History VideoGame / UnderMine

* BreakableWeapons: The Obsidian Knife relic gives a 100 damage bonus to your attacks, but breaks if you take damage. If you have armor , Nullstone or Soul Guard, you can prevent this demerit.

** The thrown pickaxe is very useful early on because it only does slightly less damage than the swung pickaxe but is a lot safer. However, after acquiring more upgrades and unlocking more relics the swung pickaxe will ''far'' outpace it in damage as many of the most powerful relics in the game only affect melee damage. It doesn't help that melee attacks can hit multiple enemies, but the thrown pickaxe generally won't unless you have certain relics.

* A natural result of the game's diverse selection of Relics and effects, too. As an example, Soul Guard minimizes damage in exchange for converting it all to Max HP damage. This means food becomes worthless, and ways to continually raise Max HP become important - but items that rely on full health, like the above Master Pickaxe, become ''godly.''

** There are many relics available from the start, more than can be unlocked over time and also secondary effects like blessings. However, many of these actually kind of suck and may even be more dangerous to the player than the enemy, meaning they're better off ignored or transformed into something else if possible. As the game continues you may realize that unlocking a certain relic or blessing was actually a bad idea because it makes it harder to find something more valuable. The large ember, for example, only does a tiny amount of passive damage around the player when you really want to be killing things in only one or two hits.

** The thrown pickaxe is very useful early on because it only does slightly less damage than the swung pickaxe but is a lot safer. However, after acquiring more upgrades and unlocking more relics the swung pickaxe will ''far'' outpace it in damage as many of the most powerful relics in the game only affect melee damage.

** The demon Sho'guul will grant you legendary relics in exchange for accepting curses. The can't be acquired in any other way. However, some of them are unfortunately more dangerous than they're worth like the Karmic Scales or Doom Blade or at best require very specialized builds, such as the Tsar Bomba, which makes you play a bomb focused run if you want to get any use out of it.

** There's an achievement for skipping bosses by going through certain events or special battles, but these are only actually available during your first run because the events no longer trigger after that. If you simply defeat each boss before heading onward, you're locked out of these achievements permanently.

** There are unique Swing, Throw and Bomb relics that can only be used one at a time per slot. For example, you can't have both Guidance and Chakram at the same time for your thrown weapon, nor can your bombs explode with a bigger radius ''and'' drop fire on the floor.

** The Galoshes, which are probably the single worst relic in the game, can be combined with the Lava Walkers to create the Helios Boots. This allows the player to leave flaming patches and oil all over the ground to interfere with enemies while also giving invulnerability to fire and increasing speed. But it's still faster to just stab them and fire isn't normally ''that'' dangerous.

* NotTheIntendedUse: Many players note that they use the Altar Room not to store a relic for a later run or to create the Masamune but rather simply drop a horrible relic like Seer's Blood so that it doesn't take the place of something more useful.

** One rare potion removes ''all'' curses on the player, which can be amazingly powerful if you've accidentally or intentionally loaded up on them, especially with a relic like Inverter to turn curses into blessings. However, it also has the unfortunate side effect of taking you down to 1 HP and removing all your keys and bombs.

* AntiFrustrationFeature: There's an achievement for defeating bosses with no upgrades acquired, which would be LostForever on your file if you happened to pick up any, including the one that the game strongly urges but does not force you to pick up during a cutscene. It's also lost if you pick up an upgrade that doesn't actually affect combat such as increasing shop stock, a bomb upgrade to destroy special blue blocks or even getting boots to let you walk faster out of combat! This achievement is made accessible once again in the full release of the game by choosing to take a special [[NerfArm hex]] to remove all important upgrades. Not all upgrades, mind you, meaning it's apparently fine to pick up upgrades that simply make things easier but don't improve combat ability like the Glasses, which all you to see enemy health bars.

** One of the rarest potions in the game, perhaps matched only by Mutagen and surpassed by Rainbow Kernels, is the Witch's Brew. What does it do? ''It gives you thirteen curses, including major ones.'' However, this is very useful when combined with Relics like the Inverter or Doom Blade, so long as you can keep them under control. Each removed curse will give a random blessing while the Doom Blade grants +4 damage for each minor curse and +8 for each minor one.

* BalanceBuff: Several major curses didn't make it into the normal game, including one that disabled healing for the player entirely. This one in particular was later readded as an extra challenge mode.

* MutuallyExclusivePowerUps: There are unique Swing, Throw and Bomb relics that can only be used one at a time per slot. For example, you can't have both Guidance and Chakram at the same time for your thrown weapon, nor can your bombs explode with a bigger radius ''and'' drop fire on the floor.

