Murder Miners is a basic online first-person shooter on Steam. You have simple controls, some basic weapons, a small range of common multiplayer modes, and a simplified level creation system. This all comes together in a great package of a game. You won’t need to worry much about learning curves or leaderboards or anything complex. It’s all very basic and straightforward. This means you can just play and have fun in the moment. Then when you want to quit playing for the day, you can. When you want to jump in, you can. There’s even a cool zombie mode where you can fight against AI zombies so even if you’re playing alone offline you can still play the game. It also has a relatively low performance requirement while still looking very pretty with the crisp, pixelated graphics. All of the levels are created from textured cubes. There’s a map-making mode that basically just has you using one of the game’s guns in order to build and shape your own levels. You can then easily save them to the workshop from the game. It’s all so simple and user-friendly that it’s brilliant!

There are some downsides, but most of them are due to the simplicity, which has counterpoints as upsides. There are no leaderboards or rankings or clans or anything too fancy and complicated, which may turn off a lot of more hardcore players. Also, it can be weird to figure out the ins and outs of making maps at first, and the simple map-making system does take a lot of time due to the lack of any advanced, time-saving features. The biggest letdown is that it can be hard to get games going sometimes. It may take a long time to get people in your lobby or even to find other players. There’s also no local co-op play nor any campaign for single player, which is also a little sad for those without good internet connections. So this game comes with built-in pros and cons.

Still, with all the simple fun to be had for hours and hours of game modes and level creation, it’s well worth the incredibly low price of 2 dollars. It’s a steal. I do look forward to coming back to it when I can and making more levels because this is tons of fun and right up my alley. If you have a few bucks leftover or especially if it’s on sale and you’re into simple first-person shooters, it’s certainly worth your time and your money. I wonder what the sequel is going to be like… hmm.