Last Torch

v1 · updated 2026-07-27

The mine below the meadow is rich, and the thing that lives down there is patient. Last Torch is a turn-based, push-your-luck delve in the spirit of Clank! and Deep Sea Adventure: climb down with one torch, come back up with gold, and decide at every ladder whether you’re being brave or just greedy. No reflexes needed — take all the time you want. The clock only ticks when you move.

🕯️ How a delve works

  1. Everything costs torch. Walking, climbing, prying — every action burns ticks from a single torch that never refills. Halls you’ve already charted cost half as much, and gold is heavy: the more you carry, the faster every step burns.
  2. Gold only counts once it’s banked. Climb all the way out and your haul goes into the cart — safe forever, plus you rest a heart back. Then delve again (the door groans, and the Keeper hears it) or retire with your score.
  3. Sins fill the bag. Smashing chests, stepping on skull omens, lifting cursed gold, re-entering the mine — each one drops red tokens into the Keeper’s bag. You can always see how red the bag is, top right.
  4. Every ~18 ticks the Keeper stirs and pulls three-ish tokens from the bag — more on deeper floors. White tokens are nothing. Red ones cost a heart each. Drawn reds burn away, so the bag cools after it bites.
  5. Out of hearts? Taken. Out of torch? Darkness: your light shrinks to nothing and the Keeper draws on every step. Run.

🎮 Controls

The bar at the bottom of the screen always shows exactly what your buttons do where you’re standing.

  • ⬅️ ➡️ ⬆️ ⬇️: Walk the halls, climb ladders, drop down one-way chutes
  • 🅾️ (Z) on a chest: Pry it open — quiet, but slow (3 ticks)
  • ❎ (X) on a chest: Smash it — instant, but +2 red tokens (iron-banded grey chests only open this way)
  • 🅾️ (Z) on open floor: Drop your heaviest treasure to run lighter — it piles up where it fell, and 🅾️ takes it back later
  • Hold ❎ (X) at the surface: Retire and lock in your score

🎒 What’s down there

  • Chests: The deeper the floor, the richer — and heavier — the gold. Purple cursed chests are worth half again more, but lifting the lid feeds the bag two reds. The floor-6 vault is the mine’s jackpot; the key is hidden on the middle floors.
  • 💀 Omens: Step on a skull, feed the bag a red. They tend to squat between you and the best chests — the toll is optional, but so is the treasure.
  • Gear is weightless, take it all: 🏺 oil refills the torch (and relights the dark!), rope lets you climb up a chute once, the charm silently eats the next two reds, the key opens the vault.
  • Gold dots on the right edge: Treasure you’ve seen but not yet claimed, floor by floor — your shopping list for the next trip down.
  • The quirk at the door: Every mine bends one rule for the day — flooded floors, brittle chest lids, a restless Keeper, a guaranteed golden vault…

💀 You will die. Retry — that’s the game.

Getting taken only costs what was in your hands — everything you banked already counts, even on the run where you die. So dive greedily, die informatively, and press 🅾️ on the score screen to head straight back down.

  • Daily delve: One shared mine per day — same layout, same quirk, for the whole household. Replay it as many times as you like; your best banked haul is your score for the day. The first run is a scouting trip. That’s not cheating, that’s mining.
  • Free delve: A fresh random mine every run, for practicing your nerve.

⛏️ Advice from previous miners

  • Bank early and often. The cart doesn’t judge small deposits, and the rest heals.
  • Floors five and six pay like kings — and stir twice as hard. Go there on purpose, not by momentum.
  • If the walk home doesn’t add up anymore, drop the idol. Dropped gold waits patiently. Torches don’t.
  • Darkness near the surface is a jog. Darkness on floor six is a grave.
📜 Changelog

v1 — 2026-07-27

  • New game: Last Torch, a push-your-luck delve into a haunted mine.
  • Descend deeper for richer gold, but every step burns torchlight — and the Keeper’s bag fills with every sin.
  • Bank your haul early or gamble on one more room — if the Keeper takes you, everything you’re carrying stays below.
  • A daily seed means everyone delves the same mine each day, so scores are directly comparable.