Mining Merchant news & patch notes

1.01.88

Fixed external controllers on Steam Deck

Fixed secondary controller use

Fixed hand cursor stuck in mini game

Updated NPC expression sprites

Updated player expression sprites

Updated Beach map backgrounds

Fixed achievements locked after cheating

1.01.87

Fixed level 5 mech ability stat bar

Fixed CR4B mech ability crash

Reduced ending music volume

Increased copper found in dirt biomes

Increased copper reward from chests

Increased general chest rewards

Reduced copper crafting requirements

• Increased copper found in dirt biomes
• Increased copper reward from chests
• Increased general chest rewards
• Reduced copper crafting requirements

Hey everyone!

Mining Merchant has been out for a little over 24 hours now, so I wanted to take some time to thank you all for the support. Collectively, you’ve already mined 40 million tiles, which is just insane!

I also want to thank you all for the overwhelming number of heartwarming messages I’ve received. It’s not something I take for granted, and I really appreciate all the reviews, posts, and DMs I’ve gotten. Releasing a game is very hard and stressful, and it hasn’t always been easy, but this really reminded me what I’m doing this for.

That said, as with any launch, this one is far from perfect. I’ve already pushed out two patches fixing various issues and making changes based on community suggestions. I’ve also now switched the default branch to performance mode, removing all the debug functions used for initial bug reports. This should improve performance across the entire game and reduce loading times by around 2–3x. Thank you for your patience as I polish the game.

Lastly, I just wanted to confirm that I’m taking all the feedback I’ve received in reviews, community hub posts, Discord, and everywhere else to heart. I’m prioritizing bug fixing and optimization first, but rest assured I’m keeping a list of all your suggestions and feedback to improve things in the coming days and weeks.

That’s it for now. Thanks again, and I hope you have a great weekend full of underground exploration!

-Barry

1.01.86

Fixed npc names being translated

Fixed quest log containing date icon

Polished gem setting mini game

Fixed gem setting crafting tutorial

Fixed CR4B ability targeting mined tiles

Fixed shop report achievement syncing

Rebalanced workstation stat progression

1.01.85

Added calendar opening through date button

Fixed auto crafting prompt clipping

Fixed dialogue spelling errors

Updated resource icons on map select

Fixed mining site traveling crash

Fixed certain events triggering too early

Merged motion blur and effects settings

Added hide custom cursor setting

Fixed calendar updating on event trigger

1.01.84

Fixed inventory swapping crash

Added debt confirmation at map travel

Added traveling purchase money particles

Fixed negative money string dots

Fixed map selection weekdays

Fixed dirt container memory leak

Fixed CR4B mech level 0 movement speed

1.01.83

Fixed inventory syncing overflow crash

Fixed lobby private setting

Add 'item missing' note to gem station

Changed description of top left room

Fixed Cr4b mech picking up 'empty space'

Changed Ruby's quest rewards

Fixed Mother's day event bonuses

Fixed female hairstyles swapped around

Fixed auto craft canceling for clients

1.01.82

Fixed mining during earthquake

Fixed truck drill resetting during earthquake

Fixed inventory dragging crash

Fixed auto craft canceling item duplication

Added scrap to map select info

Fixed stairs to third floor not unlocking

Fixed unstuck during stairwell bug

1.01.81

Fixed calendar weekend days

Fixed customers finding stairs

Fixed 100k tiles achievement

Fixed dialogue lines

Added motion blur toggle setting

Fixed entering building underground

Fixed upgrading with negative money balance

1.01.80

Fixed gem setting station unlocking

Fixed lava mech ability out of bounds

Fixed auto craft canceling

Fixed auto craft cancel syncing

Fixed gem setting station unlocking

Fixed quest tracker client crash

Fixed negative money balance syncing

Fixed smelting liquid memory leak

Hey everyone!

Hope you're all doing great! Just wanted to make this post to share Mining Merchant is now available! There's a whopping 30% launch discount, so go check it out!

There's also a franchise sale going on with discounts up to 80%, so if you want the complete franchise, now is the time to get it.

Hey everyone!

Hope you're all doing great! With just one week to go until the release of Mining Merchant, I figured it was time for a quick Community Hub post. Before we dive in, make sure to wishlist the game on Steam so you get notified at launch and don’t miss the launch discount!

