everything looks normal until I choose a gamemode, and then it ends up like this. I play on a Mac using Vivaldi as my browser, in case either of those is causing the issue.
in settings i turned off animations and it worked for me
That worked! Thanks
i think your computer may be having problems rendering the shaders. on the main menu, try going to options and turning off background movement/vsync/crt filter. in the meantime i will look into this, thank you for the report!
The new update is AMAZING!!!!
Also, congratulations on taking the next step: putting a demo on Steam!
ty!! so glad you like it!
I really like this game, but personally once you get the swing of things brutal mode stops being a challenge. Hopefully in the full release an infinite mode or something like that can be implemented.
Update: found nightmare mode. bout to go ham 😼
Nvm I cleared it already....
I NEED MORE RAAAAAAAAA
no seriously tho great game amazing game I love this game
Finally won on adventure difficulty! :D I love sledge hammer it just lets you spam buy resources and then one turn a lot of the expeditions.
Hey! I've been playing Retromine and I really liked it! congrats on the game, the idea and general aesthetic! really cool combination of mining and cards
I noticed you're using a synthwave album for the music, which really works, but I since I make music for videogames and got inspired by yours I got curious about what an original score made specifically for the game could feel like.
I usually make retro styled music but no so much in this particular style, so I made a quick piece inspired by Retromine, just for fun, trying to convey the feeling of undermining. No strings attached, just wanted to share it!
https://on.soundcloud.com/wCT7rW96bYXX7ogOi7
cheers
gatex
unique sound and melody style. some 80s influence there. i like it and it reminds me of the game. i would bring the volume down a little on the main percussion beat (snare drum). keep it up!
the relaxing style reminds me of the music for mega miner. v=HYAIEK658Bk i miss that game. when i tried to play in ruffle it lagged too much. maybe theres a way.
hey, thanks for listening, I'm glad you liked it (you are right about that snare, I rushed it a little on the mix there😆). I've never heard of mega miner, maybe I should look for it!
Very nice game, polished, lots of replay value. Well done 👍
Soooo close to 10k...
Deck was too efficient :(. Could probably have harvested 10k but I kept running out of cards (almost every turn).
But finished last level with 2000 red on nightmare, new personal best
So many synergies I could play my whole deck almost every turn
Had a great run with a lot of draw, 0 cost cards, and Katzite. Was lucky enough to get the Bubblite too!
How do you play Nightmare difficulty? (EDIT: type "nightmare" on the choose difficulty popup.)
Such a fun and challenging game!
it'd be really great if you were able to make it available for other types of OS once the full game is out because I don't have windows and i love this demo and want to buy and play the full game
i don't plan on that for release day, but if the game does well i would be interested in porting - so we will see!
glad to hear it! i'll be waiting for the mac port *fingers crossed*
first completed run on new update:
I actually love this game