Loot Hole

Prospectus

Loot Hole is a cartoony first-person digging game. Dig down through your front yard, find buried treasure, carry it up and sell it at your yard stall. Spend your coins on better shovels, pickaxes and drills, bigger backpacks, jetpacks and explosives, then dig deeper through ever harder layers of rock on the way to the bottom, 1000 m down. Every layer ends in a hidden landmark with a guaranteed rare find, neighbours stop by the board asking for things you've dug up, and a collection book keeps everything you've found.

How it plays

Hold the left mouse button (or touch and hold on a phone) to dig where you aim. Walk near a find to put it in your backpack. When the backpack is full, press H to go back to the surface and walk into the yard stall to sell everything. Buy better tools and bigger backpacks at the tool shed to dig through harder layers and reach the bottom. Keyboard: WASD to move, mouse to look, Space to jump (or use the jetpack), H to surface, B or I for the backpack, C for the collection, X to throw an explosive, Q to switch its kind. On phones and tablets, use the on-screen stick and buttons.

Opening an account with this game takes one press: Open the holding, above, and it loads on this page itself — nothing downloads and no form stands between you and the first decision. It is drawn for a flexible screen and takes its instructions from mouse, keyboard or touch, as the game prefers. It adjusts itself to upright and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all present it properly. If a fullscreen control is offered, take it — a growing enterprise deserves the whole desk.

Analyst's notes for simulation holdings

• Learn the loop before optimising it. Every simulation is a circle — earn, spend, expand, earn more — and the players who last are the ones who found the circle's slow point early.
• Watch one full cycle without touching anything. A simulation confesses its priorities when left alone: whatever runs out first is what the designer wants you managing.
• Small inefficiencies compound faster than big ones. A route that wastes ten seconds every cycle costs more than a disaster that happens once, so audit the routine before the dramatic.

Loot Hole — questions from the readership

What does it cost to open Loot Hole?

Nothing, at any point. The holding is free from the first click to the last upgrade — no account to open, no download to wait for, no paywall filed anywhere in its pages. The advertising around this page is what pays the bookkeeping.

What kind of game is Loot Hole, exactly?

We file it on the Simulation shelf of the ledger. It is a browser game through and through — the prospectus above is the publisher's own summary of what the game asks of you and what it gives back.

Can I play Loot Hole on a phone or tablet?

Yes — it runs in the browser on phones and tablets just as it does on a computer. It adjusts itself to upright and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all present it properly.

Is there anything to download or install first?

Nothing at all. Loot Hole is an HTML5 game: press the open button and it loads on this very page, and closing the tab leaves nothing behind on your device.

Closing entry

Finished the audit, or still mid-season? The full Simulation shelf is one click away — The ledger's main hall: 302 simulations of everything from bus routes to burger counters to entire small lives. If it can be run, staffed, watered or worried over, somebody has simulated it and filed it here.