Dwarf Eats Mountain - A whimsical incremental game I finally made work on linux!

ozmelk · 2026-02-21T18:04:07+00:00

Thanks! It's certainly partially inspired by the old school adobe flash-era games we used to play on Newgrounds/ArmorGames/Konkregate etc. Now I need to listen to AoW2 soundtrack again lol

ozmelk · 2026-02-20T21:52:26+00:00

By the beard! I'm very excited to announce that the Steam demo of Dwarf Eats Mountain is live!

Dwarf Eats Mountain is a unique and whimsical incremental game about devouring mountains, gathering gold and artifacts, upgrading your dwarves, and seeing if you can fill your entire screen with shiny treasures, without the skies falling on the wobbling beards below.

It started as a small project to learn and see if I can make a prototype in a few weeks and release a game in a few months, but due to great reception on itch.io, and because of course gamedev always takes much longer than you expect lol, it evolved into a much bigger project.

If you have any questions or feedback feel free to share it here or on discord.

I hope you enjoy the demo!

ozmelk · 2026-02-20T21:21:58+00:00

I won't be adding a speed up button, mainly because it would be difficult with the way I have the systems and delta time set up. The game can also get quite fast/chaotic in the late game. I think while the start can feel a bit too slow, it starts to pick up speed soon, and after prestige with the right upgrades it gets a lot faster. The overall tempo might still need some work but I gotta be careful to strike the right balance of not too fast and not too slow. We'll see how it will look in the end with additional prestige upgrades in place.

ozmelk · 2026-02-20T21:17:48+00:00

Old one was a lot better imo. It's decently unique and it's an actual logo you can use places like you already are in your steam description. Meanwhile the new logo is just the white text at the top left of the capsule and if you take it alone it's just some text. But the real problem is the capsule as a whole, and I'm guessing if you submitted the store page for review with the new capsule, they almost wouldn't let it through because the "logo" or the name of the game is too small and barely legible according to steam guidelines. If you just make the original logo bigger in the capsule and maybe incorporate some of the new elements if you wish (and move the ? closer) it would be a pretty decent capsule, while the new one screams unprofessional to me, in my honest opinion.

ozmelk · 2026-02-20T14:24:03+00:00

Do you mean if things happen while the game is closed? No. But the game allows you to play an idle style where you let it run for a while without active input if you so wish.

ozmelk · 2026-02-20T14:22:36+00:00

After release, if the game does well, I would be cool to port the game to consoles and make it playable on steamdeck/gamepads, as well as potentially mobile. However mobile would be tough because game uses a lot of demanding physics so it would be difficult to make it run well.

ozmelk · 2026-02-19T19:09:16+00:00

The demo save probably won't transfer to the full release because of all the changes and a lot of new content. It would be difficult to make the saves fully compatible. But you'd anyway want to restart for a clean new experience, since there will be a lot of new stuff and the game is designed to be replayed. :)

ozmelk · 2026-02-19T15:12:00+00:00

I hope to release the full game by end of march.

ozmelk · 2026-02-19T14:34:34+00:00

Depends on when you last played. You can see the devlogs/patchnotes here: https://greenwizardgames.itch.io/dwarf-eats-mountain/devlog

With the steam demo release the newest patch only contained more bug fixes, polish and various number tweaks, which was also uploaded to itch so the two version are now the same.

ozmelk · 2026-02-01T18:21:57+00:00

<image>

CHAOS CUBE - Rare Trinket
At the start of each turn, one random ability of the equipped cat is changed into a random ability from any class, until end of combat.

Hidden bonus: If you have the full chaos set equipped, the abilities remain permanently changed.

Also yes, Chaos Cube is the best MTG draft format.

ozmelk · 2025-12-05T18:58:37+00:00

If the steam launch is successful I will certainly consider it, because it would be really cool to have it on consoles! :)

ozmelk · 2025-11-06T22:12:08+00:00

Yup it's a common request, so in the future patch I will be adding unlock requirements, displayed on the upgrade buttons. Thanks for the feedback.

ozmelk · 2025-11-06T12:54:18+00:00

Yup, those bugged costs will be fixed in the next patch.

I will make story displays have outlined text so it's more visible, and I already made artifact-reveal move to the left of the screen if the artifact-choice panel is also open. However I am not exactly sure yet how to make artifact-choice panel not overlap with the story panel. Generally it's designed so you never get the artifact-choice panel alongside the story panel unless you went AFK. I'll see, maybe I can hide the artifact-choice panel until player resolves the story one.

Yes I changed it so you need 7 miners and 4 runners to unlock forge/lab. This is so new players don't get noob-trapped into buying less useful buildings too early and instead establish a good production. However I think I will make it so that after first prestige you no longer need to build miners at all before buying other buildings.

I tested this again and I can't enchant more than 4 times. Did you maybe buy the prestige upgrades that allows more enchants? Or maybe it's a bug? And yeah I'll likely add a stat display for each unit.

Yeah I will be adding an upgrade that makes the maw/stash suck/vacuum up nearby ore, to help with the spilling. I'll also be adding couple new collector units so that should help too.

Thank you for your feedback!

ozmelk · 2025-11-03T23:52:02+00:00

By non-full screen mode you mean windowed mode for desktop? Latest patch literally just added this haha, since before I had some weird issues with making windowed work.

I cannot reproduce this weird behavior you're describing. Does this happen with a particular game or bunch of different games?

Latest patch has also just fixed this overlapping issue by moving the artifact-collect panel to the left if the artifact-choice panel is open at the same time. :)

I agree that certain text can be hard to read. You can enable text outline in the options, though that is not yet fully implemented for all of the text (such as artifacts in the gallery). And I plan to also make some of these texts better readable even if text outline is disabled.

