Rubbled
Alpha

Rubbled

A mining MMO where every move is an API call.

Dig, map, trade notes, and find a shaft before the layer closes. You play by making API calls, whether by hand or with code.

Read API Docs Start Playing
Alpha quickstart

Your first few moves.

Register a delver, verify by email, use the token, then read your view before you send an action.

  1. 1

    Register

    Call POST /alpha/register with a delver name and email address.

  2. 2

    Verify email

    Open the verification link. Once verified, a second email arrives with your bearer token. That's the token you use in Authorization.

  3. 3

    Read your view

    Call GET /alpha/delver/view with Authorization: Bearer <token>. New delvers start in a short guided intro cave: open the chest, dig the marked wall, claim the cairn, then step onto the shaft to enter the shared layer.

  4. 4

    Join a clan

    Join an existing clan, or make one and invite people in.

  5. 5

    Move and dig

    Send POST /alpha/actions/move or POST /alpha/actions/dig, then poll the returned action id.

  6. 6

    Build from Swagger

    Use Swagger for schemas, errors, and examples once your first request works.

World model

Layers close. Escape matters.

Each layer is a temporary world. When it closes, the rubble is wiped clean, but your name and clan carry on. Gear carries forward only if your delver escapes.

Chests, caves, ore, shafts, and player actions change how each layer plays. Find a shaft, get back before close, and carry what you can into the next layer.

Cairns are placed markers that ask for a specific offering of ore. Inspect one, mine what it needs, then return to claim a stone specimen you'll want to extract before the layer closes.

View demo-seed world
GET /alpha/layers/activity public alpha API
Generated Rubbled demo-seed world map
Layer Current or by id
Reach Reached shaft
Safe On-shaft count
Close Extraction result
Upcoming Next layer

Checking layer schedule...

Active delvers unavailable
Cairn discovery

One glyph becomes a route, an offering, and a specimen.

Cairns show up as an unmarked ?. Inspect one from its object id, gather the exact ore it asks for, return to its coordinate, and claim the stone specimen underneath.

01
Sighted

An unknown object enters view.

GET /alpha/delver/view renders a visible cairn as type: "unknown" with the public ? glyph.

GET /alpha/delver/view visible cell 
..,.  .. ,.. .
 . .,.  .,  .
..  . ,.  ..
 ,. .  . ,. .
.  ,. .. .  ,.
 . .  ,. .. .
..       ?
 . .  ,. .. .
.  ,. .. .  ,.
"object": {
  "id": "obj_7k3q9x2b",
  "type": "unknown",
  "glyph": "?"
}
02
Inspected

The offering becomes a plan.

Inspection reveals the four stable directional requirements. The missing list is computed against the delver's current inventory.

GET /alpha/delver/objects/{objectId} Unusual Cairn
North Salt Ore 4 / 7 held
West Amethyst Ore 2 / 2 held
?
East Sapphire Ore 0 / 1 held
South Gold Ore 1 / 1 held

"Four mineral recesses mark the arranged stones."

Not yet claimable
Salt Oreshort 3
Sapphire Oreshort 1
03
Returned

The same cairn checks your pack again.

After the missing ore is gathered, the inspect response keeps the same requirements and recalculates claimability.canClaim.

GET /alpha/delver/objects/{objectId} re-check
North Salt Ore 7 / 7 held
West Amethyst Ore 2 / 2 held
?
East Sapphire Ore 1 / 1 held
South Gold Ore 1 / 1 held

"Four mineral recesses mark the arranged stones."

Claimable now
Salt Oremet
Sapphire Oremet
04
Claimed

The stones settle and reveal the specimen.

POST /alpha/delver/objects/{objectId}/claim consumes the offering and grants the same specimen the offering came from.

POST /alpha/delver/objects/{objectId}/claim 200 OK
Xerxisk the Shadowy
7 1 2 1
stone_specimen seed 852856081
Real Rubbled specimen
Claimed

"The stones settle inward, revealing a specimen beneath."

Salt Ore−7
Gold Ore−1
Sapphire Ore−1
Amethyst Ore−2
Xerxisk the Shadowystone_specimen
Community showcase

Send us your bots and tools.

Build a map, script, bot, dashboard, or clan tool and post it in Show and tell. The showcase is empty for now; we will start listing real projects here.

Share a Build Open Swagger
Open slot

Front ends

Map viewers, layer monitors, inventory panels, clan consoles, or anything that helps read the world.

Open slot

Scripts

Mining loops, movement helpers, action pollers, setup scripts, or tiny examples new delvers can fork.

Open slot

Strategy tools

Route planners, shaft trackers, extraction timers, or shared notes for clans.

API reference

Build against the live API.

Swagger has the contract your bot needs: routes, auth, payloads, errors, and response shapes. Rubbled is in active alpha, so expect breaking API changes, downtime, and full world or layer resets without notice.

Swagger Docs API Q&A Report Issues
Changelog

Rubbled Alpha 0.4.1

Released August 11, 2026

Hermits are easier to find

Released August 11, 2026

  • Hermits should now appear more often in shared-world caves, closer to how often players find other mystery objects.

Hotfix: more reliable prospecting

Released August 11, 2026

  • Prospecting now handles unusual effort requests more cleanly.
  • Repeating a prospecting request is fairer and more consistent; retries cannot nudge the cave reading toward a better result.

Hotfix: chest and coal map symbols

Released August 11, 2026

  • Fixed a confusing map collision where coal and chests could both appear as C.
  • Coal keeps C. Tutorial chests and shared-world cave chests now appear as X.
  • Shared-world cave chests now show as visible chest objects before they are opened, so wrappers and players can tell when to stand on a chest tile and use the chest-open action.
  • Shared-world cave chests are now easier to discover because they appear in map views before opening instead of staying hidden until you happen to stand on the right tile.
  • The admin world map now uses the same X chest marker, making player reports easier to match against world debugging.

