A strategy game where players balance digging through an alien planet for resources while defending their platform from aerial alien threats.
Challenging Play
Great Graphics/Art
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Story & Themes
Drill Core satirizes near-future capitalism, as players work for a hilariously ruthless mining corporation. Players take on contracts to land on an alien planet and dig for precious minerals. Minerals can be used to purchase buildings and upgrades on the platform, as well as turrets to help defend the platform during night, when swarms of flying insect aliens attack.
The gameplay is a tight balance between managing limited resources, workers, building slots, turrets, and activated abilities.
Contracts are completed when reaching target depths, though players can continue to play as enemies grow stronger to accumulate more resources.
After a successful contract, players spend resources on permanent upgrades, expanding their capabilities and/or offering new gameplay options for future runs.
Multiple difficulty levels, planet types, and platform crews are unlockable, adding a ton of replay value. The rich pixel art and funny voice lines inject plenty of personality, while the tight economy keeps the action tense.
Save Points
Drill Core only autosaves when drilling to a new layer. Players can remain on one layer as long as they wish, and must obtain a certain amount of coal before being able to reach the next layer.
Difficulty
Drill Core offers multiple difficulty settings that tweak different parameters, such as enemy strength or worker speed. Players must play on higher difficulty levels in order to unlock more advanced Qualifications (which in turn, unlock more advanced buildings and upgrades).
The gameplay is challenging to learn at first. Players must manage exploring the depths, balancing a tight economy, building more workers and buildings, and defending their base with turrets.
Heads Up!
Violence While the core gameplay is about mining and extracting resources, enemies and hazards constantly plague the player's workers and base. Insectoid aliens explode in little bursts of goo when destroyed, with the giant bosses providing the most viscera (though it's not exactly bloody). Workers have limited health and often die in the mines, but also pop without blood or gore.
Scary Imagery Giant Insectoid aliens can look a bit freaky, but the small pixel art diminishes their actual scary factory. The boss of the first planet resembles a giant spider.
Substance Use The voice lines of the dwarves sometimes refer to ale as a relaxing reward. Players can also build a bar that boosts their workers, though no one is shown consuming alcohol.
Conversation Starters
- Do you find the mix of strategy genres overwhelming, or interesting?
- Which buildings and turrets do you like to use?
- What's the lowest level depth you've made it to?
- Which platform crew do you like best?
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