Drill Core

Release Date: September 12, 2024 Early Access

Strategy, science fiction, tower defense, 2D, indie games, singleplayer

86%

Steam

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A strategy game about commanding space miners and mining alien planets mixed with a tower defense title. Our job in Drill Core is to obtain valuable resources from various planets, as well as to defend our mining platforms from very aggressive alien beings.

Mechanics
Technical aspects

Drill Core is a strategy game in which we take control of miners drilling deep into alien planets. The game was developed by the independent Serbian studio Hungry Couch, which has the project Black Skylands in its portfolio.

Mechanics

In Drill Core we watch the action from the side. The gameplay is based on two pillars - extracting valuable resources and defending our oil platform along with our subordinates against attacks from aggressive alien creatures.

During mining work, we only have indirect control over our workers, being able to indicate to them the places where they should dig next. Descending deeper into the planet, we discover new layers of minerals, and gathering as many of these as possible is our primary goal over the course of subsequent missions.

As we progress, we acquire resources that we can allocate to the purchase of new technologies and improvements to the inventions we already own. Thanks to them, it is possible not only to increase the drilling pace, but also to better take care of the safety of miners. The work takes place only during the day, while at night our platform and our subordinates fall victim to massive attacks from creatures, clashes with which bring to mind tower defense games.

The first waves of enemies are not the largest, and the units attacking us are not too strong, so setting up just two automatic turrets is enough for effective defense. Over time the situation begins to change to our disadvantage. This makes us face the dilemma of whether we should focus on extraction, therefore paying less attention to defense issues, or take the safety of miners to heart and increase spending on defensive actions. We can set up more turrets and place new traps, as well as improve already owned defense measures. All of this will happen at the expense of the pace and efficiency of the work being carried out.

The matter is further complicated by the fact that in each mission the game randomly selects both the monsters that attack us and the technologies that will be made available to us, as well as various restrictions that will be imposed on us. Given that we can never be sure what challenges we will face during the next expedition, it forces us to demonstrate cunning and the ability to wisely manage resources, as well as quickly adapt to the situation at hand.