Colony 37

Found by word of mouth, not the store page

Colony 37 sends players deep underground into a procedurally generated, 600-plus-metre abandoned colony, block-mining through ten distinct biomes while a dialogue-driven story slowly reveals why the place was abandoned in the first place. What's notable about its review corpus is less the game itself at first glance than how players found it: SplatterCatGaming and a Twitch streamer known as Tomato are both named, independently and repeatedly, as the reason multiple reviewers picked the game up at all. That's a genuine organic-discovery pattern rather than the more common storefront-algorithm story, and it's worth noting on its own terms — a 223-review Early Access mining game finding its audience through creator coverage rather than paid placement is a real signal that the concept has independent appeal.

An RPG wearing a digging game's clothes

The specific quality reviewers credit for that appeal is tone and structure rather than raw mining mechanics alone. Multiple reviewers describe Colony 37 as feeling "more like an RPG than the other digging games on the market," pointing to its darker storytelling, dialogue system and perk-driven character progression as the differentiator from more purely mechanical genre peers. Content scope backs that framing up: more than 40 mining instruments ranging from basic pickaxes to flamethrowers and dynamite, plus over 200 trinkets offering build-shaping bonuses, give players real room to specialise rather than following one predetermined mining loadout. One reviewer frames the value proposition bluntly, comparing the amount of content on offer at a few dollars to getting a full-featured indie experience for the price of a coffee.

Real, specific Early Access roughness

Just as consistently, reviewers are honest that the current build shows its Early Access status. Movement is described as notably floaty, and that imprecision compounds a fall-damage system multiple reviewers call excessive — one specifically measures the threshold between no damage and losing half your health at roughly half a metre of fall distance, a punishing margin for a control scheme players already describe as hard to precisely judge. Visual pop-in is reported alongside a more specific bug: one reviewer describes re-entering a previously-explored underground room to find its layout has changed entirely, undermining the sense of a persistent, learnable space that exploration games usually rely on.

Two more serious reports deserve individual attention rather than being folded into general "early access is rough" caveats. A long-term player with over 1,000 minutes logged reports the developer removed a wall-climbing item they had come to rely on for traversal, arguing the remaining jump-based platforming is considerably worse without it — a live, disruptive design change rather than a launch-day bug. Separately, another reviewer reports losing all progress following an update, a serious data-loss complaint that the available review sample doesn't confirm as widespread, but which is concrete and severe enough to flag plainly rather than omit.

Managing the descent

Colony 37 layers real resource-management pressure on top of its digging loop. Oxygen depletes continuously and radiation exposure is described by reviewers as effectively unavoidable for most of a play session, meaning nearly every trip underground runs against a ticking clock rather than allowing unhurried exploration. Each of the ten biomes carries its own resource pool and its own underground chests to loot, and the deeper you go, the more valuable — and more dangerous — what you find becomes. Even destroyed blocks that don't make it back to base still grant experience toward character upgrades, a design choice that softens the sting of a failed or cut-short expedition somewhat, since a run that ends in retreat or death still contributes to long-term progression rather than being a complete waste.

One reviewer specifically frames the resulting loop in an unexpected comparison: at its low price, they describe the steady drip-feed of progression and content as reminiscent of Vampire Survivors' value proposition — a small, focused idea executed with enough depth and pacing discipline to justify a purchase many times over relative to its cost. That comparison is more about perceived value than genre similarity, but it captures something real about how reviewers who "got" the game's pacing describe their experience: steady, incremental, and satisfying once you stop expecting fast answers from a game built around patient, methodical descent.

Not every reviewer reaches that understanding easily, though. One specifically criticises the game for doing "an absolute piss-poor job explaining anything," describing the available Steam guides as similarly unhelpful — a real onboarding gap for a game whose systems, once understood, several reviewers otherwise praise for depth and pacing.

The verdict

Colony 37 has found real, organic affection from a modest but engaged audience specifically for doing something different with the block-mining formula — leaning into darker storytelling and RPG-style progression rather than pure mechanical digging. That affection comes paired with an unusually candid acknowledgment, even from its own fans, that the current build is still visibly rough: floaty movement, harsh fall damage, and at least one serious progress-loss report worth weighing before committing real time. At NZ$4.49, that's a low-risk bet for genre fans willing to treat this as an Early Access work in progress rather than a finished product — watch for how the game develops toward 1.0 before expecting the rough edges to be resolved, and consider checking one of the streamer playthroughs that first put the game on other players' radar before deciding whether its particular blend of digging and story is for you.