Launch

The game launches on May 1st at 13:37 during the "Mining Mechs Franchise Sale", featuring discounts across all games and DLC, plus bundles to grab the full franchise or complete your collection.

Pricing

The base price is $6.99 USD, with a 30% launch discount bringing it down to $4.89 (regional pricing applies based on currency and location).

You might be wondering why I'm discounting it so deeply on launch. Well, Mining Merchant had a much bigger production budget than my previous games, so pricing had to go up a bit in order for me to afford my mortgage. At the same time, I know many of you expect a lower price, so I’m balancing that with a bigger launch discount. A bit unconventional, but hopefully it makes sense!

Supporter Pack

Another way for me to keep the base price low while keeping my lights on, is the Supporter Pack. This is just a little pack you can get to support me beyond purchasing the base game. Obviously this is completely optional and does not impact the gameplay in any way. It does come with a couple of fun though!

I know this is not for everyone and that's perfectly fine. The extra revenue from this pack does help me a lot to keep the base game affortable for everyone, so in the end we all benefit!

Feedback

Throughout development and the demo, I received tons of feedback via Discord, Steam, and even from jumping into random lobbies; thank you for that! It helped shape and polish the game a lot. A standout addition is crafting automation, which was heavily requested and honestly something I can’t live without now. The biggest one that stands out is automation for the crafting system, which was a much requested feature. I added this based on community feedback and I can't live without it anymore, so thanks a lot!

Thank you

Lastly, a big thanks to everyone who’s been around since Mining Mechs and Super Mining Mechs. Seeing players stick around really means a lot. Your support allows me to keep making games, and I truly appreciate it.

Hey everyone!

As we're nearing the end of Steam Next Fest, I wanted to write this post to first of all thank you for playing the Mining Merchant demo and secondly to address some concerns that were shared by the community.

If you haven't had a chance to play the demo yet; don't worry, the demo will remain available even after Steam Next Fest ends. And if you have played it, please don't forget to add it to your Steam wishlist. You can check it out right here:

5 Million!

Let me start off with a big thank you to all people who showed up to play the demo. Thousands of players jumped in and mined over 5 million tiles in just a couple days, which was really fun to see. I've also seen a lot of players show up who had already played my previous games and it's just been very nice to see people have stuck around since then. Thanks for the support, it really means a lot to me!

Feedback

Throughout the week I got a lot of feedback about the game through Discord, Steam Community Hub and even directly from players as I joined random lobbies to ask for feedback. I'd like to share the biggest learnings I got and what changes I'm planning to make as a result of this.

The crafting system

By far the most mentioned was the crafting mechanic. It's fair to say it's gotten mixed reception as people either seem to love it or hate it. I had obviously hoped for everyone to love it, so I'm sorry for missing the mark here for a lot of you. Luckily, there's still time to improve before full launch, so let me explain what I'm planning to do.

There seem to be two major pain points here. The clunkiness of the system, and the repetitiveness when having to craft a lot of items.

• For the clunkiness, I feel like this is caused mostly by the fact that you have to manually drag everything around. I've already reworked the crafting system during Next Fest to require less object dragging. For example, selecting the handle of the ingot press will automatically have it rotate, and selecting the smithing hammer will automatically move it in the right position, where you can just click to have it hit the anvil. This update is already live on the beta branch.
• Then there's the repetitiveness of this system. To address this, I'm planning on adding automation mechanics, which will allow players to automate the crafting once they've 'discovered' new items. What I mean by this is that you need to craft it once by hand, and from there you can choose to either automate the production, or keep crafting by hand. The speed and quantity of automated crafting will be based on the level of your workstations as these are upgradable (not in the demo).
• In addition to this, please keep in mind that there was already a bulk crafting option in the game, that would allow you to make up to 20 items at once based on your workstation level. So even for manual crafting, you would not have to individually craft every single item.

Shopkeeping

The second most mentioned was the shopkeeping part of the game. Based on all the feedback I got I think most people seem to enjoy the shopping phase, but were also a bit worried about repetitiveness and scalability.

• As your shop scales by adding additional floors and unlocking more rooms, you'll get additional inventory slots in your 'hand inventory'. This means you can pick up multiple items from the storage racks and instantly refill multiple displays. This keeps stuff more manageable and reduces the amount of walking around.
• We're also planning on automating part of the shop, by either adding staff to do tasks for you such as refilling displays and helping customers check out. Alternatively, we're considering for higher level checkout areas to contain self-checkout stations so customers can check out autonomously.

