Turn based tactics mixed with minesweeper. Unique, but a tad slow.

In Katja's Abyss: Tactics you let mining equipment loose in a minesweeper field. With drills you can excavate blocks, with radars you can identify squares you're unsure of, and with fighters you destroy enemies.

I only did four campaign missions. I like this game, but goes way too slow to my liking. It's a bit the nature of turn based, in combination that I'm handicapped. The mechanics don't help with extra move actions when killing enemies, and moving after attacking. They help the player for sure, but also require lots of inputs.

But I did like the game.

62/100

It puts actual mining in Mine Sweeper! Like others have said, it has a lot of similarities to Advance Wars and it really does work surprisingly well combining that with Mine Sweeper elements.

One big way in which things are quite different from Advance Wars is that acting doesn't end a unit's turn: You can freely use as much or as little of a unit's movement points each turn, acting anywhere in that process. Indeed, some units can gain movement points by performing actions. The other big thing that's different is you can't pass through friendly units; you get in your own way. That's actually a good thing in my opinion, since it encourages you to dig out walls to make space to maneuver, bringing in the Mine Sweeper side of things organically and because of the freedom with allocating movement points, it doesn't turn out to be a huge hassle.

Enemies generally spawn in places you don't have vision so if you dig out huge areas and move on, you'll find a hoard chasing you through the caves. You can build scouts to keep an eye on things as the main force moves so it's only as much of a problem as you let it be. It's a refreshing way to handle enemy spawns and adds a nice counterpoint to clearing out big areas you might want for moving lots of units around.

Unit variety is nice, there aren't a ton of units but they get their respective jobs done well and none feel superfluous. Half of the units come from modifying existing units in the field, usually a one-way process that gives you some neat options to adapt as things unfold. Need a bug squashed before it kills a friendly but your melee fighter can't make it? Modify it into artillery and blast that sucker from afar!

If you're worried about the Mine Sweeper part and some of the risky guesses you might associate with that, don't be. You've got the tools to handle anything, including a unit that can scan a wall to accurately determine if it's a mine or not. You never have to be stuck in a blind coin toss situation! You can also defuse mines to safely clear them so even if one's in the way, you've got options. If you try to defuse a space that doesn't have a mine, you waste resources and actions so while there's no kaboom, you still need to figure out where they are instead of just trying to defuse blindly.

There are a few minor bugs, mostly relating to secret unlocks moving between campaign and infinite mode. Also, despite every effort, I've never once seen Shrapnel activate so I think that's bugged. Splatter works just fine so the dang baddies get their splash damage sometimes. Unfortunately, I did have an infinite run end when it insisted I only build the extractor on a non-existent target location, so that one was a nasty deal. I wish there was a little more detail to the end of the story as well but I won't get into spoilers by saying more than that.

Over all, it's a fun little game, well worth your time if you like the Advance Wars style tactics game. It's a shame it's not getting much attention here on Steam, that's part of why I bought it here and took the time to make a review. I want more little gems like this to pop up and get some love on the platform. Do your part!

Create units and sweep for energy, while avoiding explosive Nodes. Use tactics to win battles, position units strategically to keep the shadows at bay, as you delve deeper into a never-ending mountain. For fans of Minesweeper, Tactical games and Pixel Art.

Minesweeper and tactics games are my two favorite things in life. Not only does this game combine the two, but it does it well, feels like this games was made for me. My biggest complaint is that allies cannot pass through each other - doesn't really add that much for strategy just adds a level of tediousness. Also, I wish it had achievements. Otherwise it's a fantastic game.

HIdden gem for those who like minesweeper and tactics.

Anyone who has a hankering for Mine Sweeper and/or Advance Wars, this is your time.

This game in itself is alright. But I do have to say I am a little disappointed by the overall quantity of content in the game.

The game is basically what happens when you mix advanced wars with minesweeper. It's a cool concept, you dig through walls and mark Nodes, which act as bombs without the proper unit, the same way you mark bombs in minesweeper. you collect energy, either by driving over exposed energy, killing enemy units, or upgrade the basic miner unit and "defuse" a node to gain a lot of energy. There is a endless mode and an campaign. But the campaign is only 8 levels long, that you can beat in less than 14 hours. The levels itself aren't too hard either. I went through all levels with A rank (Which seems to be the highest rank, although there is no indication if there are higher ranks or not) without failing once. The first level are just you collecting enough energy to build a unit that costs 150 energy, while fending off a few enemies. Good place to learn in my opinion. level 4 was a bit special, since you had to survive around 15 or so turns, but there again was no indication for how long you had to survive, the mission briefing at the start mentioned something along the lines of "Don't place the win condition unit with all these enemies around. Be on the defensive for now." but at that point is still assumed that there was more to the level, so covered both parts, and dug through the big middle area fending off enemies all the while. After the turns passed the level ended, which is the only possible outcome by the way. At the end of the level Katja (your supervisor) made a remark about you failing and that she shouldn't put too much trust into you in the future. So my instinct told me to retry it, instead of going to the next level (Which was accesable prior to trying level 4). I did try again, doing a bit better, but halfway through I accidentally opened the menu and clicked "retreat" and it requires no conformation. So half an hour or so of careful planning was wasted, but I tried again. I went further but the level still ended the way it did. I went through level 5, 6 and 7. Which were all a bit unique. 5 had you survive I believe in a hot climate where every 3 or so turns every unit gets 1 damage from the vulcanic heat, unless they stand on a safe tile. It also introduces enemies that explode and send out projectiles on death, which means you have to akwardly back up with your units to avoid being hit by those projectiles, or take the hit and heal with a medic unit. 6 was similar with the heat and the unit, but you didn't get the unit to produce more units and also had to get to a certain area to complete the level. Although digging a 2 wide tunnel and putting your fighters in the back with one or two artillaries made it way to easy. Level 7 had you dig a tunnel to the north with a few paths to the side to put the Katja unit on certain spots. you build up a bit of energy and then make a 5 wide tunnel to the north, you can put walls behind you, with medics and artillaries behind them, and then refineries that all walk up further north with the mining team. You have a layer of miners and behind them artillaries.
On level 8 you do the same thing, when you reach the boss, you move katja away, and protect her a bit, and then since the path is only 2 or 3 wide you can just block everything with artillaries and spam it with long ranged attacks. Then leave from the place you spawned. And that is teh campaign. After level 4 you usually just put a miner infront, artillaries behind them and then dig, since you can upgrade the miners for 5 energy to defuser, then defuse them, and gain 10 energy in total. So you never have to worry about energy after the first 3 or so turns.

