Deepworld dives onto iPhone, get your crafting fix on the go

Previously released on Mac and iPad 2 or above, Bytebin's steampunk MMO Deepworld is now available on iPhone, allowing players to literally dive into an underground world of treasures and mobs that plays similarly to Minecraft.

Deepworld gives players tons to do in its post-apocalyptic wastelands, as players are set loose with a shovel and pickaxe and asked to survive on their own long into the future. In this way, the game lacks heavily in the tutorial sense, outside of the tutorial for general movement and jetpack control (yes, you can fly, but only for a limited amount of time). Crafting, building, and even the in-game chat feature are items you'll need to investigate on your own, and this gives the game an incredibly steep learning curve if the iPhone version of the game is your first experience with Deepworld.

Similarly, the iPhone's small size makes controlling your character a pain at times, as the virtual joystick combines with the jetpack to offer less than precise movement ability. It's easy to move your thumb or finger too far in a single direction and lose contact with the joystick altogether, and digging or interacting with the environment is accomplished by covering the middle portion of the screen with your hand so that you can actually tap on the objects in front of your character.

Furthermore, the game's hazards often seem to seek you out, even if they're stationary. That is, you don't need to actually touch a hazard like a spike in a cave for it to damage you. Instead, just getting close to the item seems to cause a false positive within the game, and before you know it, you've died and have to restart at spawn.

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Unlike Minecraft, you won't lose all of your goodies upon death, and can choose to move on to another part of the world or craft the items you've managed to gather. The more you craft and play, the more achievements you'll complete, and the more skill points you can spend to upgrade your overall abilities. Deepworld is an incredibly slow moving game, and the game's lackluster 2D graphics really make the title have a true niche feeling. Even diehard Minecraft fans might have trouble getting accustomed to the gameplay on iPhone, since the tiny screen makes the experience so downright unfriendly.

As an MMO, you'll be able to collaborate with other real world players to explore the depths of Deepworld, but while the chat window can be shrunk, it can never be removed (again, we've already had problems with the user interface on the small iPhone screen, and this just makes it worse). Plus, there doesn't seem to be any moderation in terms of user chat topics, so we frequently ran into less-than-friendly players badmouthing everything from religion to the intelligence of their fellow players.

For all of the depth within Deepworld, the game leaves plenty to be desired, and many of its issues are only worsened via the iPhone release. If you're already an established player within the world and want to take your progress with you wherever you go, then by all means download Deepworld for free on your iPhone. If you've never played the game, however, it's probably best you try it on Mac or at least iPad first, to see if it's for you.

Download Deepworld on iOS >

Have you tried Deepworld on iOS or Mac? What do you think of this steampunk-themed take on Minecraft and crafting? Sound off in the comments!