Game Features List

Must have features:

• persistent claim (when you quit for the day and fire it back up later, you everything is how you left it
• Equipment purchases and upgrades (and selling equipment)
• pre-calculated gold distribution (in depth.
• Water pumping. Required for washplant and maybe also flooding of deep digging.
• 2D (top down? Isometric?)
• Equipment maintenance and breakage (and repair)
• Nuggets (ultimate goal is to find rare nuggets which might have real-world prize associated if we can get any monetization)
• Ability to buy with real world money
• fuel usage and cost

Could have features:

• Persistent world (neighbors are always your neighbors)
• Claim jumping (mining other people's claims)
• core sampling (determine where to start digging)
• trees (clearing)
• water seepage
• deformable terrain
• isometric or 3d view
• Safety regulations
• Weather ? Storms? Ice?
• Explosives
• Bears and other animals
• Real world prize nuggets
• Different ground hardnesses
• Gold price changes and sell gold strategy
• Multi-owner claims
• Find stuff OTHER than gold...Oil? Dead bodies?  Jimmy Hoffa? Alien spacecraft
• Stolen gold