Mine of despair

You have been sentenced to death.
Good news: the administration found something cheaper.
A pickaxe, a torch, and an elevator that only comes back up once a day. There is gold down there. There is also something else. Bring back what the prison demands before the day ends, and you will earn the right to do it again tomorrow.
Up to eight prisoners. One way out. Good luck.
You have no weapon. You never will.
Nothing down here can be killed. It can be understood, or it kills you.
That one is blind. It screams, then charges straight at the last sound it heard. Press yourself flat against the wall and hold your breath.
That one only moves while nobody is looking at it. So somebody has to keep looking. The entire time.
And that chest, back there, in the corner, sitting so neatly… are you sure that is a chest?

Everyone can hear you. So can they.
Voice chat is not next to the game, it is inside it. Whisper, and you slip past. Panic, scream your friend's name, and you have just announced your position to the whole floor.
The best thing that can happen to you is a teammate who keeps their head. The worst is the same teammate, two minutes later.
And when you die, because you will, you stay. Following them. Watching them walk straight toward the thing you saw. Unable to say a word.
Something is blowing out the torches.
Light is the only thing protecting you, and it is leaving. It burns down while you dig. It goes out in your hand. And a slow, sorrowful thing wanders the tunnels swallowing flames one by one, without ever laying a finger on you.
It will not hurt you.
What sleeps on the ceiling, however, is waiting for exactly that.
The prison wants its cut.
The tax collector does not negotiate. He counts, he announces the total, and he raises it every time. Came back one friend short? Medical care is billed, and the team pays.
So you go back down. Deeper. Where it is richer. Which is precisely what they were counting on.
Between descents, the prison has ways to help, if you can pay:
a black market selling things no guard has ever laid eyes on;

a chapel that stitches you back together for a donation;

a gym where loot turns into muscle;

and a very discreet man who makes the prisoner of your choice disappear.

You are not a hero. You are a case file.
You do not create your prisoner, you inherit one. A trade, a crime, a sentence to serve. And flaws you will discover at the worst possible moment.
The one who stinks draws things in from far away. The hard of hearing one will not hear them coming. The one who cannot whisper never could.
Survive enough descents and you walk out free, head high, to nobody's applause. Die, and the next prisoner they hand you will be a little more damaged than the last.

The mine is never the same twice.
Every descent redraws the tunnels. New rooms, new traps, a floor that gives way where it held yesterday.
You will find vaults with no door, to be broken open with a pickaxe without knowing what waits behind. Tombs that open only for those who work out what is being asked of them. Fellow inmates with a favour to ask, and the coin to pay for it.
And somewhere right at the bottom, a key that opens a door nobody is supposed to know about.
What is waiting for you
Online co-op for 1 to 8 players, with built-in proximity voice chat

Creatures you never kill: you listen to them, you trick them, you run

A mine regenerated every descent, richer and more hostile the deeper you go

Traps, puzzles, and sealed vaults you have to break into to find out

A whole prison between descents: black market, chapel, gym, assassin

Randomly drawn prisoners, each with their trade, their crime and their flaws

Fully playable in English and French

Bring friends
Add Mine of Despair to your wishlist, and bring friends. Nobody has ever made it back up alone.

Telemetry :