X-Cavation

Sand blows thru the air... Stupid sand storms... it's the third one already this week! You pull your hat even lower across your face, but it doesn't help. Slowly you move forward across the dig... If you could only reach your tent... You would be relatively safe there.

Something hits your ankle and you dive head first into the sand. Cursing underneath your breath, you spit out the sand. You're ankle hurts like crazy, and while you're gently rubbing it you start examining the floor around you, to see what you tripped on. You notice a metal ring sticking out of the sand. It has ornamental encarvings on it... You wonder why you've never seen it before... Maybe the storm cleared it?

You stand up and try pulling the ring.
It doesn't feel like it's moving at all. Exhausted by the never lowering storm and the sudden exercise on yanking the ring, you let your body slump back down to the ground. But the movement made you twist the ring... and you can make out a faint rattling sound over the storm now. You look in amazement at the ring... It has started turning... faster and faster...

Your feel more alive then ever... You're body is filled to the brim with strange feelings... Anticipation? Anxiety?

Suddenly the floor falls away beneath you...
You scream... 
Sand fills your mouth...
You try to spit it out...

Panic grips you...

Blackness surrounds you....

Welcome...

to X-Cavation!

X-Cavation (download the not yet playable Alpha version here) is a Boulderdash / Emerald Mine clone.
The game needs Direct X 8 or later! Get it at Microsoft (here).

Target of the game is to pick up enough Diamonds and Emeralds to open the exit, after which you have to reach that exit to move on to the next level. That sure sounded easy... just make sure that you avoid all the monsters in the levels. And try not to be that dead guy who got a boulder or a diamond on his head!

- Hints -

• Some monsters explode into a group of diamonds, those might be the necesary diamonds to open up the level exit!

• If you destroy a monster next to a wall, that wall explodes too. Use this technique to access seemingly impossible to get to areas.

• If you hold the Lock Movement button down, you can make the floor to your 4 sides dissapear (as if you walked over it). You can also use this to pick up Diamonds or Emeralds that lay there.

Screenshot archive 
(click screens to enlarge them)

The first title screen