Rock Bottom Beginner Guide: What to Do First, Progression Route & Tips

Quick Answer: Mine everything. Smelt your first bar immediately to open the loop, follow the "find and mine chunks" objectives to unlock the next layer down, and put early tokens into the treasure finder perk so chunk hunting stops being a chore. Don't grind any single biome to completion — you can return to every layer at any time, and mid-game upgrades make old layers trivial.

Version note: Launch build (July 2026, v1.0.1), assembled from the developer's published game data, Steam achievement statistics and launch-week forum reports, linked inline.

This guide focuses on the first hour or two, the part of the game where you can actually make mistakes. Past that point the game turns into a snowball you mostly ride.

On This Page

• How the loop works
• Your first session, step by step
• Chunk quests: how progression actually gates
• Tokens, the altar, and what to buy first
• The dash — the ability everyone misses
• Smelter and Foundry basics
• Early warnings: iron, water, and flashing lights
• FAQ

How the Loop Works

The pitch is "Mine. Smelt. Upgrade. Repeat," and that's genuinely the whole structure:

1. Mine through procedurally generated caves. Rocks give stone, ore veins give ore (13 resource types in total, per the developer's launch announcement), and special chunks advance your current objective.
2. Smelt raw ore into bars at the smelter. Bars and stone pay for upgrades.
3. Upgrade through a permanent skill tree with over 150 upgrades. Every upgrade sticks forever; there's no reset and no prestige wipe.
4. Descend to the next layer via the elevator once you've completed the layer's chunk objective.

There are 8 layers, each a distinct biome with its own ore tier. The early game runs through areas like the Sunken Canopy (where gold chunks appear) toward Crystal Caverns, which unlocks the second orc base, then into the Molten Core, the Void Caverns, and finally the deepest layer. Two orc bases act as your hub stops.

The first minutes: a gold vein in the starting biome, with your first two objectives — smelt at the furnace, find gold chunks — already on screen. (Screenshot: Logan Games)

One structural fact should shape how you play: this is a finite game with no prestige system. A run takes 3-5 hours, the story has an ending, and when it's done it's done. There's no long-term meta-currency to optimize for, so don't waste time on efficiency anxiety.

Your First Session, Step by Step

The opening beats, in the order the game expects them. The first two are the two most-earned achievements, unlocked by ~98% of players.

1. Smelt your first ore into a bar as soon as you have any ore. This opens the economic loop, and bars fund most early upgrades.
2. Take the elevator down when the game offers it. Layers don't lock behind you, so going down is almost never premature.
3. Follow the chunk objective on your HUD ("Find and mine X chunks"). These objectives are the actual progression gate for each layer.
4. Level up by mining anything. Player levels come naturally from volume; the early milestones are 10 and 20. Don't tunnel only on ore — one late achievement expects 10,000,000 stone total, and stone feeds upgrades throughout.
5. Spend tokens when you find them. The token economy is small and there's no reason to hoard.
6. Return to earlier layers freely. Ore required for an upgrade is locked to that specific upgrade, and the elevator lets you revisit any unlocked area at any time. Leaving a biome "unfinished" is completely safe, and shredding rocks you used to chip at is the game's best feeling.

Your home base, left to right: the altar, the furnace (slot interface open), and the goblin's shop stall — the three stations your loop runs through. (Screenshot: Logan Games)

Chunk Quests: How Progression Actually Gates

Each layer asks you to find and mine a set number of special chunks — three gold chunks in the Sunken Canopy, for example — before the way forward opens. Two things to know:

• Chunks are marked. The game gives you markers pointing toward chunk locations. Follow them; don't sweep blind.
• Take the treasure finder perk early. It makes chunk hunting much faster, and since chunks are the progression gate, that makes it a progression-speed upgrade in disguise.

Chunk objectives follow you down every layer — here, cobalt chunks in the blue caverns, with a shrine tucked below the path. (Screenshot: Logan Games)

The launch-week counter bug (stuck at 2/3 if you mined a chunk before the quest appeared) was fixed in patch v1.0.1 on July 16, 2026. If you still see a stuck counter on an older save, see Bugs & Fixes.

Watch out for the gold pickaxe: you need it to enter Spore-light Caverns, and it does not come from the regular smelting chain. The craft is in the token shop. More than one player has been stuck staring at the smelter looking for it.

Tokens, the Altar, and What to Buy First

Tokens are the secondary currency, spent at the Token Altar. Buy in this order:

• Treasure finder perk first, as covered above.
• Gold pickaxe when you need it for Spore-light Caverns.
• Keep spending. 100 tokens spent total unlocks the High Roller achievement, so a stockpile earns you nothing.

For free tokens, befriend the hidden crab in Orc Base 1. It pays 10 tokens plus the rarest achievement in the game. Full route in the Crab Location guide.

The Dash — the Ability Everyone Misses

Rock Bottom has a dash on Shift, and multiple players report completing the entire game without discovering it exists. Learn it early: it speeds up cave traversal, and reaching the hidden crab requires dashing mid-fall. Full mechanics, the mid-fall technique, and a rebinding warning: How to Dash.

Later unlocks lean into screen-filling effects. Chain lightning comes from the Static Charge skill node ("chance to release chain lightning when mining") and it's a launch-week favorite — "possibly the most satisfying chain lightning in recent memory," per one reviewer. Explosions get frequent late game too. If flashing effects bother you, read the accessibility note below.

The permanent skill tree. Static Charge — chain lightning on mining — is the node everyone remembers. (Screenshot: Logan Games)

Smelter and Foundry Basics

• The smelter converts ore to bars. If you played the demo and remember smelting being painfully slow, the developer sped it up for release.
• The Foundry unlocks mid-run and forges alloy bars. Its first use is tracked by the "Alloy There" achievement, which about half of players reach.
• The Tempered Steel recipe is currently bugged. It shows as unlocked but won't craft, and v1.0.1 didn't fix it. That's the game, not you (details).
• The Auto Foundry was removed in v1.0.1, so there's no auto-smelt mode to fight with anymore, and you can now take unsmelted ores back out of the Foundry.
• Type an exact quantity into the amount box instead of clicking the button repeatedly. Nobody needs to press a button 500 times.

Early Warnings: Iron, Water, and Flashing Lights

Three friction points the community hit in week one:

• Iron is hard to see. Iron chunks blend into the white rock of the iron layer, especially at the edges of deposits. Trust the objective markers over your eyes, and check deposit edges you've walked past.
• The water section is slow, though less so since v1.0.1 raised the base swim speed and ore spawns in Wispy Waters. There are still no dedicated swim-speed upgrades. Push through; the game re-accelerates after.

The flooded section — pretty, slow, and universally named the pacing low point. Air bubbles keep you topped up while you push through. (Screenshot: Logan Games)

• Photosensitivity warning. From the iron layer onward, flashing light effects get frequent, and late-game explosions add more. v1.0.1 added a "Reduced Flashes" option under the game tab. Turn it on before the iron layer if flashing bothers you.

FAQ

How do I get the gold pickaxe? From the token shop. It is not part of the regular smelting or crafting chain, and you'll need it to enter Spore-light Caverns.

Do I need to finish all of a biome's upgrades before descending? No. Upgrade costs are locked to their upgrade, biomes stay open forever, and returning later with better gear is faster anyway.

What should I buy with my first tokens? The treasure finder perk. It accelerates the chunk objectives that gate every layer.

Is the skill tree worth maxing? For the achievement only. The final nodes barely change how the last stretch feels. Max it if you want Fully Loaded, skip it if you don't. Details in the Achievements Guide.