There's goldium in them thar (Martian) hills!

October 12, 2004 10:15 AM

Motherload is a Flash game about mining Mars. It just devoured my morning. Be careful.
posted by picea (16 comments total)

They spelt motherlode wrong. Is it a joke?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:38 AM on October 12, 2004

Beware too of pop-ups and gator spyware.
posted by jpoulos at 10:42 AM on October 12, 2004

How does one exchange the minerals for cash so they can buy gas?
posted by internal at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2004

To the right of the gas station is a processing depot, just drive in front of the door. This is where you sell the minerals. Further to the right is a shop to buy upgrades for your mole machine.
posted by picea at 11:17 AM on October 12, 2004

Why do I explode when I run out of fuel? Much more dramatic to just sputter to a stop, sitting in the cabin as it gets cold and dark hundreds of feet below the Martian surface.
posted by Nelson at 11:52 AM on October 12, 2004

Has anyone figured out how to continue games? It asks for an account, but I don't see anywhere to register....

Damn you picea for introducing me to this timewasting motherlode....
posted by sic at 11:56 AM on October 12, 2004

I got as far as the "create account" part, but don't seem to be able to make it stick - anyone had better luck? I'd like to be able to save my game, so I could, like, get out of my chair.
posted by freebird at 12:19 PM on October 12, 2004

yeah, save if you can.
I couldn't create an account, and lost my ship running out of fuel.
I'm going to count myself lucky in that I only lost a couple of hours, whereas if I'd saved, I'd be losing many more to this neat little game.
thanks.
posted by Busithoth at 12:44 PM on October 12, 2004

boring
posted by lazy-ville at 1:54 PM on October 12, 2004

It's like Dig-Dug, only slower and with no monsters.
posted by gottabefunky at 2:07 PM on October 12, 2004

You linked the absolute "motherload" of spyware.

Beware.
posted by bluedaniel at 2:07 PM on October 12, 2004

What kind of spyware? Prolly only for PC kids anyway...
posted by freebird at 2:40 PM on October 12, 2004

Well. I have been playing this for about three hours now. The joys of being sick. Anywho, quite fun but annoying that you can not save. Game starts getting really weird when you get a few thousand feet deep. And yes, there are various things that can kill you once you get deep enough.
posted by bargle at 11:12 PM on October 12, 2004

i found this game very entertaining and while i have yet to make it past -3k feet i have found one fix for the annoying lack of save problem: if you leave the game on the menu of one of the little shops, you don't use fuel and can sit there indefinitely.

anyone else doing the dig straight down technique?

i so enjoy cute little addictive sims like these...
posted by folktrash at 10:24 AM on October 13, 2004

folktrash, I'm using the same technique. Spent a bunch of time playing yesterday. Also, you can pause using the "P" button. I figured that out after running out of fuel myself.
posted by bullitt 5 at 12:03 PM on October 13, 2004

fyi...no matter what, just keep digging deeper, and you get to fight satan.... i kid you not.
posted by underdog at 7:09 PM on October 13, 2004