a game from a simpler time

No matter how hard you try, you can't bring back that feeling you had playing multiplayer on 360

When I started playing this game back in 2012, I was a complete noob. I had a great friend help me with all sorts (Making money, getting good fast, etc) and me and him played all of the time on his Dig Deep world where we had gotten to the 2nd Underworld area. We had full Titanium armour, a bunch of chests full of Sledgehammers (Due to the spider-kill Sledgehammer drop when reaching Bedrock), stacks of money, all sorts of stuff. Sadly, back in 2015, he went Black (EDIT: By Black, I mean he disappeared from the internet and being onlne.). He wasn't online when I went online (Usually he would msg me and we would play nearly daily) as he normally would be. I wonder what happened to him for months before I converted over to PC completely. I messaged him about this, but he was not online. As soon as this game came out for PC, I got hit with an immense amount of nostalgia. I dedicate this purchase to my good friend, the one who helped me with everything in this game, the friend who forgave any fumbles on this game. I won't forget you


Edit 2: Holy smokes! Thanks Reddit! You guys are awesome! Never in my wildest dreams did I think i'd have that many Upvotes for my review! Also, I saw someone wonder if my friend is ok. He is doing well, recovering from a lot of crap that happened in his life. Doesn't have a PC, but I have been able to communicate with him in other means.

most people will compare this to minecraft, as such, i will show pros and cons between them.
+cheaper
+more tiers of quality in items
+an optional skill syetem
+pre-made texture packs of high quality
+a super useful, and intuitive system of marker blocks that allow you to clear areas, fill large areas, exclude areas within those areas from the effects, and much more.
+a much better underground sytem with cave ins, much larger caves, different layers of stone, and a MUCH deeper world in dig deep mode.
+shops that allow you to trade for items with othyers so you do not have to worry about there being a lack of one item on your seed ex: you have 20 dimonds, but have not found one titanium, you could convert those dimonds into currency that allows you to buy the titanium. another example where you have a bunch of ore, but dont want to grind for sone, you can just save your time by trading for stone with ore.
+magical items that grant superpowers
+grenade launchers that provide a lot of explosive goodness.
+ the ability for copy, and paste if you want to move a building from one creative map to another, or if you wnat to spam a structure.
+ a navigation sytem with a built in map, and a compass on your ui for ease of travel.
+a box that shows things jsut under, and above you to help with finding all of the ore without stripping everything which comes in handy in dig deep where the map is thousands of blocks deep.
+coold layers such as a hell layer.
+better building blocks withmore variety of styles, and systems such as blcoks that let you choose their textures so that they can always blend in seamlessly, and blocks that allow you to make nosies, and effects.
+teleporter blocks that remove the massive walk back to the surface, or trying to navigate a labarynth of a cave to find yor spot again.


+/- you have to find blueprints to craft things in dig deep, but you have an arrow to direct you to them.
+/- no hunger. can be good because you dont have to worry about it, but bad becasue it amkes farms practically useless.

- very bad looking ui with boring bars instead of health.
- absolutely abysmal combat with you hitting things, and the only response being a rng number, and their healthbar going slightly red. this makes your hits feel powerless. the lack of knockback just makes combat a game of seeing who ahs the biggest health bar.
-slow movements, and pace making everything feel boring. this grinds down enthusiasm.
-bad animations destroy your sense of this game being alive, and help to create a boring experience. minecraft has always had good animations that make npc's look alive.
- the redstone equivelant is boring to sue with very little possibility.
- a boring lighting sytem that makes everthing a little depressing.
- the soundtrack has a lot of variety in music, but it fails to come anywhere close to the happy sounds of minecraft's tune.
- the game gets updated massively, but it always feels teh same due to lack of upgrades to asthetics. the animations are practically the same as years ago. the movement system is slow feeling. the enemies amke have more variet, but all feel like the same enemy with more, or less health, or damage. the lighting has been improved, but still lacks ultra highs, and the underground still feels stagnant until you reach a new layer which can take a long time due to the depht of the world.

overall: this game is eprfect for people that love building large structures in creative, and love exploring caves, but it is not suitable for people who love survival near the surface, and people who want good combat. the animation problems, adn lack of a feeling of life can be overcome by simply having a friend to play with. this makes teh game immesurably better, and it makes the game better than minecraft in most aspects of the survival process. thaqt is why multiplayer is so anticipated.

i played this game a lot from its early days on xbox to present, so the hours that it says i have are higher in terms of experience.

Xbox indie marketplace nostalgia.

Thank you for all of your hard work, Craig. I remember when I started this game for the first time, and I remember when I first stumbled into the caves, a little boy went into those caves; and a man came out. I was so young, and so malleable when I first started playing Total Miner. I can't even count the number of hours we stayed up, going to the store and grabbing tons of junk food to go play a "Total Miner Nighter". We never had better times in our lives, just sitting there, couch gaming like the purest form. I watched this game grow, and change...I spent countless hours worrying if my world would get griefed or not trying to unlock the King skin. I wanted it so badly and I was inviting people to my worlds constantly just trying to get it all done just so I could shut down multiplayer and never touch it again! I was afraid of the others, but...now it's not big deal, I look back and I laugh. My old Xbox is still FULL of worlds that are completed and decked out, big buildings and loaded chests. We kept them all. One night we booted up the Xbox and just...relived it all. "Hehehe, I remember this world, this was the world where we found the bed blueprint super late and it was really difficult" "That one was my favorite! Our house was so big and our rooms were so personalized." These moments were so jovial and packed with real tender meaning. They are irreplaceable, Craig, and I owe them to you. It doesn't matter if you don't see this, but I want to tell you you have a fan and a follower for life. I wanted to pitch my own music into the game, or to have worked alongside you as we designed some music themes together. But I was a little too late to that rodeo.

