Artillery Miner

Introduction

Artillery Miner, developed and published by solo studio Alextgr8, released on Steam on 9 September 2026 at NZ$10.61 during its launch discount. It's an incremental built around a distinctive visual hook: rather than clicking a static resource node, players blast through giant cube-shaped mining worlds with an arsenal that starts with simple guns and escalates to fire, lasers and nuclear missiles, unlocking ores that feed a 400-entry upgrade tree spanning more than thirty weapons, twenty processable ores, sixteen craftable materials and ten-plus distinct worlds to work through. An idle layer sits underneath the active mining: prestige cubes can be assigned to auto-miners for passive collection and boosting once unlocked. It launched to a strong early reception — 26 total reviews at the time of writing, 23 of them positive.

An unusually addictive hook

What stands out across the positive review sample is how specific and consistent the praise for the core loop is, rather than vague genre enthusiasm. One reviewer calls it flatly "the definition of addictive," describing being hooked "instantly" and immediately wanting to max out every system — weapons, world destruction, processing — while noting the game lets players "decide your own progression" rather than forcing a single optimal path. Another frames it in exactly the terms genre fans use for the best incrementals: "This is definitely one of those 'Just five more minutes, I swear!' games," adding that it works well as background entertainment "while chatting with someone or listening to an audiobook or podcast." A third, more measured review pushes back specifically on the idea that the game is merely grindy, arguing instead that "it just requires you to think how best to up your numbers, and any backtracking is minimal" — a distinction between mindless repetition and genuine optimisation that matters for how the upgrade tree is meant to be read.

The demo-to-release comparison comes up repeatedly and consistently favourably. One reviewer writes simply, "Great game loved the demo! The tech tree has way more expansion and features that we didn't have in the demo!" Another: "demo was great fun. full release is a huge improvement!" A third frames the jump in more atmospheric terms, saying the full release "kinda takes you back to the old NewGrounds days in all the best ways." That consistency across separate reviewers — that the paid release meaningfully exceeds an already-liked free sample — is a stronger signal than any single enthusiastic review on its own, and it also means the free demo is a genuinely representative way for a prospective buyer to gauge interest before paying.

Length is treated as a selling point rather than a complaint by most of the sample. Reviewers consistently report finishing the whole game, including 100% achievement completion, somewhere between five and ten hours — one specifically clocks 100% at "roughly 5.5 hours," another reports "~7hours to fully beat," and a third calls it "5-10 hours of chill, just wish there was more, but in a good way." For an incremental, a defined, satisfying ending that reviewers wish lasted slightly longer rather than one that overstays its welcome is a meaningfully positive signal about pacing.

The save bug, and other launch-week rough edges

Set against that warmth is a specific, reproducible technical problem that shows up across multiple independent reviews rather than as an isolated report. Several reviewers describe returning to the main menu after a play session, expecting to find a "continue" option, and instead finding only "new game" with their progress gone. One writes bluntly: "just spent 5 hours playing this game... made sure to save (even though autosave was on anyways) and went back to main menu. only option at main menu was to start a new game and no continue game option." Another reports an identical experience after a five-hour session: "Confused when I didn't see any option to Continue, I selected the New Game thinking it might offer the option of multiple save files. No Dice. Brand new game." A third, shorter negative review reports the same failure within the first half hour of play.

It's worth noting two things about how this bug is discussed that complicate a simple "broken game" reading. First, at least one affected reviewer reports direct developer contact and a resolution: "After initially losing my first save from a minor bug, was contacted by the Dev and asked about my issue and got it resolved." Second, a separate reviewer explicitly frames their negative review as conditional and time-stamped: "Game didn't auto-save when going back to menu. Will change my review if that gets added later. I should be on the latest patch as it was installed hours after the continue button issue announcement was posted" — implying the developer had already publicly acknowledged and was actively patching the issue at the time of these reports. Whether the bug is fully resolved as of today isn't something this review can confirm from outside actual play, and that gap is worth stating plainly rather than assuming either the best or worst case.

A second, more purely technical complaint recurs independently of the save issue: multiple reviewers describe the game slowing down in its later stages. One positive reviewer notes "late game it was quite laggy and did not like my computer" while still recommending a purchase; another separately writes "Great game, gets a bit laggy at the last few levels though," and a third mentions the game starting "to lag abit" later on. A third recurring but more minor thread concerns the controls: more than one reviewer describes early confusion over rotating the mining cube and targeting the correct column, with one otherwise strongly positive review still flagging "peculiar UI choices" alongside real praise for the game's scale and relaxing tone. One reviewer also specifically describes a mid-game lull — "It gets boring in the mid-game but later it pay off" — suggesting the upgrade tree's pacing isn't perfectly even across its full length even for players who ultimately enjoy the whole run.

Verdict

Artillery Miner earns its strong early reception honestly: a distinctive, physically satisfying mining hook, an unusually large and well-received upgrade tree, and a full playthrough length that reviewers consistently describe as long enough to satisfy without overstaying its welcome. But a specific, independently corroborated save-and-continue bug cost multiple players real hours of progress at launch, and late-game performance complaints show up often enough to note as a pattern rather than a one-off. The developer's apparent responsiveness to the save bug is a genuine point in the game's favour, but until that fix is independently confirmed, a cautious buyer should treat the launch-week reports as current rather than historical.

Wanderer callout

The specific save-and-continue failure reported here is exactly the class of bug Wanderer's own persistence layer is built to make structurally hard to hit — writing player state on every significant change rather than relying on a single exit-time save that a menu transition can skip.