Gold Rush Mine: How to Play, Tips & Upgrades

Gold Rush Mine is a free idle mining tycoon game you play right in your browser. You arrive at a dusty canyon with a hard hat, a pickaxe and a mountain full of gold. Break open ore veins, smelt the ore into shining gold bars, mint coins and craft jeweled crowns, then sell everything at your own trading post. Every dollar goes back into the camp until a whole crew of miners, haulers and clerks runs a gold empire for you, and a steam train hauls your treasure away.

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Controls

• Phone and tablet: put your thumb anywhere on the screen and drag in the direction you want to walk. A small joystick appears under your finger.
• Computer: click and drag with the mouse, or use the WASD or arrow keys.
• There are no action buttons. Walk up to a rock vein to mine it, walk onto a machine's tray to drop your load, and stand still on a money pad to pay for it.

How to play: your first five minutes

1. Break your first veins. Walk into Red Ridge, the open quarry at the top of the map. Your miner swings the pickaxe automatically. After three hits a vein bursts apart, and the gold ore jumps into the sack on your back.
2. Build the Smelter. Stand on the glowing money pad marked Smelter. Your cash pours into the pad, and when it is full the furnace builds itself, chimney smoke and all.
3. Smelt gold bars. Drop your ore on the Smelter's tray. The furnace melts each piece into a gold bar, and the bars stack up on the other side, ready to pick up.
4. Stock the trading post. Carry the bars to the trading post counter. Prospectors in cowboy hats walk in from the road, pick what they want and line up at the scale.
5. Get paid. Customers only pay when someone is behind the scale, so stand in the clerk zone to serve them. Pick up the cash they leave and spend it on the next pad.

From there the loop takes over: mine, smelt, sell, upgrade. Each new building, worker or level makes the loop faster, until the mine mostly runs itself.

The production chain

All the wealth starts as rough ore. The more work goes into it, the more it is worth:

The Mint needs two bars per coin stack and the Jeweler needs three bars per crown, but the finished products sell for far more than the bars that go into them. That makes the Mint and the Jeweler the biggest jumps in income. Every machine has limited room on its trays. When the output tray is full, the machine stops until someone picks up the finished goods, so keep things moving.

Selling and the clerk rule

Customers arrive at your trading post, take items from the counter and queue at the gold scale. A sale only happens when someone is standing behind the scale. At the start that has to be you. Hiring a Clerk is one of the best early investments, because the trading post keeps selling while you mine, carry and build. The Wanted Posters, Quick Scales, Rich Prospectors and Tip Jar upgrades all make the trading post earn more.

Hiring your crew

• Miners break veins in every open area and bring the ore to the Smelter on their own.
• Haulers carry finished goods from the machines to the trading post counter. They always take the most valuable goods first.
• Feeders bring gold bars from the Smelter to the Mint and the Jeweler, so those machines never run dry.
• The Clerk stands behind the scale and serves every customer, so sales never stop.
• Loaders carry goods to the Train Depot, where the steam train buys them at a premium.

Your crew gets better with Bigger Baskets (they carry more) and Mule Carts (they move faster).

New areas and the Train Depot

Two richer areas are closed off with yellow-striped barricades at first. You can walk right up to them, but you can't mine until you pay for the barricade on its money pad. The Crystal Cave on the left adds a whole field of sparkling crystal veins, so there is plenty of rock for you and your miners. The Gold Canyon on the right has huge boulders full of gold nuggets that drop five pieces of ore instead of three. Later you can build the Train Depot by the railway at the bottom of the map. A steam train pulls in regularly, loads whatever is waiting on the platform and pays more than the trading post does. Rail Contracts make every shipment bigger and more valuable.

Level up your machines and trading post

Every machine has its own level pad right next to it. Each level makes the machine 40% faster and gives it 20% more tray space, and there is no maximum. The trading post levels up the same way: each level lets one more customer queue at the scale and makes customers arrive 25% faster. Level pads start cheap. That means there is always something worth buying, even while you save up for the next big building. The level is shown on each building's sign, for example "SMELTER 3".

Staking a new claim (prestige)

Once your Train Depot is running, a New Claim pad appears at the edge of the camp. Staking a new claim sells this mine and starts you over on a richer mountain, but every claim gives you a permanent +50% income bonus and some starting cash. Your second run grows much faster than the first, and the third faster still. The star badge next to your money shows how many claims you have staked and your total bonus. Each new claim costs more than the last, so there is always a bigger goal ahead.

Every unlock

Money pads appear on the map as soon as their requirements are met. Here is everything you can build, roughly in the order it becomes available:

Every upgrade

Upgrades are bought at the Upgrades office. Step onto the mat in front of it and the upgrade list opens. Each level costs more than the last.

Quests, boosts and offline earnings

• Quests: the bar under your money always shows the next goal, like breaking veins, smelting bars or reaching a cash target. Completing it pays a cash reward. After the main quest line, new quests keep coming forever.
• 2x Cash: the boost button doubles everything you earn for a few minutes. It is unlocked by an optional short ad. The Gold Fever upgrade makes it last longer.
• Offline earnings: your crew keeps working while you are away. When you return, collect what they earned, or double it.

Tips and strategy

1. Never walk empty-handed. Carry ore on the way to the Smelter and pick up gold bars on the way back. The Ore Sack upgrade pays for itself quickly.
2. Hire the Clerk early. A trading post that only sells while you stand behind the scale wastes most of your customers.
3. Climb the value chain. A crown is worth more than sixteen pieces of ore. Build the Mint and the Jeweler as soon as you can.
4. Fix the slowest step first. If ore piles up at the Smelter, buy a Smelter level or Hotter Furnaces. If bars pile up, add Haulers or Feeders. If the counter is full, put up Wanted Posters and level up the trading post.
5. Grab the cheap level pads. When the next building is still far away, a quick Smelter or trading post level keeps your income climbing.
6. Save the 2x boost for full production. It doubles income, so it is worth the most when every machine and worker is busy.
7. Open Gold Canyon for your miners. Its boulders drop more ore per vein, so every trip your miners make is worth more.

Frequently asked questions

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