* AbilityMixing: Acquiring certain relics at the same time will combine them into something that typically has the effects of both at a possibly higher level plus a bonus on top. The Adventurer's Whip and Hat, for example, combine into the Golden Relic which guarantees the effects of the previous item plus gives an instant 10k gold. This is actually a bad idea with the Masa and Mune relics, however, as the combined Masamune ''doesn't'' have the effects of the previous relics but rather gives a chance for an instant kill against enemies. The raw 33% damage from Masa is typically more valuable than a low chance at an instant kill.

* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: 100 gold nuggets will buy you "cloth scraps" held together with string.

** One of the rarest potions in the game, perhaps matched only by Mutagen and surpassed by Rainbow Kernels, is the Witch's Brew. What does it do? ''It gives you thirteen curses, most of them major ones.'' However, this is very useful when combined with Relics like the Inverter or Doomblade, so long as you can keep them under control.

** Some achievements can only be completed for a limited time, most notably the achievements for defeating bosses without upgrades and advancing dungeons without defeating bosses at all. A new player is likely to get those upgrades almost immediately and play through the whole game like that, which means they'll need to start from the beginning again to get the rest.
** Averted in the full release. After beating the game you can take the hex Rogue's Ultimatum before beginning a run, which disables all important upgrades and is the new way to acquire the achievement.

* NerfArm: After defeating Seer for the first time, you unlock Valeen, who can give you nasty hexes to make yourself weaker.

** Many relics have tradeoffs that can make the player hesitate to pick them up. Duplicator, for example, causes two relics to spawn instead of just one, but once you pick one up the other is destroyed. If one room contains, say, Holy Guacamole and Inverter, you may have a difficult choice on your hands. The new Soul Guard relic seems to work by drastically decreasing damage taken, but the damage taken is removed from your maximum HP for the run.

* DeliberateInjuryGambit: Some relics directly ''encourage'' otherwise bad decisions. The Inverter and Kurtz's Stash, for example, have the player rewarded for going out of their way to gather curses. There are also rooms that require a 'sacrifice' ie. walk onto spikes to make treasure appear.

* SchizophrenicDifficulty: You're going to die a few times on your first clear of the Undermine. The bosses grow slowly in difficulty until you reach the hardest boss, Selt, who is difficult to even hit safely, has wide ranging attacks and inflicts burns to keep hurting the player. Once he's beaten though, suddenly the game is much easier while you stack up new relics, familiars, blessings and upgrades. Eventually, however, the game gets loopy with difficulty and the first boss will become likely the most difficult because you won't have the exponentially powerful bonuses you'll have when you get to Selt.

* SkippableBoss: At the moment, every boss apart from the Rock Mimic and Seer can be skipped. Selt can be skipped by defeating Bathcat and Toadvine instead, Mortar by receiving a staggering number of major curses, Noori by surviving an early attack from Ponzu and Ponzu himself by simply paying to enter the current final dungeon. The Rock Mimic, however, has to be defeated to progress in the game and there is no way to skip past Seer. This isn't necessarily easier, however: The Scaled Invasion is actually a harder fight than Noori and the curses gained from skipping Mortar are likely to put an end to your run quite quickly. And you'll still have to do them ''eventually.''
* TacticalSuicideBoss: Noori can become invulnerable by putting out the torches in the boss room. Unless you have something like the Salamander Tail or Seer's Blood, you can't relight them yourself, meaning Noori can only be defeated by using its own curse attacks to relight the torches.

* SchizophrenicDifficultyCurve: You're going to die a few times on your first clear of the Undermine. The bosses grow slowly in difficulty until you reach the hardest boss, Selt, who is difficult to even hit safely, has wide ranging attacks and inflicts burns to keep hurting the player. Once he's beaten though, suddenly the game is much easier while you stack up new relics, familiars, blessings and upgrades. Eventually, however, the game gets loopy with difficulty and the first boss will become likely the most difficult because you won't have the exponentially powerful bonuses you'll have when you get to Selt.

** The first major boss, Selt, will spawn eggs at regular intervals and during her burying charge attack. The eggs are defenseless and can generally be taken out with one hit, but if left alone they'll hatch bugs that are weak but capable of stunning the player.
** Ponzu's main ability is to shed its scales and turn them into insect monsters, which is what the player fights throughout the Shimmering Caverns. It continues doing so during the actual boss fight, but only as one of its normal moves.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: You, a completely irrelevant peasant, are thrown into the dungeon barely able to defeat a few rats and eventually end up powerful enough to take on godly monsters in a fiery hellhole.

* ChangingGameplayPriorities: The thrown pickaxe is very useful early on because it only does slightly less damage than the swung pickaxe but is a lot safer. However, after acquiring more upgrades and unlocking more relics the swung pickaxe will ''far'' outpace it in damage as many of the most powerful relics in the game only affect melee damage.

