Drill to the Core

The loop

The whole game is one cycle in which every part feeds the next. Your drill grinds downward and turns each metre into ore. Ore sells for coins. Coins buy upgrades in three directions, power, speed and cargo space, and a better drill earns faster, which pays for the following upgrade sooner. While your operation is still small you can also click or tap the drill and dig by hand.

Ten strata

Ten strata separate the topsoil from the core. Each is made of its own kind of rock and pushes back with a depth curve of its own, so the way down is not one uniform climb. The game gives one pointed piece of advice about this: when you sell ore, keep an eye on which stratum is really paying for your upgrades.

Managers and the offline drill

Hiring a manager hands a stratum over to automation, and from then on it keeps producing without you. Together with offline progress, that is what makes this an idle game in the full sense. Shut the tab and the digging goes on, and what it earns is waiting for you when you get back.

Relocating

The long-term target is the Core Mantle. Break through it and you can Relocate: a fresh planet, richer than the last, with permanent Core bonuses that come with you and longer numbers to chase. A full descent is therefore not the end of the game but one lap of it, and each Relocation carries something forward into the next.