Unearthed Empire: Idle Dig Tycoon

Tap. Dig. Get rich on history.

Unearthed Empire is an idle incremental dig tycoon: every tap of the shovel earns coins and might unearth a relic. Sell your finds, hire a dig crew that works while you watch — or while you're away — and excavate down through nine eras of history, from a Stone Age pit to an Orbital Survey Array watching the dig from space. Then rebury the whole site for Legacy Stones and dig it all again, richer. Sessions run 10–20 minutes, and your crew keeps digging (at a reduced rate) for up to 8 hours while the tab is closed.

How deep does it go?

• ⛏️ Nine eras, one hole — Stone Age → Bronze Age → Ancient Egypt → Roman Empire → Medieval → Age of Sail → Industrial → Modern → Orbital. Every era multiplies all earnings and unlocks its own relics.
• 🏺 45 relics to collect — five per era, from Chipped Handaxes to a Lunar Core Sample, in five rarities (common → mythic). Complete a set of five for a permanent ×1.25 earnings bonus. Duplicates sell automatically, so no dig is ever wasted.
• 👷 Eight crew tiers — Interns with teaspoons up to an Orbital Survey Array, plus 14 one-time upgrades (tap power, crew multipliers, relic luck, offline rate). Buy ×1, ×10, or MAX.
• 🪨 Prestige: Rebury the site — reset coins, crew, and era for Legacy Stones (sqrt-scaled, so it stays fair). Every stone is a permanent +3% to all earnings, forever, plus a row of prestige upgrades. The first sensible rebury lands around 30–45 minutes in — and run two is dramatically faster.
• 💤 Offline earnings — close the tab, come back to a "While you were gone" report. Autosaves every 10 seconds and on exit.

Controls

• Dig: click / tap the big DIG button (or press Space)
• Everything else: mouse or touch — hire, upgrade, unlock, and relic-hunting are one tap each

Sound is synthesized in your browser (no downloads); mute toggle in Settings

Good to know

• 100% free to play in the browser — no downloads, no account, no ads, no energy timers.
• Works on desktop and mobile (portrait-friendly). Fullscreen button supported.
• Progress saves locally in your browser. A hard-reset lives in Settings if you ever want a truly fresh site.
• Made with AI assistance (code, and this page's production help) under human direction — in-game art is drawn with code/CSS, and all sound is synthesized live. No AI-generated images are used in the game itself.

Found a bug or a balance gripe? Comment — the dig crew reads everything.

Playtesting this for the Playtest & Feedback Exchange Jam? Thank you! What helps us most: how the first five minutes feel — is your first hire fast enough, does the first era unlock land before you'd normally quit, and does the Rebury/prestige goal make sense when you first see it? Harsh feedback is welcome — leave it in the comments and we'll return the favour on your game.