Mining Inc

December 8, 2021 by Jorge Zhang

Mining Inc is a 2-4 player game where competing mining agencies are trying to find great treasures buried deep in the ground. There are 4 legendary treasures, each with a different win condition once discovered.

Idea behind this game: It was partially inspired by the flash game, Motherload, as well as the desire to use paperclips in a game. The idea of using paperclips as a component is not mine: when doing research for Daggers High a long time ago, I came across a game called Application Crunch that does the same thing. Why is this such an interesting idea? Although some might think it is tacky, it lets me get away with easily tracking resources in a card game. That means that I can do common euro game mechanics, such as upgrading/resource management, without needing to also manufacture game boards or lots of small components. My hope is that this means I can create games with a similar complexity to a full blown $40+ Euro game with just a fraction of the cost (probably around $15-20 at most, even with print on demand). On the other hand, paper clips can be annoying, damage the cards, and look ugly.

Rules: Coming soon, but there's a rule card in the pnp files.

PNP Files:

This is intimidating to print and play because there are 11 pages, but it really is not so bad because this number includes card backs. That said, since card backs are necessary, I highly recommend doing the following:

Get 62 Magic the Gathering cards (if you buy these in bulk this should be really cheap, .01 per card)
Get 62 clear Magic the Gathering sleeves (also cheap, you can get 100 of these on Amazon for a couple bucks at most)
Get 43 paper clips (you can probably get away with a lot less)

Once you have these items, what you do is you print out the cards and then put the front of the card on one side of the sleeve and the back on the other side.

Page 1 (print this 4 times) download.

Page 2 (print this 1 time) download.

Page 3 (print this 1 time) download.

Page 4 (print this 2 times) download.

Page 5 (print this 1 time) download.

Page 6 (print this 1 time) download.

Page 7 (print this 1 time) download.

Page 8 (print this 1 time) download.

Note: You may end up with an extra II card back
Note 2: Motherload now gives $15 when acquired instead of $0, and basic mining company upgrade action now costs $4 instead of $5. I have not yet changed the files, sorry about that!

So, which cards match with which back? Here's a guide: No backs:

4 Basic Mining Company
4 Drill
4 Hull
4 Money
4 Cargo
1 Fuel/money exchange

4 Copper
4 Iron
1 Silver
1 Ancient Civilization
2 Ancient Artifact
1 Old Landmine
1 Fuel
1 Scrap Parts
1 Efficient Scanner Blueprint

II:

4 Silver
2 Iron
2 Gold
2 Gas Pocket
2 Passive Income Manual

III:

4 Gold
1 Platinum
2 Lava Pocket
1 Found Oil

IV:

1 Motherload
1 Iron Statue
1 Ancient Laser Cannon
1 Ultimate Machine

What I need help with:

This game is still early in development! I have play-tested it against myself a couple times, but otherwise it is still pretty rough. If you do end up printing and playing this game, I am looking for feedback on several crucial points:

What parts of the game are the most fun?
What does not make sense in the rules and could be explained better?
Are any of the decks consistently getting emptied too fast ?
Are any win conditions unbalanced? Or broken strategies in general.

Change history:

12/10/2021: Balance update: Motherload now gives $15 when acquired, and basic mining company upgrade action now costs $4. I found that Motherload was way too difficult in comparison with the other win conditions and that the basic mining company upgrade action never seemed to be worth it. Not yet implemented in the card files.
12/08/2021: First published this page.