Other things

Obviously there's a ton of other things to be improved, bugs to be fixed and quality of life changes to be made. I'm well aware the game is far from perfect, but rest assured I'm working tirelessly every day to get the game in the best possible shape on launch.

As you might have seen, I had already decided to push the release date to May 1st before Next Fest to give myself a little bit more time to implement any feedback I'd be getting. With all the feedback I got in mind, I think that was a wise move as I really think the game will benefit from all the improvements you all pointed out.

Full game vs Demo

Lastly, I want to share some info around how the demo compares to the full game. While all the concerns and feedback is totally valid, please keep in mind that there is much more to the game than was included in the demo. A lot of new mechanics are introduced in the second and third in-game week to avoid overwhelming the player with all these systems from the get go. This means that the demo is missing a lot of things that are in the full game, workstation upgrading which allows bulk production, mech unlocking and upgrading, companion bots, multiple maps with a wide variety of biomes, and a lot more. The demo is also light on story, as there's already a lot of tutorials and introductions in the first half hour of the game and I didn't want to overload the player with too much dialogue right from the start. Story pace picks up once tutorials and base systems are introduced and explained.

Alright, that's it for this little Steam Next Fest recap. If you're excited for full launch, please don't forget to add Mining Merchant to your wishlist to get notified when the game launches. I'm planning on running a big launch discount for everyone who supports the game on launch, so you don't want to miss that!

Hey everyone!

Hope you've all had a great weekend. Today is the start of Steam Next Fest, and I'm super excited for the Mining Merchant Demo to be included in this event. If you want to get a small taste of the game, the demo is a great way to see if you enjoy it. It includes the first 30-40 minutes of the game and the best thing is that you can continue playing in the full game when it comes out.

You can check out the demo right here:

Feedback

If you have any feedback on the demo I'd love to hear your thoughts as I value community feedback very much! I personally read and reply to every single review on the demo page, Community Hub post and Discord message. So if you have any feedback or suggestions to improve the game, let me know! :)

1 Million Tiles

I also want to thank you all for the support as the demo has already been played quite a bit, with the community collectively mining a total of well over a million tiles! Super excited to see this number go up every day!

Release Date

I also owe you an update on the release date, as I sadly had to move the release date forward by 2 months. The reason for this is simply that I've been getting a lot of feedback from the community and I want to take my time to make changes and improvements based on this community feedback. Besides that, I do feel strongly that a couple extra months in the oven will be good for the overall level of polish of the game.

In the end my company name is Delayed Victory, as I would rather have a delayed victory than a quick failure. And I think most of you would agree with that as well.

Wishlist

That being said the new release date is May 1st, so make sure to wishlist the game to be notified when it comes out!

Alright, that's it for this week. Thank you all for your continued support and I hope to see you all in the demo!

Hey everyone!

Hope you're all having a great start to the new year, and you've managed to stick to your new year's resolutions so far.

My new game Mining Merchant is coming out on May 1st, which is only a couple months out from now, so I figured it'd be a good idea to write a little post about what's coming up.

Next Fest

The Mining Merchant Demo will be part of the next edition of Steam Next Fest, starting February 23rd. The Demo contains the first in-game week of gameplay. And if you decide you like it enough to get the full game when it comes out later, you can continue in the full game where you left off in the demo.

Franchise Sale

On April 30th there will be a Mining Mechs Franchise Sale to celebrate the release of the new game (or should I say spin-off) in the series. During this time, all games, DLC and bundles will be on heavy discount. Mining Mechs will even be Steam's "Daily Deal" on April 30th!

Launch!

Then on Friday May 1st the big day is there; the launch of Mining Merchant! The game will launch at 13:37CET with a nice launch discount and be included in quite some bundles. There will also be bundles with the other games in the franchise, so you'll get a nice discount if you get (or already own) other games / DLC in the series.

If you haven't already, please consider adding Mining Merchant to your Steam wishlist. This way you'll get a notification when the game launches and you won't miss out on that launch discount!

