Ore Sweeper

Free, in your browser, on a computer or a phone. Ore Sweeper is Minesweeper turned around: the mines are what you came for. A number tells how much ore your gnome senses in the eight cells around it, but not where it lies. Ore is fragile, and a laser that hits it burns the ore and breaks the tool, so you work out where it is before anything gets cut.

You think, the gnome digs

Tap a number and your gnome walks over and does what that number proves: he digs the empty stones and drills out the ore. There are no flags, because a drilled hole is the only mark. He takes his time walking and climbing, so you are always solving the field a little ahead of him.

• The mine has no bottom, and each rock is harder than the last. When the laser won't cut a new rock, take samples from the hard stones and bring them to the smith, who tunes the laser to it.
• Ore pays for the smith's upgrades. There is no energy to manage and no timer.
• The mountain's roots can't be cut by any tuning, so you find a way around them.
• Water scatters the laser, so a stone under a lake has to be reached from the side or from below.
• The music follows your digging: each depth has its own key and groove, and a run of good moves lifts it.

A village going cold

The village lives on the warmth of the mountain: its wells don't freeze, and its forge burns without coal. This year the wells froze at the first frost. Grimm, the last miner, went down to find out why and never came back. Your gnome senses ore the way Grimm did, so he takes Grimm's pick and follows his shaft toward the heart of the mountain, at depth 150. Chapter 1 ends there and takes about an hour on a first run. The story comes in short notes, a journal and signs left by old miners, and you can ignore all of it and just dig.

Controls

• Tap or click a number: do what it proves
• Tap a hard stone: take a sample. Hold a stone: dig by guess, at your own risk
• Drag, WASD or arrows: move the camera. Space or GNOME: back to the gnome
• H, U or SMITH: Grimm's rope takes you up to the smith and back. Esc or MENU: pause
• Play with sound on. English and Russian: pick on the first screen. Your mine is saved in the browser

Early version

This is a playtest build. The menu and the ending have a short feedback form that writes a text report: paste it into a comment below, or just tell me what you think. Code, text, art and music were made with AI assistance.

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По-русски. Это «Сапёр» наоборот: мины здесь и есть то, за чем вы пришли. Цифра показывает, сколько руды гном чувствует в восьми клетках вокруг, но не говорит, где она лежит. Лазер, попав в руду, сжигает её и ломает инструмент, поэтому сначала считайте. Нажмите на цифру, и гном сделает то, что она доказывает, а вы пока решаете поле дальше. Деревня живёт теплом горы, и в этом году её колодцы замёрзли уже к первым заморозкам. Гримм, последний горняк, пошёл узнать почему и не вернулся. Теперь к сердцу горы идёт ваш гном, а глава 1 заканчивается на глубине 150 и занимает около часа. Язык выбирается на первом экране. Это ранняя версия: в меню есть форма отзыва, отчёт можно вставить в комментарий ниже. Код, тексты, графика и музыка сделаны с помощью ИИ.