"Free to play and without any sort of subscription, Mine Things is a game of discovery, trading, and PvP pirating that anyone can play with very little time commitment. It's perfect for the occasional break at work or in between classes.

Players get a free mine upon signing up and can find any of 50 different things from this mine throughout the day. Some things are worth very little while rarer items are worth quite a bit. Mining happens in real-time and you never know what you'll get next or when you'll get it. It's a game where anything can happen at any moment, yet you don't have to be glued to your screen to take advantage. That's because you are mining even when logged out. You can check on it in the morning to see what you mined, sold or bought, then go about your day and check again that evening.

The free "Starter" mine is only the beginning of what you'll find in this game. It is one out of nine mines spread across five cities. There are more interesting ones to explore in the starting city and beyond. One has 42 pieces of equipment that each boost your mining rate, another has 24 different vehicles which you can use to trade, pirate or bounty hunt between cities. There's a another mine where you'll find weapons to help you against other players on the road. Then there are two novelty mines: gadgets give you temporary boosts to your stats or abilities and explosives provide instant, one-time blasts where days of mining are accomplished with one click.

After you have built your collection for a while, you can change your in-game profession to either Trader, Pirate, or Hunter. Traders can bring things in their vehicles from one city to another, cashing in on the fact that each thing is only available in one city and thus more valuable in others. Pirates prey on these traders, relying on speed and attack ability to defeat their targets and pillage their cargo. Hunters target pirates and have the unique ability to extract a gold bounty directly from their opponents upon victory. These three classes are perceptually rebalancing themselves; traders attract pirates, who attract hunters, who attract traders in a tense harmony where no one class has an unfair advantage.

One thing that makes Mine Things stand out is that everything in this game is accessible to non-paying players. Additional mines can be purchased for real-life cash directly or you can save up your in-game gold to purchase them from other players. Not only are the mines themselves purchasable for gold, any single thing that can be mined is also available in the game's marketplace. So while purchasing mines directly does help keep gold in your pocket, it's not at all necessary to advance in the game.

With the only things required to sign up being a name and password, there's really no reason not to try this game. And in the words of a player named Ned: "Soon it will become your top visited page.""