Dig Deep and Fire: Drill Core

Feed your greed in this bombastic mix of tower defence and resource mining.

‣ Drill Core
From: Hungry Couch Games, tinyBuild
Platforms: PC
Release: To Be Announced
Steam Page • Demo Video • Developer Site

Just keep digging, building, and firing! "Remember, it's NOT a crime against biodiversity if it’s self-defense."

Safety First! (ranked #3 top KPI, just after Profits (#1) & Earnings (#2)). Welcome to DrillCore, a company where we make lots of money save planets and their thankful inhabitants, fight the local wildlife strike a balance between conservation and safety, and drill a giant hole rescue a world from climate doom.

Drop down on a planet with an expendable crew, start drilling, and get ready to defend yourself. If you succeed, you actually do rescue an entire planet from certain doom. But fail, and everything blows up in the fun over-the-top digging/tower defence hybrid, Drill Core.

You are in charge of a roughneck crew delivering a new core to a dying planet, using a drilling platform that moves downwards into a planet's surface. It can only travel a certain distance, though, and then you deploy miners to dig in the soil underneath and uncover coal. Get enough coal to move the platform to the next depth, split into 50 metres, 100 metres, and 150 metres. When you reach the last depth, you can deploy the core, a glowing ball that shoots downwards and revitalises the planet.

The only problem is that, come nightfall, the planet's creatures will arrive to attack the core. Giant flying bugs swarm from above down the pit, attracted to the big glowing core. Protect it at all costs by adding defences like gun turrets and missile stations, holding out until daytime when you return to mining and finding coal to reach the next depth.

That cost, incidentally, comes out of your pockets! While mining for the elusive coal chunks, your miners will also find other resources. You use and refine these resources to buy new guns and other defences, and add a variety of buildings: barracks for workers, a lab for in-session tech, structures that provide buffs—some buildings are staples, while you uncover others randomly as you progress. 

You can build six buildings on the platform and add two additional platforms that each carry three more buildings. This restriction prompts strategy. More barracks mean more workers, and the right buff tower helps them work faster. But missile turrets and drone towers are great for defence, so what's the best balance? You also build guns along the shaft's walls, which you can upgrade if you have the resources.

But you will get nowhere without your expendable loyal employees. Split into three roles, they follow your directions to mine, carry resources, and protect bugs that appear underground. When night falls, they hide in the platform, leaving the battle to auto-guns and player-controlled weapons. Once the last wave is defeated, daytime arrives, and the workers go back to mining. 

By balancing your employees, buildings, and firepower, you aim to reach a depth of 150 metres, then drop the core and escape. If you did well, your employees bring spare resources that you can spend on permanent upgrades affecting every digging session.

Looking at its gameplay loop, Drill Core is already a component experience. It's the game's attitude that makes everything pop. The design is intentionally bombastic with a tongue-in-cheek fascist-corporate world. HR slogans show that management cares while you hustle employees to dig faster and aim rockets at the native fauna (leading to very satisfying combat with loud guns and big explosions). 

Everything is rendered in a beautiful cartoon-art style that amplifies the ridiculousness of the enterprise. You never really question the premise: that the platform is clearly not the best way to drill a shaft, that using insane amounts of firepower is not the best way to deal with agitated creatures, or that 150 metres is not really that deep. But who cares? Just keep digging, building, and firing! As the game's promotion states, "Remember, it's NOT a crime against biodiversity if it's self-defense."

📽 Demo Moment: The bugs are coming!

It's hard to judge how much gameplay Drill Core will deliver in its final release. There will be several planets to drill—how they differ in challenges and creatures remains to be seen. There is also opportunity for alternative game modes, such as perhaps seeing how far down you can dig before the attackers destroy you. 

That's just speculation, but it shows that Drill Core has serious potential. The demo is fun and addictive, and all it needs is additional and more diverse content. If you like the blend of tower defence and resource mining in a side-scroller, go add Drill Core to your wishlist.

Drill Core hasn't announced a release date yet.

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Explore The Game with Youtube Chapters:

• 📽 00:28 Let's start

• 📽 01:48 First free tech

• 📽 03:46 Night time is danger time!!

• 📽 04:28 Day 2, return to the mine

• 📽 05:40 Precious Coal

• 📽 10:14 Free tech = bigger boomsticks

• 📽 11:07 Night brings worms & bigger bugs!!

• 📽 12:39 Let's expand

• 📽 14:59 Night time, even more bugs!!

• 📽 19:23 Let's speed things up

• 📽 19:37 From 50m to 100m

• 📽 22:50 Drones vs. new bugs

• 📽 30:41 Night time, the bugs are evolving

• 📽 35:19 Too broke to upgrade

• 📽 36:51 Big Trouble, Big Reward

• 📽 42:50 Close call

• 📽 43:59 150m - Mission success!!

• 📽 45:03 Permanent upgrades

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