A few days ago, I was lazily browsing the internet, trying to find something other than homework to waste my time on. With no decent porn to be found, I spent my time contemplating what it would be like to be a gold miner. Of course, I had no idea what it would be like, so I decided to download a sweet XNA game that would educate me on the ways of the miner.

Infiniminer is a 3D mining game for Windows that handles a lot like most FPSes. You'll use the WASD keys to move and the mouse to aim. There are four different classes of miner, each with a standard pickaxe (for diggin' dirt and minin' ore) and the ability to create a variety of blocks with a variety of purposes (normal blocks for buildin', TNT blocks for 'splodin', and jump blocks for...well, jumpin'). Each class also has varying limits of how much ore (which is used to create blocks) and loot (which is essential to winning the game) they can carry.



Seem pretty simple so far? Well, it is. When you first jump into the world of Infiniminer, you'll be greeted by a fairly large mass of randomly generated dirt and rock blocks that you can dig around in. This mass goes pretty far down and even towers up a bit on occasion, giving you a lot of interesting structures to work with. Of course, you can be adventurous and explore the deep depths of the mass in search of gold and diamonds, or you can mine some ore and build an awesome fortress (which you can TNT to hell when you tire of it). Maybe even a combination of the two! The possibilities are endless when you have such a large space to build on and explore in. Just be careful you don't dig too deep or you might fall to your death (or get toasted by lava, which can surprise you by flooding a hallway when you decide to dig the wrong area).

I've been having a blast exploring and building in Infiniminer, but I've actually only scratched the surface of this awesome game. You see, Infiniminer isn't about wandering around a giant clod of pixelated dirt until you a die a horrible pixelated death. It's about wandering around a giant clod of pixelated dirt until cause your buddies a horrible pixelated death (or manage to collect enough loot to win the game)!



Yes, Infiniminer is all about the multiplayer, which is apparent from the second that it asks for a server IP and forces you to pick between red team and blue team. While I can't say a whole lot about mutliplayer, as I have yet to get enough people together to play a solid game, I can say that it has to be a load of fun to play with your friends online. I actually spent a good three to four hours yesterday playing with a friend over my network, just screwing around on it. I took it upon myself to build a bitchin' underground fort while my friend decided to blow me and most of the map up with TNT. Needless to say, my underground fort transformed into a floating sky fortress within a few hours of play, as my friend leveled most of the map. I had to build a pretty long ladder to get back up there, but it was worth it to hang out in my bitchin' sky fort.

In case you're wondering how this mess of explosions and mining can possibly make up a competitive team game, here's a rundown of the actual game rules (as if anyone plays Infiniminer to win): Teams compete to collect the maximum amount of loot (which can be customized, but the default is $10,000) before the other team does by digging deep and searching for gold ($200) and diamond ($1,000) blocks. Once a player mines one of these blocks, the loot is pocketed and has to be taken to the surface in order to count for the team's total. Of course, each player can only hold so much loot in their pockets at one time, so it may take a few trips when you stumble upon that gold mine you've been looking for (unless you've got some teammates to help you with the hauling). Once the maximum loot amount is hit, that team wins and the map resets, starting a new game. From what I understand, Infiniminer saves the map file each time the server resets the game (I haven't actually completed a game, so I wouldn't know), so don't worry about losing that awesome base from the last game.



Infiniminer is an addicting mutiplayer game that will keep you mining for hours. The game was only released a few weeks ago, so updates to the client are frequent and available from the Zachtronics Industries website. The creator still seems to be working to balance everything out, so a lot of people are complaining when blocks get nerfed in new releases or whatever, but I'm still having fun trying out the latest changes as they're released. Just be sure to keep your old install files in case you find that the newest update isn't to your liking (just remember that your client has to match with the server you're playing on!).

I highly recommend giving Infiniminer a shot if you have a Windows PC (this game is the only reason I'm not on my Linux partition right now) and have a few megabytes free to install the game (along with the XNA and .NET frameworks required to run it). I don't have any specs or anything, but I can't imagine it's too rough on the system requirements, so give it a shot, even if your hardware isn't the latest and greatest. You may want to install Hamachi, also, which will allow you to play online with your fellow Dtoiders.



So, what are you waiting for? Get diggin'!

Hamachi Network Name: dtoid-mines
Hamachi Network Password: alsococks
Hamachi IP Address: 5.140.171.140

Don't forget to edit your client configuration text file with your handle, look inversion, and screen resolution settings before starting Infiniminer!