It always makes me happy to see a video game project that we were excited about, but one we haven’t heard from in a while, pop out of the shadows to let everyone know that it’s still alive and kicking. Such is the case with Dungeons & Miners from developer Angry Bugs, a game that was originally announced nearly 4 years ago in August of 2017. It was to be a roguelite digging game blended with dungeon crawling and loot with inspiration from games like Dead Cells, Terraria, Rogue Legacy, and Spelunky, but all packaged up in a more casual and mobile-centric package with portrait orientation and one-finger gameplay. We were excited for it, and players in our forums were excited for it as buzz continued for several months following the game’s announcement.

Then in the spring of 2018 Angry Bugs posted an update on Dungeons & Miners announcing that they had pivoted on their original concept of an ultra-casual mobile game and instead would be making it a more traditional roguelite action game aimed at multiple platforms in addition to mobile. Gone was the portrait orientation in favor of landscape which would look proper on TVs and monitors, and the entire game got a significant upgrade in the visuals department at this time as well.

It all sounded fine, but then the whole project went silent following that big announcement. We heard zilch about Dungeons & Miners until today when Angry Bugs triumphantly returned to the game’s thread in our forums to announce that they are indeed still alive and kicking. What’s more is that according to them they’re “close to finishing this game… yes, no joke!" In that long span of silence they’ve had other projects to work on in order to pay the bills, but now are able to return to this passion project and see it to completion. They’ve also gone back to some of the original concepts and will be making this a mobile-centric portrait-oriented game. You can see all sorts of action in Dungeons & Miners in the following trailer.

Holy moly. This looks riiiight up my alley. Waiting a long time for a game to release is never fun, but sometimes that whole journey is necessary for a game to find its identity and become something special. I think the original idea for Dungeons & Miners was solid, and then its pivot was perhaps overly ambitious, but now it has dialed things back a bit while still retaining some of the lessons learned from that pivot to make for a gaming mashup that looks truly incredible. Angry Bugs doesn’t seem to be lying when they say they’re close to release, and in fact they’re looking for a bit of beta testing help to help smooth out any issues during this final stretch of development. If you’re interested in helping test, check out the aforementioned forum thread, and in the meantime we will surely be keeping tabs on the newly resurrected Dungeons & Miners project.