Gem Digger

Dig into a collapsing mine, grab your gem quota, and reach the exit before the clock runs out. One wrong move and a boulder lands on your head.

Gem Digger: Cave Quest is a boulder-physics puzzle game in the classic arcade tradition of tunnelling, hoarding and running for the door. Every rock and every jewel falls and rolls by the same deterministic rules, so a level is never a reflex test you grind through. It is a puzzle you read. Plan a route, work out what the rock above you will do once you take the dirt out from under it, and break ground in the order that does not bury you.

A PUZZLE THAT PLAYS LIKE AN ARCADE GAME

Each cavern hands you a quota and a countdown. Collect enough and the exit opens. Take too long, or tunnel yourself underneath something heavy, and the mine wins. Because the simulation never varies, a level you failed is a level you can re-read, and the retry is instant. Nothing is random that you were not told about, which is what separates a real puzzle from a slot machine.

WHAT IS FREE

Dirt Mines is the first world, and all 60 of its handcrafted levels are free. Endless mode is free as well, with no cap on how far you go: it builds a fresh cave for every run and checks it against a solver before serving it, so you are never handed one that cannot be finished. There are no energy meters, no lives to sit and wait for, and nothing in this game expires or has to be topped up.

MECHANICS TO MASTER

- Drop a boulder on a butterfly and it bursts into a cluster of diamonds, which count toward your quota

- Drop one on a firefly instead and it clears the space, and nothing more

- A magic wall turns falling boulders into gems, but it only wakes when the first one drops through, and it does not stay awake long

- Wall the amoeba in and all of it turns to gems; let it sprawl too far and all of it turns to rock

- Slime lets boulders fall straight through it, to places you did not plan for

- Three stars on every level, and the third one demands a clear under par

- Every mechanic is introduced on its own before it is combined with another

THREE MORE WORLDS

Crystal Caves, Magma Depths and Frozen Hollow each add 45 more handcrafted levels and bring their own mechanics with them. Each world is a one-time in-app purchase, and you can take one on its own or all three together. There is no subscription, there are no consumables, and a purchase restores on any device signed in to your account.

BUILT FOR A PHONE

Swipe anywhere on the grid to move, or switch to the on-screen pad in settings. It runs in landscape, it works offline on a plane or underground, and a single run is short enough for a bus stop and deep enough to keep you standing there after the bus leaves.

WHO IT IS FOR

If you grew up on cave-digging arcade games and have been looking for one that respects the original physics instead of bolting a timer onto a match-3, this is built for you. If you have never played one, start in Dirt Mines: the first dozen levels teach you the rules by letting you break them safely, and by level twenty you will be reading a screen full of falling rock the way a chess player reads a board.

ADS

Gem Digger shows an ad between runs, and offers an optional one if you choose to revive or add time. A single Remove Ads purchase turns off the between-run ads permanently.

Dig, think, dash.