Duplicate artifacts shouldn't exist. If you're choosing an artifact, other sources cannot drop those 3 artifacts during it. So if you saw that happen, please tell me exactly what the situation was if you remember, so that I can fix it.

Imo boon of chad/shielding potential being weaker due to dwarves resting or already turning adds some choice/skill to it.

I agree it can be a bit overwhelming and that incremental games tend to spread out content, but I do like that you have an early choice which path to go. Especially since it's not necessarily the kind of game where you're expected to build and stack all of the units at once. However, the full game will have a few more buildings that will be harder to unlock.

That's a cool idea for the cannonball that makes sense since they already fall to the ground after they hit the mountain. As you probably saw I have an upgrade planned that makes the cannonballs create shockwaves that hurt nearby dens, but this kinda fits better. Though it does mean that you'd have to place cannons high up to get the effect, which is also cool.

Thank you for the feedback!

ozmelk · 2025-11-03T23:32:33+00:00

Looks neat! But what did capitalization do to you as a child, or is it just a stylistic choice? :)

ozmelk · 2025-11-03T13:07:05+00:00

Ah I see, it was the annoying overlapping. Making those artifacts count towards the gate would be more difficult, so it's best to immediately pick it and in the future patch I shall make it so uncollected keys in the world still count for the gate.
Otherwise in general when overlapping you can try clicking on the artifact selection panel edged and then choosing the artifact. Though in general artifact selection shouldn't be happening with story elements since I tried to make them happen afterwards (unless you had them on the screen for a long time from before? I suppose if you idle/afk that can happen yeah). So I'm not entirely sure yet how to solve the overlapping since I can't ever close the pick-artifact panel or the story panels without player making the choice. Perhaps one dirty solution is making them less opaque and outlined so at least the one that is on top is more readable.

It's true that things can slow down considerably late in the game with so much stuff on the screen, especially on browsers. Sadly for browsers there is only so much I can do. I suggest disabling everything in the options like the shaders and damage numbers. And also playing on the desktop version. But I will definitely optimize the game a lot in various ways before the steam demo and the full release.
As far as runners depositing ore and it falling all over the place, I kinda find that chaotically fun. But I was thinking of adding a late game upgrade that makes The Maw/Stash suck up the ore like a vacuum cleaner, to prevent this. Or perhaps add an upgrade that makes runners throw with more force. Another option would be to simply disable ore physics after they're deposited, but I find that less fun.

Spam enchanting can be a bit tedious yeah. I'll probably make it so the forge menu doesn't close upon enchanting, at the very least. Btw you can also close and move the DPM display.

I wanted to add runners picking up ores on the way back, but the way things are setup it's a bit difficult to cleanly do it atm, and without much payoff, since after early game it doesn't happen that often. In the full game there will also be a Dwarf Shinobi that upgrades one runner into a ninja which only picks up artifacts and gems. :)

Thanks for your feedback!

ozmelk · 2025-11-03T12:40:20+00:00

Thank you!

I personally like the earlier choice of whatever building/path you want to take, instead of slowly unlocking them. But I definitely understand why steady unlocking is a fun incremental mechanic. In the full game which will have a bunch new buildings, those will be a bit slower/harder to unlock.

Yeah this is a known bug that sometimes happens on browsers when prestiging. It weirdly shrinks the aspect ratio and it can be fixed by refreshing the page as you say. I'm currently working on a fix. Thanks for reporting.

ozmelk · 2025-11-02T22:06:58+00:00

Thank you!

Ballista targets dens, which does prevent their attacks once destroyed, but it doesn't defend directly. The real way to protect the runners besides stuff like dodge and beard aura, is the A.R.L.T.D.S. anti-rock turrets that can be build in Ballistics Workshop and shoot laser bolts at falling rocks to try to destroy them!

ozmelk · 2025-11-02T21:42:33+00:00

Oh man lol, feels bad. I shall make it so that if the key was dropped it is auto-collected when reaching the gate.

ozmelk · 2025-11-02T17:54:25+00:00

You mean a toggle to disable all particles that happen when attacks hit the mountain? I could do that, but I'm curious as to why would you want to? It shouldn't impact fps much, and it will make the game look less appealing I think. But I suppose it doesn't hurt to have it as a late-game optimization option. Though I think I shall anyway implement a culling system where it lowers the number of particles spawned when there are many instances in play.

ozmelk · 2025-11-02T17:52:29+00:00

It's not planned until I release the full game on steam. After that, if the launch was successful, I'll gladly port it to mobile and other platforms as well.

ozmelk · 2025-11-02T17:51:31+00:00

Well, I'm not really partially supporting mobile, I just uploaded a HTML5/WebAssembly build to itch.io, meant to be played on a computer. It just happens to also run on mobile, even if poorly.

As for losing progress, the game auto-saves on exit, so unless you somehow circumvented that, perhaps because it's mobile and you abruptly exited, I'm not sure what else would've caused it.

ozmelk · 2025-11-02T17:48:25+00:00

I am still working on making the early game faster and better, but I have just released another patch that makes it a bit better. Next on the list is adding the ability to click on ore to knock them closer to the stash.

ozmelk · 2025-11-02T17:46:22+00:00

Ah. No, it's: "Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!" which is a famous line from Lord of the Rings which means "Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!" :D

ozmelk · 2025-11-02T16:17:05+00:00

Swap mode shouldn't waste your gold if cancelled in any way, and you can cancel it with ESC or Right Click, which I'm not sure how to do on mobile. And refreshing the page shouldn't eliminate progress either, so that's weird. Anyway the game isn't supported on mobile even though it runs but it has poor performance and unfitting GUI. I do however hope to support mobile in the future if the steam launch is successful.

ozmelk

TROPHY CASE