Delve Deeper

Delve Deeper is a 2D strategy game made Lunar Giant, released 2010.

In the game, you control a team of five dwarves who are ordered by their king to find treasures. Players choose one of three classes for each team member (Miners who have average stats but a high carrying capacity, Fighters who have low movement but high attack power and health, and Scouts who have high movement but low health and attack power), then compete with up to 3 other teams to gather the most wealth in a set number of turns. This is made more difficult by the Goblins, dragons, slimes and other creatures that infest the mining site.

The game is turn based, with players taking turns with expanding their mines, moving dwarves, fighting and mining. All this while their king provides his comments on situation.

The game is available via several Digital Distribution carriers, including Steam.

Tropes used in Delve Deeper include:

• Announcer Chatter: The king.
• Annoying Arrows: Scouts' weapon of choice.
• An Axe to Grind: Fighters
• Beneath the Earth
• Blob Monster
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience
  • Colour Coded Multiplayer
• Color-Coded Patrician: The king dresses in purple.
• Chest Monster
• Critical Existence Failure: Everyone is fine fighting, until their hitpoints hit 0. Dwarves get knocked out for one turn, enemies die.
• Dug Too Deep: Sorta. Deeper parts of the map have more valuable relics and Mithril, the most valuable material in the game, but are also home to the most powerful monsters. Also, if you dig too quickly and don't set enough lamps up, too many monsters will spawn and you'll be overwhelmed in short order.
• Fragile Speedster: The Scout, who deals the least damage, can take the least damage, and has the lowest carrying capacity but can move fastest.
• Improbable Weapon User: Goblin Rat Shamans, who have a magical staff that apparently fires rats at your dwarves.
• It Belongs in a Museum: Sometimes the King will declare this when you turn in a relic. He'll then say "Good thing I have one."
• King Mook: The Goblin King and Slime King monsters.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Fighters, again.
• Luke Nounverber: Suprisingly adverted. Dwarves have different sets of names, whenever they sound Russian, French or Scottish.
  • Played straight with the Dark Traitors, who have names such a "Pukebrood", "Goreslash", and "Rageblood".
• Mighty Glacier: Fighters deal the most damage and have the highest health, but also the smallest movement range.
• Non-Lethal KO: Dwarves who run out of HP effectively only have to skip a turn.
• Our Dragons Are Different
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: The difference between the dwarven teams is pretty much their color and hats...
• Our Gnomes Are Weirder: The gnomes run banks where you can trade in gold, jewels, and mithril (for a small fee). There are also gnome gnights. Who carry sticks and ride slimes.
• Our Goblins Are Wickeder
• Palette Swap
• Poison Mushroom: Relics may turn out to be bogus and cost you points when you hand them in.
• Respawning Enemies: Unlit areas spawn more enemies to replace the defeated.
• RPG Elements: Minor example - dwarves who turn in certain beneficial relics get stat boosts until the end of the game.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Several steam achievements are based on this. Win without mining minerals, win while mining only mithril, win with a team composed only of fighters/scouts/miners, etc.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Single goblins will frequently attack your dwarves, even if it's 5 fighters against a single goblin.
• Shout-Out: Several Steam achievements, name sets, monsters, and relics:
  • "Prince Edward's Harp" was owned by "the world's spooniest bard".
  • The Goblin King enemy is clearly based on Jareth. You can even find the treasure "Jagrath's Balls", and finding it three different times will earn you the achievement "Power of the Voodoo".
  • There's a number of references to Dwarf Fortress, naturally. The achievement for making a custom level is "Strike the Earth!", and the "Piece of Adamant" treasure is described as "rare and usually hidden: fun stuff to work with".
  • The achievement for playing a custom level is called "Minecrafting".
  • If one of your fighters gets killed by a green slime (the weakest monster in the game), you get the achievement "Slimes Sappin' Mah Sentry".
  • All the members of the team "Thunder Down Under" are named some variant of "Bruce".
  • One of the bogus treasures is "A Book of Vorgon Poetry".
  • You can find a treasure called "Jenkins' Jerkin", which describes its previous owner's "legendary bravery (and stupidity)".
• Turn-Based Strategy
• A Worldwide Punomenon: A number of the relic names, such as the "Fat Lute" and the "Miner Potion of Healing".
• Zerg Rush: Monsters (especially goblins) like to gang up on your dwarves.