Rock Bottom Beginner Guide: What to Do First

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

This guide covers the launch version (July 2026). It focuses on the first hour or two — the part of the game where you can actually make mistakes. Past that point, players agree the game turns into a snowball you mostly just 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

Rock Bottom's pitch is "Mine. Smelt. Upgrade. Repeat." — and that's genuinely the whole structure:

1. Mine through procedurally generated caves with your pickaxe. Rocks give stone; ore veins give ore; 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. Every upgrade sticks forever — there's no reset, 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, and later into the Molten Core, the Void Caverns, and finally the deepest layer. Two orc bases act as your hub stops along the way.

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)

The important structural fact: 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. That should shape how you play — there is no long-term meta-currency to optimize for, so efficiency anxiety is wasted here.

Your First Session, Step by Step

The opening beats, in the order the game expects them (the first two are literally 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 unlocks the economic loop — bars fund most early upgrades.
2. Take the elevator down when the game offers it. Layers don't lock behind you; 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 — see the next section.
4. Level up by mining anything. Player levels (the early milestones are 10 and 20) come naturally from volume. Don't tunnel only on ore; bulk stone matters too — 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 (see below).
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. Coming back to a starter biome after a few upgrade rounds — shredding rocks you used to chip at — is the game's best feeling, and it's completely safe to leave a biome "unfinished."

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 (for example, three gold chunks in the Sunken Canopy) 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. Experienced players recommend unlocking it as soon as you can, specifically because it makes chunk hunting much faster. Since chunks are the progression gate, this perk is effectively 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)

One launch-week warning: there is a known bug where the chunk counter can stick (showing 2/3 forever) if you mine a chunk before the quest formally appears. The developer has confirmed it and a fix is coming — details and workaround in our Bugs & Fixes guide.

Also note the gold pickaxe: progression into Spore-light Caverns requires it, 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 game's secondary currency, spent at the Token Altar. Priorities:

• Treasure finder perk — as covered above, buy it early.
• Gold pickaxe — when you need it for Spore-light Caverns, it's in the token shop.
• Spending 100 tokens total also unlocks an achievement ("High Roller"), so there's no reason to sit on a stockpile.

Free tokens worth knowing about: there's a hidden crab in Orc Base 1 that gives 10 tokens when you befriend it (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, and multiple players on the Steam forums report completing the entire game without discovering it exists. Learn it early: it speeds up cave traversal, and reaching the hidden crab practically requires dashing mid-fall.

Later ability 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). Two controls players commonly miss:
  • Auto-mode is a toggle at the top of the Foundry. Left on, it queues everything; toggle it off to manage production manually.
  • You can 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. The underwater area drops your movement speed and has no dedicated swim-speed upgrades at launch; several reviews call it the pacing low point. Push through it — 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. The developer has confirmed a "reduce flashes" accessibility option is coming in a patch; until then, sensitive players should be careful mid-game.

FAQ

How do I get the gold pickaxe? From the token shop — it is not part of the regular smelting/crafting chain. 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. Endgame players report 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.

Written from the launch version (July 2026), compiled from the developer's published game data, Steam achievement statistics, and launch-week community reports — mechanics described here (chunk gating, token shop contents, Foundry controls) are as confirmed by players and the developer on the Steam forums. We'll revise as patches change things.