There are only 4 or so units, each having one upgrade turning them into a different unit basically, except the miner who reverts back after defusing. The refinery has no upgrades, the scout, which has good move and vision (BTW there is a lot of Fog of War in this game) but vision isn't needed since besides level 4 there is no real danger since you block things off with a wall or fighter and then dig a tunnel while staying compact, dealing with all enemies with your wall and artillary. Scouts are only useful for turning into medics, since energy is not a concern, so fighters are a better solution for taking out enemies, fighters also upgrade into artillaries, which can shoot up to 3 tiles away. The Wall is a good damage sponge and can also push enemies and your own units, which rarely might help in some situation, it's upgrade can check tiles and show you if they are safe or a node, and I believe also check fog of war areas, but it's range and the fact that fog of war doesn't really matter anyway after level 4, it's just useless. Miners can turn into defusers for so cheap, that checking with them and taking an extra turn is way easier usually. And that's all your common units. You also have Katja by either turning on cheats, or controlling her in level 7 and 8. But she is just a worse miner, since since can't be a defuser, she is just a weakpoint to you. so just keep her out of harms way and maybe hit an enemie if you want since she has 4 attack instead of a miners 1 or fighters 3, but almost no enemies come to her in level 7 and 8 anyway. There are also not that many enemies. Swarms, which is just a small enemies with 2 hp. it's no real danger, just deal with it quickly. Then there are basically enemy fighter and artillaries, when you have a fighter or artillaries yourself you can oneshot them. Then there are the fire bigs that explode and deal damage upon death which are just annoying but no danger at all. And the last one is the final boss.

The variety isn't that great, and there are only 3 tiles, empty/enemy filled tile, Tile with a node inside, and unbreakable tiles. The minesweeper idea is nice but gets boring quickly. And you cna just use a defuser to make sure nothing happens when you are in doubt. After level 3 most of the tiles have nodes anyway, so you you will have to use defuser anyway for 95% of the time. The campaign levels are also quite big, but you never reach any of the further away parts since you have no reason to do that. There are no real secrets, there are artifacts that sometimes drop from drilling a tile or killing an enemy, but those are random and I noticed when you replay a level you still get them. so you could probably just do the first level over and over again. The relics also only gives you a little bit of lore, but not enought to paint a meaningful picture. There is also a secret shop where you can use points you get for doing a level with a good rank, to acquire fun cheats and cosmetic stuff. Also the abilities to have infinite movement, energy and actions. After finishing all 8 levels, I got all the secrets, and explore the 4th level, but even after digging up every single tile and covering everything so no fog of war is there. The level still played out like it usually does with no change.

Overall I wish it had more unit varieties, for both enemies and player, more levels and maybe more area types similar to the vulcano and more types of tiles too. For 9€ it really is a bit barren and needs a bit more polish. It is also time consuming, you don't have to be that tactical. You often have to dig a lot and the clicking gets bothersome, you repeat the same repetitive motions in most levels, dig wall, shoot swarm, move miners and artillaries, killing enemies behind the wall, heal walls if needed, move the wall sections towars the miner team, repeat. If you expect underground monster minesweeper Advanced wars, this game is not for you. If you want an easy, but somewhat time consuming tactics game, then you might find some enjoyment.

The art is really good and I loved it, but that was the highlight of this game for me. Either buy this game on sale, or wait and hope that the game gets more content before buying.

TBT mining + pixel graphics + modify = Dig through caves to collect energy, while avoiding nodes and monsters. Minesweeper mechanics, mod units depending on situation and manage resources to survive.

Love this game as someone who has a superiority complex from knowing how to play minesweeper. Combined with strategy it does take me down a peg as I am not good with resource management or thinking things through. Overall very fun and addicting. And the visuals are so lovely.

pretty fun, short and sweet campaign, not much more beyond that however.