Overview
Summary
Dig for fossils under a volcano, one tile at a time. Nothing moves until you do — but then the lava creeps closer, your lamp burns lower, and something in the dark takes another step towards you…
Description
About This Game
The cave doesn’t chase you. It waits for your mistakes.
Time only moves when you do.
Every step, every dig, every coin you stop to pick up costs time — and everything down there gets that same time back. Lava spreads. Water pours into the hole you just opened. Something in the dark takes a step towards you.
Stop moving, and it all stops with you.
The lamp is running out of battery
Your helmet lamp is how you read the tunnels ahead. If you run out of battery, throw a flare into the pitch black below to see what is coming.
The world moves after you do
Lava creeps. Water pours downhill and puts it out. Gas sits quiet in the tunnels until something lights it, and then the whole pocket explodes one tile at a time. Boulders drop the moment you take the ground out from under them.
And the things living down here each have their own idea of where to be next. One wanders. One charges in a straight line. One is following you.
All of it waits for your move, and then takes its own.
Fill the museum to win
Ten fossils are buried down there, and you need every one of them to fill the museum and win the game. Spend what you carry out on better gear — a brighter lamp, a stronger pickaxe, a bigger bag — and go back down for the rest.
Nobody else is getting them out of the dark. You were born in these tunnels.
Dig deep. Predict every move. You are Tunnelborn!
Features
🕐 Time only moves when you do — every step, dig and pickup costs time, and everything down there spends exactly the same
🔦 Light you can run out of — the helmet lamp burns down as you go; flares are what is left when it does
🕷️ Avoid dangerous creatures — they move in different patterns; learn their behaviour to survive
🌋 Lava, water, gas and falling rock — lava spreads, water puts it out, gas explodes when lit, and a falling rock can crush you — or a creature
🦴 Ten fossils and a museum to fill — carry them out, buy better gear, go back down for the rest
💀 Every death replayed — the game replays your last seconds every time you die, so every death teaches you something
