Mole Underground

A/D for horizontal movement; space for jump; down arrow to dig downward through soil; left/right while down-arrow held to dig sideways. Different soil types vary in dig-difficulty; rock is impassable. Collect gems and reach exit markers to complete each level.

Mole Underground is a side-scrolling platformer where you can dig downward through soft soil to create your own paths. Explore a procedural underground. The dig mechanic sounds great in concept. Reality is more frustrating than fun.

Right, the dig mechanic is too unrestricted. You can dig anywhere there's soft soil, which is most surfaces. This means there's no platforming puzzle to solve, because you can always just dig to the goal. The level design tries to compensate by adding hard-rock barriers that you can't dig through, but the placement is arbitrary and feels punitive rather than puzzle-y.

The procedural underground generation produces caves that are okay to explore but not memorable. Collectibles are scattered randomly. Hazards are scattered randomly. There's no rhythm to the run, just constant random encounters.

What partially works is the resource management. Your dig stamina depletes with each tile you dig and replenishes slowly when you're standing still. So you can't infinitely dig your way through every problem. That's the one place where the design actually pushes back against the unrestricted dig.

Two-and-a-half stars. Strong concept undermined by lack of design discipline around the central mechanic. The dig could have been the basis of something great if the level design had been built to constrain it productively. Skippable.