Mining

Throughout Anthos there are openings into the ground that lead deep underground. These mines hold ores and gems you'll use for tool and equipment upgrades, such as the super-handy sprinklers that auto-water the crop fields. Parts of the game's story will also require specific items only found within a mine.

Each town region has a mine to explore, with a Harvest Goddess statue next to the mine entrance for quick access.

There are six mines in Anthos:

1. Lectenbury Mine (50 floors): Located on the north side of the valley of Lectenbury.
2. Lilikala Mine (80 floors): Atop a hill to the north of the Great Pier in Lilikala. Initially blocked by a Harvest Sprite wall, this mine unlocks after Aestas' wall is destroyed.
3. Herbstburg South Mine (80 floors): A long walk south from the town of Herbstburg.
4. Zimagrad West Mine (80 floors): To the north of the Snowy Playground area, accessing the mine starting from Zimagrad requires Hiems' wall to be destroyed.
5. Providence North Mine (80 floors): Close to the path that leads into the cold mountains, this entrance is up a hill and easily passed by if you didn't know it was there. Take the bridge to the west of the Providence general store to head in the right direction.
6. Volcano Mine (100 floors): This mine unlocks as part of the game's story. Return here later to tackle its depths.

Though they're separated by distance, all the mines have the same set up: break the crystals and rocks to find goodies, and locate the path down to the next floor.

Progress through the mine will be saved at every 10th floor, allowing access to skip floors during subsequent visits. You can also return to prior floors (floor 1, floor 11, floor 21, etc.) as long as you've reached the progress save floor.

Manually saving the game from the Options menu is not permitted while mining.

Nodes and Rocks

The mines hold raw materials in the large crystal nodes and in the ground. The crystal above ground are easy to spot; just hit them with your hammer to collect the material. The stronger your hammer, the fewer hits needed to break the crystal. Conserving stamina is also an aspect of tool upgrades.

The goodies hidden below the dirt take more effort to obtain. Use the dowsing function in the lower-right corner of the screen to send a pulse that can detect items in the ground. The general area for the underfoot items are marked as a blue-border circle on the mini map. Simply walk to the center of the circle noted on the map and use the pickaxe to break the dirt and release the treasure. Remodeling the pickaxe doesn't impact the speed that items appear (it only takes one hit) or the quality of the discovered materials, but a remodeled pickaxe does help with conserving stamina.

The very small circles that appear on the mini map while dowsing always indicate gold ore.

The crafter shops in the towns can process the raw materials into metals and gemstones, for a fee.

Players who have The Great Outdoors DLC can use the extra rucksack storage associated with an active Tagalong Pet to move raw ores and gems from personal inventory to the pet inventory even though the pet isn't in the mine.

Descending Down

There are two ways to reach the deeper floors of a mine: search for the staircase to go down one floor, or look for a hidden pitfall that can drop up to four floors. Doing the drop is faster, but it has a negative hit to stamina hearts. Ensure you bring food to keep energy levels high. Passing out while mining will send you home to bed for the rest of the day.

Both ladders and pitfalls can be discovered while dowsing, though pitfalls can also be found just by accidentally walking over the invisible crack in the floor. Unlike pitfalls, ladders must be dug up.

Ladders and pitfalls can be hidden under boulders and crystal nodes. Unlucky players may discover a hidden pitfall right next to the spot where they appear after going down a ladder!

Fish Ponds

Every 10th floor will contain a fish pond where Mosquitofish, Crucian Carp, Goby, and Black Goby can be caught. On occasion, there may be Golden Carp swimming in the fish ponds. Golden Carp appear more often in deep mines starting around floor 50 and are easily detected because of their sparkling shadows.

The fish appearing on a pond floor are random when entering the room. A ladder leading to the next floor down will be in the opposite corner.

If you ever have a problem with not being able to cast into a mine fish pond (e.g., nothing happens when you try), the solution is to exit the mine, save your game, and then close/reload the game.