** Many relics have tradeoffs that can make the player hesitate to pick them up. Duplicator, for example, causes two relics to spawn instead of just one, but once you pick one up the other is destroyed. If one room contains, say, Holy Guacamole and Inverter, you may have a difficult choice on your hands.

* UselessUsefulSpell: Some relics and blessings seem powerful at first glance but later turn out to be basically pointless. For relics, the Galoshes make you immune to the slowing effect and jump preventing effects of oil, but ''also'' make you very likely to set yourself on fire. As far as blessings go, the struggle to earn gold early on makes Craftsmanship and Loyalty seem useful, but only until you realize that basic upgrades can get you up to 95% gold retention and the Sewing Kit relic automatically puts you at 100%. Thrown pickaxe upgrades like Mighty Hurl and Gust are also problematic in that throwing farther makes it take longer to get your pickaxe back while a bigger pickaxe means your weapon can't get through narrow tunnels and is unlikely to even hit more enemies anyway.

%%* BlackComedy:

* LostForever: Some achievements can only be completed for a limited time, most notably the achievements for defeating bosses without upgrades and advancing dungeons without defeating bosses at all. A new player is likely to get those upgrades almost immediately and play through the whole game like that, which means they'll need to start from the beginning again to get the rest.

* NotCompletelyUseless: The Galoshes, which are probably the single worst relic in the game, can be combined with the Lava Walkers to create the Helios Boots. This allows the player to leave flaming patches and oil all over the ground to interfere with enemies while also giving invulnerability to fire and increasing speed. But it's still faster to just stab them and fire isn't normally ''that'' dangerous.

* SkippableBoss: At the moment, every boss apart from the Rock Mimic and Seer can be skipped. Selt can be skipped by defeating Bathcat and Toadvine instead, Mortar by receiving a staggering number of major curses, Noori by surviving an early attack from Ponzu and Ponzu himself by simply paying to enter the current final dungeon. The Rock Mimic, however, has to be defeated to progress in the game and there is no way to skip past Seer.

* BraggingRightsReward: One of the most difficult achievements in the game to get, Cursebearer, requires the player to complete an Othermine run with the cursed shield relic. Every level you go down causes you to gain another major curse. If you get the wrong curse, the run can become simply impossible, forcing the player to give up and start again. However, should you manage it, the extremely powerful Paladin's Shield relic will be unlocked, which gives a ton of power ups including damage, attack speed and range.

* NotCompletelyUseless: The Galoshes, which are probably the single worst relic in the game, can be combined with the Lava Walkers to create the Helios Boots. This allows the player to leave flaming patches and oil all over the ground to interfere with enemies while also giving invulnerability to fire and increasing speed.
* NotTheIntendedUse: Many players note that they use the Altar Room not to store a relic for a later run or to create the Masamune relic but rather simply drop a horrible relic like the Galoshes so that it doesn't take the place of something more useful.

** The very powerful blessings are the only way to continue increase your power after acquiring all the upgrades and then picking up the relics that you want. Unfortunately, for every blessing you get at an altar, you also receive a minor curse.

* BraggingRightsRewards: One of the most difficult achievements in the game to get, Cursebearer, requires the player to complete an Othermine run with the cursed shield relic. Every level you go down causes you to gain another major curse. If you get the wrong curse, the run can become simply impossible, forcing the player to give up and start again. However, should you manage it, the extremely powerful Paladin's Shield relic will be unlocked, which gives a ton of power ups including damage, attack speed and range.

* BrokenAesop: The joke is that aristocrats perceive all peasants as interchangeable drones...but as far as gameplay is concerned, all peasants '''are''' interchangeable drones. The only differences are cosmetic ones, like name, clothing, and epitaph.

* LegacyCharacter: When 'your' peasant dies, you take control of another one newly dropped into the Undermine. They inherit the previous peasant's gear, familiar, all thorium collected, and a fraction of whatever gold they had on them when they died.

%%* SealedEvilInACan: The kingdom sealed all its monsters into a vast mine, locking the door behind them.

''[[https://store.steampowered.com/app/656350/UnderMine/?snr=1_7_15__13 UnderMine]]'' is a {{Roguelike}} roguelite]] dungeon-crawler by Thorium.

* DishingOutDirt: Selt, Lord of Sand, occasionally traps the player in a ring of raised rocks. It's too high to walk out of, but ''jumping'' is quite another thing.
* LivingShadow: Noori, a boss character, who looks like little more than a purple-edge cloud of darkness. With teeth.
* SealedEvilInACan: The kingdom sealed all its monsters into a vast dungeon, locking the door behind them. Unfortunately, a few stragglers got left in there- these are the caged people you free.