The more I think about how long I spent enjoying your game and creating REAL memories with REAL friends and being awe inspired by some of the wisdom scrolls and finding some of the new item blueprints and getting hyped about our new features to play with, the more I get emotional and the more I wish I could just start over at the beginning, not knowing what anything was, fearing the other players destroying my worlds, afraid of the caves because the lava and spiders were scary to my 13 year old counterpart. I got over it, I learned to not be afraid and to go out and seek my own adventures and to find my own path, down to the bottom of the world you created, Craig, and I did it. I wanted to be independent and to learn how everything worked, and I did it.

Maybe I should quit drooling over the sentimental side and begin summarizing some gameplay. This game used to be really abusable; and that's okay! Lots of games are until they're updated a fair bit. I remember before the major patches where every player would spawn in with 2 obsidian, 1 of each kind of shop, and 5,000 gold! I made like 8 accounts just to stack up in the early game in dig deep! Speaking of Dig Deep, can I talk about how unforgettable it is? It was the main game mode I played with my brother! it was simply irreplaceable for our twosome, we spent the long empty digs from cave to cave just talking about life, memes, desires, philosophy, discussing the games and what was left to be discovered...Uh oh! Looks like Im rambling and drooling again, but I can't help it. I'm pretty emotional if you couldn't tell. Dig Deep makes minecraft look BAD! The depth being 3100 blocks deep always dumbfounded me! I always had fun looking around, finding blueprints, having a hectic first night as I desperately got as many blueprints as I could while trying to keep enough room for wood! I remember so far back, I remember when there wasn't EVEN a day or night cycle. That was fun too! A bit easier, but fun!! There wasnt a single patch this game had where I wasn't loving on it. I remember when the update with the day/night cycle was installed, I loaded into the game and I heard the transitioning noise, and I distinctly remember getting chills. To this day, that noise I find fervently soothing. I remember how...teal and baby blue the sunset/sunrise makes the blocks look. I thought it was gorgeous, even for a game! Honestly I thought it looked even prettier than REAL sunsets I've seen in my time. But that's aside the point! The mobs were really really scary when first introduced! I was pretty worried that they'd stay around when the sun came back up and that the game would be a lot tougher, but fortunately they didnt! And you know, I was really glad, because then I might have played the game less and things in my life wouldnt have played out exactly as they have. The shop system is really unique for this type of game, and I wasn't really a big fan at first but now I really appreciate how different it was. A lot of things in this game were different, and I loved it so much for that. The music was always fun, both the pre-patch songs, and the ones that got removed, i loved them all! They all make me think "Total Miner" Or "Digging around, talking about life". Too many things in this game I have memorized a little too well, but I'm okay with that! I can tell, Craig, that this was a passion project. If I could check how many hours I had on Xbox, I'm sure it would be...disappointing to say the least, heh! But It's okay! THose are hours well spent, in good company, making real moments happen in a fake world woven from love and passion from the ground up. The first time I made it to the bottom, Craig, I was ecstatic. I felt like I had finally done something, we both did, my brother and I. We didnt even know it was over! We were ready to continue the adventures! But then we found out we couldn't go down anymore....and so then we made the surface as pretty as possible, we weren't the best builders, like some of those CRAZY main menu art guys, but you know for a couple of kids we sure tried hard!

On the topic of building, the creative mode is pretty complex, and I love it for that! Not only that but the marker blocks and creative tools are so powerful and you don't need to go out of your way to install mods to have powerful creative tools! They're already there for you. There's so many blocks that hit smaller details like the Side Post, the Ramp, the Multi Texture Block, and they're all so much more useful than in minecraft where you can change the texture at a whim to whatever you want! The module packs of pre-made houses, hallways, and structures were also a really neat way for me to gain inspiration and ideas for one of the first times! I remember seeing those ones, and thinking how detailed and wonderful they were, and thinking about how I wanted to make my own things look like that! And so I tried really hard, and eventually I could put my own little twists on structures. I still have a creative world with a big old castle that I never finished building...it was going to be massive. I'll have to finish it one day but until then I want to keep giving this game the massive amount of praise it deserves from me.

Craig I just want to say, wherever you go, whatever you do, Total Miner is a part of you. It's a part of me too, and I always want it to be. You've touched lives, and I never want to forget the stupid, scared little boy that went into Total Miner and the man that came out. If you ever come back, if you ever try again, I am sure the community would be MORE than happy to welcome you with open arms; I know I would! I'm making sure to buy this game as many times as possible for everyone I know as one last "Thank you" for you. So, from the bottom of my heart, every ounce of unadulterated, unfiltered love and passion...

Thank you so much for your heartfelt support through the years of Total Miner: Forge. <3 <3 <3

100 percent recommend this to anyone who played on the 360 just like me. don't listen to people who are still saying the game is no longer being developed. it has been picked up by another developer.

check out the games progress here: https://trello.com/b/HB1s1xhH/totalminer

Beware: Serious Security Issue with RCE Exploit

I wanted to like Total Miner, but there's a huge problem that I can't ignore. The game has a Remote Code Execution (RCE) exploit that let a hacker gain access to my computer. This resulted in a RAT being installed, which stole my cookies data and allowed the attacker into many of my online accounts, including my bank!.

The gameplay itself isn't bad. It's really disappointing that such a significant issue exists, and I hope the developers fix it quickly. Until then, I'd recommend steering clear of Total Miner to protect your computer.

If the issue is fixed I'll update my review.

For those who don't know multiplayer is officially out on a beta branch that you can enable right now!

RIP Total Miner, best xbox 360 indie game