Delver Skills: Surveyor Automaton

Released August 11, 2026

  • Added Delver Skills: short-lived programmable capabilities you control through their own tiny HTTP command surface.
  • The first skill is the Surveyor Automaton, unlocked after tutorial completion. Activate it, then send it north, south, east, or west commands as fast as your script can send them.
  • The automaton's active window starts on your first accepted command, not at activation, so you can activate ahead of time and start moving whenever you're ready.
  • A successful move reveals only that a tile is passable; a blocked move reveals only that it isn't. No terrain names, no ore hints: the fun is in scripting a flood fill yourself.
  • Surveyor starts at level 1 with a 4 hour cooldown and a 5 second active window. Higher tiers are reserved for future progression and are not unlockable yet.
  • Review a run any time with its status, chronological command log, or a summary report of moves succeeded/blocked and unique tiles visited.

Rubbled Alpha 0.3.3

Released August 9, 2026

  • Added prospecting: sample an adjacent wall for a fuzzy read on nearby ore before you commit to digging it.
  • Four effort levels trade time for reach: quick, careful, deep, and survey. Longer efforts take longer and scan a wider area, but a wider area is a less precise area.
  • Prospecting tells you a signal strength and broad ore family (metallic, crystalline, and so on) — never an exact ore, exact coordinates, or exact count.
  • A survey also gives a rough richness read for the area.
  • Prospecting samples the world when the action completes, including any delver-made changes in the scan area.
  • Prospecting costs time, not materials.
  • In-game chat is disabled for now so the alpha can stay focused on core cave exploration and gameplay systems. Community discussion remains available through GitHub.

Rubbled Alpha 0.3.2

Released August 9, 2026

  • Added hermits: rare, half-mythic figures found out in the caves. Offer one a resource while standing on its tile for a small chance at a stone specimen in return.
  • Hermits show up as unknown objects (marked with a ?) on the map, just like cairns, until you inspect them.
  • An offering is always spent, whether or not the hermit gives you anything back.
  • A hermit needs a little time to consider your last offering before it will accept another one.
  • Fixed a spawn issue where a delver could enter the shared world inside rubble instead of starting in cave air.

Rubbled Alpha 0.3.1

Released August 9, 2026

  • Fixed a bug where quickly retrying a dig, move, or placement could sometimes get wrongly rejected instead of just going through like it should.
  • Fixed a rare action-completion race where a move could happen in the world but later appear as failed when checking the action.
  • Improved completed action history so digs and moves return clearer completed responses for bots polling action status.
  • Expanded GET /alpha/world/guide with tutorial, inventory, object, action, and solo match guidance for bot and player onboarding.
  • Clarified mystery objects in GET /alpha/world/guide: unknown objects shown as ? should be inspected before assuming they are cairns.
  • Fixed a bug where signing up with an incomplete or malformed request could show a confusing error instead of a clear one.
  • Fixed an issue that could stop the leaderboards from calculating correctly the very first time they ran.

Rubbled Alpha 0.3.0

Released August 8, 2026

  • You can now play solo specimen matches against the game's own opponents, from easy novices up to opponents that plan a move ahead.
  • Pick five specimens, place them across a 3x3 board, and fight for captures north, south, east, and west.
  • Specimen art shows up in match results without giving away anything about how specimens are generated under the hood.
  • Specimens you claim from cairns are now ready to bring straight into a match.

Rubbled Alpha 0.2.0

Released August 5, 2026

  • Added a guided intro cave for brand-new delvers before they enter the shared layer.
  • Added cairn discovery gameplay: inspect a cairn, gather its offering, and claim a stone specimen.
  • The intro cave now teaches chest loot, digging, cairn offerings, specimen rewards, and shaft travel.
  • Stone specimens are real inventory rewards that carry out of the intro cave.

Rubbled Alpha 0.1.0

Released August 3, 2026

  • Rubbled's alpha API is public and versioned under /alpha.
  • Full OpenAPI reference and Swagger UI are available for building bots against the live API.
  • Procedurally generated layers with caves, ore, chests, and shafts.
  • Timed dig, move, place, and remove actions that survive retries and reconnects.
  • Inventory, ground items, chest loot, cairn offerings, and stone specimen rewards.
  • Clans for grouping up with other delvers.
  • Public layer activity and health status, visible on rubbled.io and via the API.
  • The core loop is playable through the API: read the world, dig, move, manage inventory, claim discoveries, join a clan, and race the layer clock.

API

  • All public routes live under /alpha (e.g. /alpha/delver/view, /alpha/actions/dig).
  • Reference docs: GET /alpha/openapi.json, GET /alpha/swagger.
  • GET /alpha/world/guide describes tutorial flow, action polling, mystery objects, inventory, solo matches, movement timing, and placement rules for bots planning moves.

Known Issues

  • Action results are finalized when you poll GET /alpha/actions/{id}. If nothing polls, a completed action can sit unfinalized for a moment.
  • Some rarely-used delver lookups can be slower than we'd like on busy layers.

Save and Reset Information

Rubbled is in active alpha. Expect breaking API changes, downtime, and full world or layer resets without notice.

We'd love to hear about

  • How the intro cave feels the first time you play through it.
  • Whether the public docs and Swagger are enough to build a bot without reading source code.
  • Anything that feels off during dig, move, place, or remove.

Share thoughts and bugs in Rubbled feature ideas and balance suggestions.