Dome Keeper is a roguelike survival mining game developed by Bippinbits. Released in 2022, Dome Keeper reminds us that our obsessive need to dig in straight lines will be the death of us.

We play as miner sent in our protective dome to exploit alien worlds for valuable resources. Basically the bad guys in Avatar but it's okay because it's us doing it.

Gameplay consists of digging up resources, defending your dome from waves of attackers and dying because you got too greedy YET AGAIN and now you're not going to get back in time to defend.

The Good

The arcade vibes hit strong on this one and remind me of many nights as a wee little Zehnpai playing dig dug on my Atari 2600. The goal of the game often takes a back seat to me seeing if I can dig out the entire screen before I die. Just put on a movie and bang on rocks for a few hours.

I also enjoyed that losing was always my fault. It wasn't RNG, bad game design, bullshit encounters or anything like that. I enjoy the feeling of being in absolute control of my destiny and constantly fucking it up.

The Bad

There isn't much to complain about given how simple of a game it is. I'd say the lack of depth is about it. There isn't any great strategy, no complex decisions, no evolving gameplay. It feels more like a demo.

Always nice when the worst thing about a game is that there isn't more of it.

The Ugly

There's a pretty clear tier list when it comes to domes and gadgets. About half the unlockables are pert near useless or rendered redundant by better alternatives. Fortunately you have pretty good control over what you get and even then you don't need any of it to win, so it's mostly a quality of life thing.

Final Thoughts

It was fun for about a day or two. Then I ran out of stuff to do and put it down, never to think about again. Which is fine, not every indie roguelike needs to have thousands of hours of replay value. I enjoyed my time with no bitter aftertaste, making it a great gaming palate cleanser.

Interesting Game Facts

Bippinbits takes part in game jams. Game jams are where developers compete to create a game from scratch in under a few days. Which explains a lot honestly. They must have realized they had something with Dome Keeper and put more into it but you can definitely see where the root of this one is.

Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear about your thoughts and experiences!

My other reviews on patient gaming

I've been having a surprisingly hard time on the guild assignments even after maxing out the available unlocks from relic hunt mode. Is there a particular trick to them I am not seeing?

SO far I've only succeeded in Showdown, which was relatively straightforward. Iron Contribution I think the most iron I've gotten to was 120. Upside down I just can't stay ahead of the waves even with assessor and drill. Maze is just frustrating.

I went at it like 10 times(brutal, small map), but i can't get past wave 20 or so. I feel like I'm not getting enough resources to upgrade. I did figure out to mine sideways every 2 row to discover everything, but i can't get deep enough fast enough. I did upgrade the drill first! But then my defenses are lacking.

Chat, I hate to break this to you, but someone needs to say it. You don’t know shit about gadgets. After watching all of his runs and speed running a few other VODs from other streamers, everything NL has said about gadgets rings true. Despite that fact, NL keeps giving in to the pressure.

Part I: “He’s so…useless.”

We need to talk about Drillbert. Yes he’s adorable… for the 5 seconds we get to see him. Drillbert sucks. This is indisputable. I can hear you saying, “But fully upgraded Drillbert goes hard!”

Okay. Auto-turn is 3 upgrades up the tree. Drilliam is 4 upgrades up the tree. A useful Drillbert ends up costing more than he produces by the end of a typical run. He’s a complete waste unless you’re playing Prestige on a Large map. Even then, you barely break even. On top of that, the iron and water you spend on Drillbert could have gone to a one-tap drill and — much more importantly — several shield upgrades. 2 cobalt is more valuable than Drillbert. Sad, but true.

Part II: Beam me up, Ryan Gary

Everyone keeps telling him the lift is super pog. I’ve seen the same on a few copy/pasted beginner’s guides floating around, and suspect that’s where the hype comes from. But the lift is slooooooow. The real value comes from how cheap it is. The only useful upgrade is carrier movement speed, which is a mere 4 iron and 2 water. With its ability to suspend resources, you can deposit them on it while traversing the mines, leave them hanging, and then quickly zip back and forth to shuttle them home. It’s actually more useful if you don’t upgrade it beyond that. Adding orbs just locks more resources that you can’t grab on your way up, and faster orbs are still incredibly slow.

