Dwarf Eats Mountain: Newbie to True Ending Full Walkthrough

Table of Contents

1. Phase 1: First Playthrough to First Prestige (0-4 Hours)
2. Phase 2: Artifact Economy and Mithril Scaling (Runs 2-4)
3. Phase 3: Goblin King and World Spire Prep (Runs 5-7)
4. Phase 4: Mountain 60-100 and T6 Upgrades (Runs 8-10)
5. Phase 5: True Ending and Endless Mode (Runs 10+)
6. My 40-Hour Testing Notes: What Actually Changed Between Runs
7. Full Journey Verdict: It’s Worth the 50 Hours

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Phase 1: First Playthrough to First Prestige (0-4 Hours)

What happens: You learn the core loop — miners throw things at mountains, runners collect the loot, the Great Maw converts it to gold, you spend gold on upgrades.

Goal: Reach 14 Prestige Points (PP) and do your first reset.

Build order summary:

• Minute 0: Miner’s Guild → Underground Housing (x5) → 6 Miners → Great Maw → 3 Runners
• Minute 10-30: Runner speed → Runner capacity → Miner damage → Throwing velocity
• Minute 30+: Flameworks → Demo Shack (optional) → push mountains until 14 PP

Key mistakes I made here: Built Flameworks too early (runners couldn’t keep up), Prestiged at 10 PP (should have pushed to 14), ignored runner upgrades after the first few minutes.

Prestige buy order (14 PP):

1. Early speed upgrades (3 PP)
2. Runner speed prestige (2 PP)
3. Miner damage prestige (2 PP)
4. Gallery slot (2 PP)
5. Whatever PP boost is available (remaining)

Phase 1: this is what your first 10 minutes should look like. Housing, miners, and the Great Maw.

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Phase 2: Artifact Economy and Mithril Scaling (Runs 2-4)

What happens: Your second run is 40% faster thanks to Prestige upgrades. You start seeing Mithril drops around mountain 4-5. Artifacts begin shaping your runs.

Goal: Build a stable artifact collection (20-30 artifacts), unlock Mithril Forge, and push to 20-30 PP per run.

Run 2 priority:

• Buy runner capacity prestige upgrade first
• Push to 20-25 PP before resetting
• Save first 15 Mithril for Mithril Pickaxes
• Don’t spend Mountain Souls yet

Run 3-4 priority:

• Unlock Mithril Forge if available
• Mithril Pickaxes (first buy) → Mithril Chainmail (second buy)
• Start building toward a focused build (Flamer or Demolition)
• Push to 30-40 PP

The mid-game bottleneck I kept hitting: Around mountain 20-25, drop quality changes. Multi-ore hits become less reliable. This is where Luck starts to matter more than raw damage. If you have Spelunker’s Guild available, unlock it now.

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Phase 3: Goblin King and World Spire Prep (Runs 5-7)

What happens: You’re strong enough to attempt real endgame content. Goblin King is the first boss damage check.

Goal: Kill Goblin King, collect the Crown artifact, unlock World Spire path.

Pre-Goblin King checklist:

• At least 3 Prestige runs completed (preferably 4-5)
• 30-40 artifacts collected with 4-5 gallery slots
• Focused build (not jack-of-all-trades)
• Runner survival upgrades (Mithril Chainmail or Sturdy Boots artifact)

Goblin King minimum stats (from my kill):

• Runner count: 10 with full speed and capacity upgrades
• Damage setup: Flamer-focused with Fire Spirit Gem
• Backup: 4 Demo Dwarves for Phase 3 burst
• Artifacts: Lucky Coin + Fire Spirit Gem + Runner’s Blessing

Post-Goblin King: You unlock access to deeper World Spire content. Artifact quality improves. Mountain Soul generation starts.

The World Spire is your long-term goal marker. This shows the tutorial pointing toward it.

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Phase 4: Mountain 60-100 and T6 Upgrades (Runs 8-10)

What happens: Mountain scaling becomes aggressive. You need T6 Prestige upgrades and Ascension to keep pushing.

Goal: Reach Mountain 100 and unlock Endless Mode.

T6 upgrades unlock after enough Prestige runs. They’re the highest tier of permanent upgrades and each provides a significant multiplicative bonus.

Ascension is a deeper reset available around mountain 80+. It resets more than Prestige (including some Prestige upgrades) but provides stronger multiplicative bonuses. The community consensus is to Ascend when you can afford at least 3 meaningful Ascension upgrades — partial Ascensions hurt more than they help.

Mountain 60-80 strategy:

• Switch to artifact-quality focus over artifact-quantity
• Ritual system should be fully operational
• Mountain Souls spent on rerolling C/B-tier artifacts
• Damage scaling through Luck and Mithril-luck (Spelunker’s Guild)

Mountain 80-100 strategy:

• Multiple Ascension layers active
• All T6 upgrades purchased
• Artifact gallery at 8+ slots with S/A-tier relics
• Build is specialized, not general

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Phase 5: True Ending and Endless Mode (Runs 10+)

What happens: Mountain 100 is beaten. True Ending conditions are being discovered. Endless Mode opens up.

True Ending requirements (community-reported, being actively confirmed):

• Mountain 100 completed
• World Spire fully progressed
• Approximately 70-80% artifact gallery completion
• All T6 Prestige upgrades purchased
• Multiple Ascension layers completed

Endless Mode: Infinite mountain scaling. No ending condition — it’s designed for players who want to see how far their build can go. Rewards continue scaling.

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My 40-Hour Testing Notes: What Actually Changed Between Runs

I tracked 12 Prestige runs across 40 hours. Here’s what the data showed:

Run times to 14 PP equivalent:

Run #	Time to Target PP	Cumulative Time
1	210 min (14 PP target)	3.5 hr
2	95 min (20 PP)	5.1 hr
3	75 min (25 PP)	6.4 hr
4	60 min (30 PP)	7.4 hr
5	55 min (40 PP)	8.3 hr
6-7	45 min each (50 PP)	9.8 hr
8-10	35-40 min each (60-80 PP)	~12 hr

After run 4, the early game becomes a 5-minute setup before you start scaling. The real time goes into mid-to-late game mountain pushes.

What surprised me: How much artifact quality mattered over raw Prestige upgrades. Between run 6 and 7, I focused on artifact collection instead of early Prestige, and run 7 was actually stronger despite fewer permanent upgrades. Artifacts compound harder than Prestige in the mid-to-late transition.

My biggest time waste: Trying the first Goblin King fight on run 3 with only 2 Prestige cycles. I lost 3 attempts (about 2 hours total) before giving up, Prestiging again, and killing him on run 4. Should have waited.

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Full Journey Verdict: It’s Worth the 50 Hours

I’ve played all the big incremental games — Cookie Clicker, Antimatter Dimensions, Melvor Idle. Dwarf Eats Mountain sits in a unique spot. The physical physics layer (runners physically moving ore, dwarves physically throwing projectiles) makes it more engaging than spreadsheet-style incrementals. The calamity system adds active pressure that most idles lack.

The full journey from first click to True Ending takes roughly 40-60 hours depending on how efficiently you Prestige. The game respects your time in a way most incremental games don’t — each Prestige cuts run time noticeably, and the artifact system ensures no two runs feel identical.

If you’re at hour 2 wondering “does this pickaxe-throwing thing get interesting?” — yes. Around hour 6-8 when artifacts and build specialization kick in, the game transforms from a simple incremental into a strategic resource management game with meaningful decisions.

Push through the first Prestige. That’s the only real hump. After that, the game opens up in ways the tutorial doesn’t prepare you for.