The Dead Mines is a 2018 freeware Adventure Game for PC, made in Unity and published on itch.io
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Toxic fumes are poisoning the people who live above an old Abandoned Mine, and the player is sent into the depths to try and solve the problem.
This game provides examples of:
- Apocalyptic Log: The mine is littered with notes left by the original miners.
- Backtracking: Halfway through the game, the player must return to the first room to grab a mining cart to break through a collapsed tunnel.
- Big Red Button: The four bright-red valves the player must find to seal off the gas leaking to the surface.
- Cluster Bleep-Bomb: There's a ***-filled note about somebody setting off a mining charge in the middle of a (now-collapsed) tunnel.
- Deadly Gas: The mine is choked with it, and the player is specifically trying to stop the leak.
- Downer Ending: The player character shuts off the leaking valves, but succumbs to the poisonous gas.
- Earthquakes Cause Fissures: Averted. While one note reveals that an earthquake caused the mine to fill with gas, the mine remained structurally intact and the only thing damaged are the human-made pipes.
- Fatal Family Photo: Not a photo, but one note was written by a miner musing about picking up cookies for his wife and kids when he leaves work today. Too bad said note was found right outside the collapsed tunnel where the toxic gas leak started...
- Fog of Doom: The caverns are filled with green poisonous gas.
- Hazmat Suit: The player character wishes out loud that he'd brought one of these, instead of settling for just a filtered helmet.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The player character seals the final vent knowing it will make the air too poisonous for his own escape.
- Hollywood Torches: The abandoned mine is lit by open-flame lamps that are still burning strong.
- Ladder Physics: There's one ladder in the game, and it's pretty easy to accidentally fall off. Luckily, the player can't take Falling Damage.
- Mission Control: A voice on a radio orders the player character into the mines.
- No OSHA Compliance: The mines do not look like a fun place to work. Pitfalls are void of protective railings, the tunnels leave no room to avoid incoming minecarts, heavy stalactites hang from the ceilings, and there was apparently nothing in place to stop the whole mine from filling with gas after a few pipes burst.
- Ominous Fog: The mines are filled with sickly green gas. Since you have a helmet, it's not lethal and merely restricts visbility. Until you start sealing pipes and it begins thickening...
- Riddle Me This: At one point the player reaches a collapsed tunnel and remarks that he needs to find a way to bypass it. Lying nearby is a note with a riddle, implying the answer to the riddle might help clear the cave-in. However...
- Red Herring: The answer to the riddle (graphite/pencil lead) has nothing to do with how the player clears the collapsed tunnel.
- Robbing the Dead: The player finds a dead miner named Stephan and takes his wrench.
- Rollercoaster Mine: A lighter example since the player doesn't ride it, but he does push a minecart down a long, winding track in order to crash it into rubble blocking a collapsed tunnel.
- Safety Gear Is Cowardly: As the gas gets worse, the player character curses himself for not bringing a full containment suit (though he implies it was out of carelessness, not bravado).
- Shout-Out: One of the notes has the opening lyrics to "Working Man" by Rush.
- Signpost Tutorial: The first note the player finds explains the game's controls.
- Sudden Lack of Signal: The player's radio connection to the surface cuts off almost mid-conversation as the player progresses deeper into the mines.
- Symbol Swearing: One very angrily-written note is filled with ***s.
- Technicolor Toxin: The poisonous gas is bright green.
- Thinking Out Loud: The player character continues to suggest ideas, weigh options, or voice opinions on what he sees even after discovering his radio no longer works.