However, it doesn’t compare to the teleporter. It’s not even close. A fully upgraded teleporter only costs 14 iron and 13 water, at which point it makes a lift completely obsolete. It collects resources way faster. It can be dragged along with no slowdown while mining. It can get you instantly in and out of the mines, maximizing drilling windows. The teleporter is the best gadget in the game. <Insert change my mind meme here>

Part III: Finders keepers

Let’s move on to the probe. At first I thought it was an amazing get. But once again NL was right about something chat still won’t let him prove. The probe doesn’t matter if you have blast mining. (EDIT: …unless you get the teleporter first. Then, the probe is much better because you can get multiple recharges per wave.) Blast mining is cracked. It clears enough space to give you the same info, and saves the time it takes to get there. (Edit: It also ignores terrain density, saving on increasingly expensive max drill upgrades. It can save over 500 taps against the densest substrate at the deepest level using a 40-iron drill upgrade.) Fully upgraded blast mines are cheap as hell, too. It only takes four upgrades to max them out. Full disclosure: I didn’t see if he played Dome Keeper today, but so far I’ve seen chat bully him out of keeping blast mines every time he finds them.

If you ever lobby against Blast Mining, you forfeit the right to complain about psycho mines. Pure and simple.

Part IV: Snoozers or losers?

Yes, the condenser is boring. However, water is a scarce resource, and a required one if you want to survive. Shield upgrades need water. Overcharging needs water. Every gadget needs water.

Yes, the converter is boring. But it’s useful. We’ve only seen it on smaller maps playing Relic Hunt, but it has still covered the difference on timely upgrades here and there. On larger maps where you can end a full day empty-handed, 5 iron is a big get. So far people advocate for the aforementioned gadgets over the converter, but I can see chat coming around on this one in the right situations. I’m not saying it’s top tier. Far from it. But it has its utility.

Part V: Pikachu face

I’d like to close this out with one thing everyone agrees on. The stun laser goes hard. Thankfully, he jumped for it and prevented the chance for anyone to misguide him early on. But that’s really the danger in all of this. When chat keeps whining for the same “things that are fun to see” versus “things that are fun to play” we risk Dome Keeper going the way of Backseat Hero. The man’s been playing roguelikes and roguelites for longer than some chatters have been alive. Put some faith in his experience and let him learn the game at his own pace.

EDIT: Just finished today’s run. He cut it very close a few times, but watching him relaxing and enjoying the game and absolutely destroying his goals was extremely satisfying.

I'm curious what everyone is prioritizing to unlock with their badges!

I'm between permanent hostile proximity meter (I always get it and hate spending the early iron for it) and rerolling offers for gadgets or supplements.

Specifically prestige mode. For context I'm not much of a gamer, I've mostly played minecraft and RPGs and have recently been playing dome keeper, 20 minutes til dawn, and blasphemous.
I feel like Dome Keeper is super hard for some reason compared to other games. My highest score is 500, and I've only ever broken 300 one other time. My goal is 1k, which seems doable, but it always feels just out of reach. I know some people are insane at this game, but do most people find it challenging?

Hey, I've been hoping to find that ONE rogue-like game to actually fall in love with, and I was really hoping Core Keeper could do it since I've seen so many positive reviews about it. However, I really have trouble properly liking singleplayer games with a big focus on roguelike elements, since starting from scratch because of something random messing you up is not my favourite thing in the world to say the least. That's why I'm curious about the difficulty of this game and how accessible optimizing a Dome build is.

Both have similar gameplay, both are on sale. I have tested dome keeper demo, quite slow but engaging with lots of unlocks, it's good to play in off and on, without worrying story line etc. But wall world are very very cheap with similar gameplay.

Don't want to buy both, as I already have too many games, any insight?

I missed this so I'm sure others did too, but Dome Keeper came out into 1.0 last month! Looks like a hyge update with tons of new content. Would love to see NL return to it Prayge

So I probably messed up with the flow of events. I managed to advance enough to actually open the mysterious boxes. There's just one box left to open, which is in the Keeper's Dome in 2300 AD. There's a Nu there, sleeping, and a computer behind him. I try to wake him up but he says something about not disturbing him. I try to turn the computer on but I can't. I know there's a time machine related to this closed door.

I've been following lately this guide, but I started late. The problem is that I could never visit the other side of the Sewer until now, thanks to that guide (I managed to activate the bridges), so maybe that missed visit to the Keeper's Dome is preventing me from getting to Balthasar.

Any ideas? What do I need to wake up the Nu or activate that computer and allow me to walk to the time machine?

Update: Finally! I figured it out with the help of a friend that played it a while ago. He told me that I had to ignore the Nu and find the way to go to the crest in the back. I realized that there are two sets of stairs. The one on the right goes up to the gray platform, the one on the left is covered by such platform and not very visible, that's why I couldn't figure it out before.

I have tried laser, sword and mortar but idk the one with the best potential.