Hook Miner is an original browser mining-claw game. A winch hook hangs over the mouth of a vertical shaft and sweeps back and forth; the picture is a cross-section of the pit, with gemstones and nuggets lying in the shallow band, mid gold and rubble through the middle, and gold bricks and vein blocks buried deep. Your input has exactly one dimension: timing. Tap and the current beat's ray is frozen, the hook runs down it, and the first box it touches is the one you get. Before every drop a marker ahead of the hook points at whatever a drop would hit right now, so a bad catch is always you tapping half a beat early rather than the game cheating you. The real trade-off lives in weight: the priceless gemstone weighs one unit and comes up almost instantly, while the vein block is worth exactly as much, weighs eleven, and takes over two seconds to haul out of the pit floor. Stone is not a dead end either — it only charges you a time tax, and moving it uncovers the gold behind it. Every level gives you twenty-seven seconds and a target, eight levels in a run, and clearing the eighth clears the shaft. And if the hook still has cargo on it the moment time runs out, the rope finishes the job and the haul counts: the clock never takes something away from you in the last second.

A school computer room over the lunch break, or the seat furthest back in the internet cafe on the corner: there was always one machine running something like this. A rope with a hook on it swinging across the top of the screen, things of all sizes buried below, rules anyone could read at a glance, and somebody shouting every time the hook came up with a rock. Nobody argued about optimal play back then. People took turns at that one tap and then counted the seconds together while the rope wound back up — and nobody had to be told that the most valuable thing down there is also the smallest one.

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【街】 The coin arcade · 1988–2000 →

1. 01

   Tap the shaft to start — no sign-up, no download. That first tap only opens the shift, it does not drop the hook, so you get a moment to read the pit first.

2. 02

   The hook sweeps across the shaft mouth. To catch something, tap on the beat its ray sweeps across it: tap the shaft on a phone, or press Space or Arrow Down on a desktop.

3. 03

   Check the marker ahead of the hook before you drop. The box it points at is the box you will get, and catching stone is not a punishment — it only costs you one extra trip.

4. 04

   Grabbed the wrong thing? Press the dynamite key on the right while the rope is reeling in. The cargo is destroyed and banks nothing, and the charges refill every level. On a desktop it is X or Arrow Up.

5. 05

   Hit the level target and you clear it automatically. There are eight levels, and clearing the eighth clears the shaft. Esc or P pauses at any time; sound and reduce-flashing are one tap away on the top row; and the seed row in the settlement copies this run's link so a friend plays exactly the same run.

The clock does not move during the opening buffer, so use it: find out which band holds the gemstone and whether the deep slots are gold bricks or vein blocks. That decides how many hauls this level is going to take. Work out the seconds before the score. The gemstone and the vein block are both worth 600, but one is almost free and the other costs over two seconds. With only a few seconds on the clock, a shallow nugget is worth more than a deep vein block. Do not avoid stone, price it. A piece of rubble in front of gold costs you one cheap trip to move, and a gold brick worth 300 may be sitting right behind it — taken as one package, that beats going around it for shallow ore. The marker is for finding the beat, not for aiming. The box it points at is the box you will get, so a bad catch tells you immediately whether you were early or late — and the next drop is where you put that half beat back.

How do you play a claw mining game, on phone and on desktop?

Hook Miner has exactly one input dimension: timing. The hook sweeps across the shaft mouth, and you tap on the beat its ray sweeps over the thing you want, so the hook runs down that ray. On a phone you tap the shaft itself; on a desktop it is Space or Arrow Down. The opening tap only starts the shift and does not drop the hook, so you never lose a run before you have read the pit. To cancel a bad grab, press the dynamite key on the right while the rope is reeling — X or Arrow Up on a desktop.

Why is the valuable ore the smallest one in a hook game?

Because value, weight and depth are three independent quantities here. The gemstone is worth 600 but weighs one unit and is the smallest box on the field, so it is the richest, the fastest to reel in and the hardest to catch. The vein block is worth the same 600 yet weighs eleven; it is the easiest target to hit and takes over two seconds to pull up from the bottom. Which one to take depends on the clock: plenty of time means going deep for the big pieces, a few seconds left means a shallow nugget.

Do rocks score anything in a hook game, and should I clear them?

No. Rubble pays 20 and a boulder pays 40 — they bank at their own value rather than at nothing. What they actually cost is time, because stone is heavy and reels in slowly. Stone also tends to sit in front of gold, so moving it uncovers what it was hiding, which makes grabbing it a necessary move rather than a mistake. The real miss is the boulder: heavy and only worth 40, so while there is still time, blowing it costs less than hauling it.

How does the dynamite work, and why does nothing happen when I press it?

Dynamite only works while the rope is reeling in with cargo on the hook, and it fires on the lift — press it, slide your finger off the key and lift, and it cancels without consuming a charge or destroying anything. Two charges, refilled every level. Press it outside a reel-in, or with no charges left, and it is a no-op: the charge count does not change at all, and the key face dims for a beat as a receipt, so a press that did nothing and a press that was refused look different on screen.

Time ran out while the hook was full — does that haul still count?

Yes. If the rope is winding up with cargo on it the moment the clock hits zero, it finishes and banks normally before the run settles, so going for one more grab in the last second is safe. If the hook is still on its way down at zero, that trip is not played out: the run settles at once and banks nothing. No new drop is accepted after zero, so one grace period can deliver at most one item.

How many levels does Hook Miner have, and what gets harder?

Eight levels, and clearing the eighth clears the shaft — there is no ninth. Targets climb from 400 to 3200, and four columns tighten together: the target, the total gold on the field, the gold in the shallow and middle bands, and the number of stones. The target rises faster than the field does, so the deeper and heavier pieces stop being optional. The sweep speed stops rising at level seven, after which the difficulty is trade-offs rather than reflexes.

Do I lose progress when a run ends, and how do I replay a level?

You do not. Running out of time short of the target only ends that run: the settlement's main button is Dig level N again, and one click puts you back on the level you were on, with charges refilled and a fresh board drawn for it. Because failure already costs nothing, the game gives no comeback assistance — the target, the gold on the field and the number of stones do not move at all, so the run where you finally get through is genuinely the run where you got better.

Can I send someone the same run, and is there a daily board?

Yes to both. A whole run is determined by one seed, and the seed row in the settlement copies this run's link — open it and you get exactly that run. The settlement also has a Daily seed button: it opens a run on today's seed, so everyone pressing it on the same day gets the same board. Records stay in this browser on this device, and a refresh resumes at the start of the current level: your level and run total survive, what you had banked on the level is cleared, and the charges refill.

Why does a hook game grab the wrong item, and what is the aim marker for?

The marker ahead of the hook points at the first box the current ray would touch, and the drop is judged by that same test — so what the marker shows is what you get. When the marker sits on a rock, the hook will not pass through it to reach the gold behind, and clearing the rock first is what opens that ray up. And if you tap just after the marker has swept past the thing you want, you catch its neighbour instead. Watch the beat the marker crosses your target on, then put the next drop slightly earlier or later.