Drill Down: Idle Mining

Misaligned Games

About this game

Drill Down is a one-thumb drilling game about the only three things that matter a kilometre down: how fast the bit is turning, how hot it is, and how far the cable reaches.

Swipe to spin the flywheel. Bite into the ground and the rock decides what happens next — dirt gives way in a second, slate takes patience, and the Anvil takes a bigger bit than the one you own. Heat builds with every metre. Coolant buys you more of them. Run out of either and the machine hauls itself back to the surface with whatever it managed to carry.

Everything you find pays for the next descent. Cobalt from the shallows, amethyst deeper, iridium deeper still. Spend it on the drill you are actually fighting with: a bigger bit for harder ground, coolant for the heat, a longer cable for the depth, silos so the surface can hold what you bring up. Six chassis, from a hand auger to a core borer, each one a wider bore and a new idea — a hopper that holds the haul, carriers that fly minerals up while you keep cutting, flank cutters that swarm out sideways to the seams beside you, a water tank that quenches lava into obsidian.

The shaft is endless and every column is different. Walk sideways along the surface as far as you like and start a new hole wherever the ground looks promising. Nothing is telegraphed: a seam, a flooded pocket or a lava lens is something you hit, not something the game warned you about.

No timers, no energy, no ads. One machine, one shaft, and the question of how deep you can get it back from.

What’s new

Sink a shaft, chase the seams, and get the ore back up before the bit cooks.

Six chassis from a hand auger to a core borer. Dirt gives way in a second; slate takes patience; the Anvil takes a bigger bit than you own. Carriers fly minerals up while you keep cutting, flank cutters swarm the seams beside you, and a water tank quenches lava into obsidian.

No timers, no energy, no ads.