DEEPCORE: FADE TO BLACK

Your people's valley is dying. The ancient Deepcore Stone – which kept the wells deep and the soil rich – was lost long ago, swallowed by the earth. You are a miner. Your family has dug these tunnels for nine generations. Today, the legend is yours to face.
Descend through three procedurally generated underground levels, manage your oxygen, avoid guardian enemies, and collect pickaxe upgrades to break deeper stone. Reach the Deepcore Stone at the bottom – then escape.

How to play
Use the arrow keys to move and mine. You automatically mine blocks if your pickaxe is strong enough. Collect pickaxe upgrades to break harder stone. Manage your oxygen – it depletes constantly and faster near gas leaks. Reach all pickaxe upgrades on a level, then find the exit portal (marked with a glowing ↓) to descend deeper.

Level 1 – Surface: Dirt and light stone. One slower guardian enemy.
Level 2 – Midcore: Denser stone, faster O2 drain, two guardians.
Level 3 – Deepcore: Granite walls, tightest oxygen, fastest guardians.
Level 4 – Escape: A Geometry Dash-style runner. Jump over obstacles, duck under ceiling blocks, and don't let the Shoggoth catch you. Arrow UP or tap top half of screen to jump; arrow DOWN or hold bottom half to duck.


What's new in this version
The biggest addition is the Escape sequence: after recovering the Stone, a Geometry Dash-style side-scrolling runner begins, where you must jump and duck through an obstacle tunnel while a procedurally animated Shoggoth/Roper monster chases you from behind. The full game is now framed by story cutscenes – an opening that introduces the world, a transition sequence before the escape, a victory cutscene, and scrolling end credits.
Graphics have been improved throughout, including a dithered fog-of-war overlay for explored tiles and a fully animated monster drawn in code every frame. Guardian enemies now have safe spawn zones so they never appear near key items or the exit.
The entire soundtrack is inspired by Fade to Black by Metallica. Each level reconstructs a different stage of the song's dramatic arc – from the quiet, brooding clean intro of Level 1, through the building tension of the middle sections, to the shredding outro that drives the final Escape sequence and back to melancholy in the end-screen. The arrangement deepens as the player descends: progressions are transposed lower, rhythms grow more relentless, and the chiptune voices stack tighter. By Level 4, the bass riff hammers underneath sparse upper-register stabs – the same quiet/loud contrast that gives the original song its tension – note by note in Pyxel's chiptune sound system.

Controls
Arrow keys to move and mine · UP / tap top = jump (Escape) · DOWN / tap bottom = duck (Escape) · R = return to menu
Cheats: P = Pickaxe Lv.3 · L = skip level · I = GOD MODE (no damage, no O2 loss)