Supporter Pack

As per community request, I've also decided to add a Supporter Pack. Of course this is a completely optional pack that does not give you any advantage in the game, and it's just there in case you'd like to support my work. It does contain a bunch of nice hats to wear in-game and show off to your friends! Having this pack generates a nice little bit of extra income for me, allowing me to keep the base price low without going bankrupt.

Alright, that's it for this week. Thank you all for your continued support and I hope to see you all in the demo!

Hey everyone!

Hope you're all on a nice holiday break already (or at least getting close to it). This week I'm writing a little devlog about the shopkeeping side of Mining Merchant!

👉Before we get into it, don't forget to add the game to your Steam wishlist to be notified when it launches! Helps me out too!

Shopkeeping

In Mining Merchant, your uncle Barry has called you in to help him out with his shop. His once thriving shop is crumbling and it's your job to rebuild it from scratch.

The gameplay loop of Mining Merchant consists of a couple stages that take place throughout the day. Each day starts in the morning where you go mining for ore and gems. The next step is to craft your loot into jewelry, which the previous devlog covered. And now that we've crafted our goods, it's time to open up shop and sell our jewelry!

The shop is divided into rooms. You start out with a tiny shop with only a couple of rooms. Throughout the game you can upgrade each room and even build additional floors that add even more rooms to your shop! Each room has its own purpose and you can change the purpose of each room freely before opening hours to restructure your shop at any time!

Each room has its own purpose, such as a storage room with storage racks so you can restock on the go, a display room to put items on display for customers to purchase, and a checkout room where you can help customers at the cash register. With each upgrade the amount of storage racks / display cashes / etc. increases and the quality of the room improves, making it look nicer and improving the stats of everything in the room. For example, higher level storage racks can contain more items, and higher level checkout areas will keep customers waiting in line longer before they get angry.

Here's what a low level shop looks like:

And this is what a high level shop looks like:

Alright, that's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed this little devlog. Make sure you don’t miss anything by adding the game to your Steam wishlist and following the Mining Merchant Community Hub. Got questions or thoughts? Drop them in the comments below or ping me on Discord!

Wishlist Mining Merchant Follow the Franchise Page Join the Discord

Hey everyone!

Hope you're all having a great week. In today's devlog I want to talk about the crafting system in Mining Merchant. Please note that everything shown and mentioned in this post is a work in progress.

👉Before we get into it, don't forget to add the game to your Steam wishlist to be notified when it launches! Helps me out too!

Crafting

As you might know by now, Mining Merchant is not just a mining game like my previous games; it also has a big focus on shopkeeping. However, you obviously can't just sell raw materials in your shop, so you first have to craft your resources into jewelry to sell in your store.

The crafting process consists of 4 stages:

• Smelting
• Smithing
• Gem setting
• Packaging

Let's go over each of these in more detail!

Smelting

The first step in the crafting process is to smelt your raw resources into ingots. To do this, you enter the smelting workstation and select the ingot recipe you'd like to make. You can also select a quality level, which will determine the ratio of required resources. For example; a gold ingot contains gold and copper. Just like in real-life, the percentage of gold defines the value of your jewelry (for example 14 karat gold vs 24 karat gold).

Smithing

Once we've successfully smelted the resources into an ingot, we can now move on to smithing. The smithing process takes the ingot and turns it into basic jewelry such as rings, bracelets or earrings. The quality of ingots used will determine the quality of the final product. The products made are ready to be sold, or you can choose to refine them more by adding gems and packaging them.

Gem Setting

Once we've created a basic jewelry piece, we can add gems to it to increase their value even more. Some gems are rarer than others, so think carefully about what piece deserves your rarest gems.

Packaging

Now that we've created a masterpiece, we of course want to package it nicely to increase its value even further. Just like gem setting, this step is optional, but it's a great way to slightly increase the value of your best pieces. During this step, we polish the jewelry up and put it in a nice box.

Time to sell!

Now that we've made an amazing jewelry piece, there's only one thing left to do: make some money!! Stock your shelves, open up shop, and wait for customers to pull out their wallets!

Please wishlist!

Alright, that's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed this little devlog. Make sure you don’t miss anything by adding the game to your Steam wishlist and following the Mining Merchant Community Hub. Got questions or thoughts? Drop them in the comments below or ping me on Discord!

Hi everyone!

