Astro Miner

Back in 2024, I picked up a bunch of those addictive mobile games that Qubic Games brought over to Steam, promising remastered content, new features, achievements, and an overall better experience than the original mobile versions. A lot of them were games I played as a kid on my phone, so seeing them again was like, “Oh damn, I remember this!” And they were dirt cheap, one or two bucks. Now, with Astro Miner, my original review was brutal and for good reason. The PC port was a complete mess. Constant crashes, freezing every time you opened the map, resource collection tanking the framerate, there was basically no real progression because the game barely functioned. It was broken. So I dropped it, thinking maybe they’d patch it eventually. After all, it’s just a dumb little mobile game to kill time while you’re on the bus or waiting around, nothing serious. Time passed, they updated it… And yeah, now it works. It’s playable. No more weird crashes or technical disasters. But that’s where the good news ends. The gameplay loop is painfully repetitive. I’ll sum up my entire 3.3 hours with it: farm, deposit, farm, deposit, farm, deposit, upgrade… repeat. Over and over. That’s it. At some point you find fossils that unlock creatures giving small bonuses, but honestly, they barely matter. Same with the helpers you can buy, they don’t really improve your progression in any meaningful way. And to make things worse, they locked content behind paywalls that used to be free in the mobile version. That’s just ridiculous. Not only is the game already weak, but now you’re charging for stuff that was originally included? Come on. The achievements are also broken. They unlock when you enter a world, not when you actually complete the objective. So you get achievements without doing anything. Completely misprogrammed. Don’t touch it. Not even out of curiosity. If anything, play the mobile version… though even that one is pretty basic and not that great. But this PC version? Just avoid it entirely.

Broken Cannot get last achievement despite completing it.

Astro Miner is the first game I tried from the QubicGames bundle that pops up during the big sales. If you’re into grindy games, this one’s right up your alley—but if not, you might want to skip it. In this short, grind-heavy title, you mine in a small area, collect resources, and use your earnings to upgrade your character and purchase helpers to gather gems. There’s even a range of skins available, though chasing every single one can make 100% completion nearly impossible. For that elusive achievement, you'll need to buy all the anvil power-ups and most jetpacks—even if many of those jetpacks end up being mostly useless. I ended up having to revisit several planets to fully complete the game, which got a bit monotonous. The money balancing leaves much to be desired: early and late levels both dish out the same cash rewards (200 cash for 2 stars), even though your upgrade costs can skyrocket to 30k by the time you're on the later planets. And don’t get me started on the auto miner—it eventually becomes so underwhelming that its gem drops hardly add up to anything compared to the richer finds later on. 6/10 – A grindy, incremental experience that may satisfy enthusiasts but is let down by balance issues and repetitive gameplay.

Astro Miner ist ein kleines Gelegenheitsspiel. Wir spielen irgendeine FIgur und saugen Stoffe ein, um Geld zu verdienen und weiter Planeten zu bereisen. Zur Grafik: Die Grafik ist sehr cartoony und einfach gehalten. Ich finde persönlich die Grafik in diesem Spiel potthässlich. Die Texturen der Stoffe sehen extrem verschwommen/wässrig aus. Zum Gameplay: Auch in diesem Game ist das Gameplay sehr simpel: Man saugt Stoffe ein, kriegt Knete dafür, upgradet seinen Charakter oder rekrutiert Helfe (ab Planet 2) ubnd wiederholt dies. Das wird nach wenigen Minuten langweilig, da es keinen Spaß macht. Fazit: Astro Miner ist langweilig, repetetiv und ist auf keinen Fall 4.99€ wert. 2/5

Pure time waster, not much to it other than a very tight gameplay loop. On sale for $1.24 is a good value, but I don't know if I'd recommend paying $5 for this.

Gutes Spiel für Zwischendurch. Hat Spaß gemacht, ist aber nichts Wildes.

actually pretty fun