Today I have some very exciting news about my next game Mining Merchant: the game is scheduled to release as soon as next quarter on...

March 13th, 2026 🎉

👉 To celebrate, please add Mining Merchant to your Steam wishlist to be notified when the game launches:

Closed Beta

I'm currently looking for beta testers to gather feedback and find bugs/issues. In the coming weeks I'll be sharing the game with a very small amount of players, and then gradually opening up the game to more players, with a big beta session in December. If you'd like to get involved, click the big red button below! Join the Mining Mechs Beta Test!

Alrighty, that's it for this week. Next week we'll be back with another devlog, so make sure to follow the community hub for more updates!

Mechs & Companions

In Mining Merchant, you unlock mechs and companions. Every mech and companion has a set of unique stats and a unique ability, which gives each mech its own advantages. You can mix and match mechs and companions to create combos that best fit your playstyle or objective!

For example, the G0-l3m mech has an ability where it stomps on the ground, collecting all nearby resources. And there's the 3y3 companion, which has a 10% chance to perform its resource doubling ability while you're mining.

Progression

From the start I wanted to think of a new approach to mech progression for Mining Merchant compared to my previous games. You see, in Mining Mechs and Super Mining Mechs progression was quite linear, with each mech / part you unlock having higher stats than the previous one.

Now, while this gives you a nice sense of progression and feels rewarding, this essentially creates a situation where once you unlock the 'best' mech or parts, there's no reason to ever go back to old parts. And so for the entire end-game you're stuck with the same mechs.

For Mining Merchant, I wanted to figure out a way to make each mech useful at any point throughout the game. The 'best' mech is no longer the one with the highest stats, but rather the one that's most efficient in your current environment, and fits your current objective.

Therefore I've separated the mech / companion progression from the character progression. Let's dive into that.

Mechs & Companions

Throughout the game, you'll unlock new mechs to purchase. Each mech has a unique set of base stats and a unique active ability. Mech upgrades are primarily focused on improving the active ability, but also slightly improve the base stats.

Similar to mechs, there's also a number of companions to unlock and purchase. Your companion autonomously follows you, providing you with buffs and they can be upgraded as well.

Character

The main stat increases come from your character's stats. Characters earn exp with each tile and resource they mine. The rarer the resource, the more exp. Each level, your character gets a skill point which you can assign to a stat. These bonuses are applied on top of the base stats of any mech you enter!

This way you can choose your mech based on the base stats and abilities that are suitable for your current playstyle, objective or environment, without having to worry about losing progression.

Co-op

If you play Mining Merchant in co-op, you'll be running your shop together with your friends. The money you earn is a shared resource, which means that players don't have an individual bank account. Because of this, all purchases are also shared with everyone in the game. If a new mech is purchased, or a companion is upgraded, all players in the game will unlock this.

Character exp and levels are the opposite, as these are entirely separate to individual players. Your character progress transfers with you to any local or co-op game you join, so you can level up your character with friends and continue progressing in your singleplayer game.

Please wishlist!

Alright, that's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed this little devlog. Make sure you don’t miss anything by adding the game to your Steam wishlist and following the Mining Merchant Community Hub. Got questions or thoughts? Drop them in the comments below or ping me on Discord!

The basics

Mining

• Mechs have active abilities like Rock Breaker (which breaks any rock on screen) or Resource Magnet (which instantly collects all resources on screen).
• Companion bots have passive abilities like Magnify (10% chance to double collected resources) or Dirtbag (10% chance that collected dirt is destroyed instead of stored).

Crafting

• Smelting: turn raw metals into ingots
• Smithing: shape ingots into basic jewelry like rings and bracelets
• Gem Setting: add valuable gems to your jewelry pieces
• Packaging: polish and package your pieces to increase their value!

Shopkeeping

Upgrades

• The shop: upgrade the shop by adding additional displays, storage racks, trash cans and decorations, or expand your floor space by adding entirely new floors.
• The truck: upgrade the crafting stations inside your truck to craft higher quality goods, and improve your truck's drill, dirt capacity and consumables to improve your mining efficiency.
• Mechs & Compation Bots: purchase and upgrade mechs and companion bots and acquire perks to improve their stats and abilities.
• Your character: your character levels up as you mine, earning you skill points used to improve your mining stats. These stats apply to any mech you enter!

Story

Please wishlist!