Core Drill: mining game tips for deeper, faster runs

The loop in one minute

Every level is a mine shaft nine blocks wide. You hold your finger or the mouse where the drill should go: below and to the sides it digs, above it flies back up through your own tunnels. At the bottom glows the core, and bringing it to the surface clears the level.

Everything you dig goes into the hold, shown as a bar at the top. When it is full, the ore you keep digging stays lying in the tunnel, so nothing is lost. You fly up, sell, and come back for the rest. Coins from selling buy three upgrades that stay with you between levels: Drill, Hold and Engine. Because there is no fuel and no timer, a run is never a race. It is a question of how many trips you need.

What to upgrade first

Buy Hold early. A bigger hold means fewer trips to the surface, and fewer trips is the most direct way to dig deeper in less time. In the first few levels, put your coins into Hold before anything else.

Drill comes next, and it matters for a different reason. It digs faster, but it also decides which rock you can break at all. Stone, granite and basalt each show a lock until your Drill is good enough. When you hit a lock, do not try to force it: bring up a few loads of ore, sell, and upgrade the Drill. In this game the ore you carry up is literally your way down.

Engine flies faster, so it saves time on every trip home. It is the least urgent of the three, but once your Hold is large and your Drill breaks the rock you meet, Engine is what makes each round trip shorter. The shop is open whenever you are on the surface, including in the middle of a level, so you can spend coins after any trip.

Dig smart: veins first, depth second

Ore sits right in the rock where you can see it. Copper and iron appear near the surface, silver and gold lower down, then rubies, emeralds and diamonds deep below, with treasure chests scattered around. Since the hold is your only limit, fill it with the best ore you can reach rather than with whatever is directly under the drill.

A habit that works well: when you spot a rich vein, dig sideways along it before heading down. A sideways tunnel fills the hold with valuable ore without making the trip home longer, because you are not getting any farther from the surface. Save the deep descent for a trip when you have a bigger hold or a stronger drill to match what you will find there.

Use the home button and your tunnels

The home button, E on a keyboard, flies the drill straight up to the surface. It costs nothing, so use it every time the hold is full instead of steering back by hand. Your own tunnels are also your highway: above the drill it flies back through the paths it has already dug, so a straight shaft is the fastest way to return.

When you are back on the surface, sell, check the three upgrade cards under the mine, and spend before you dive again. Then fly down and pick up the ore that stayed in the tunnel. The ring that marks where the drill is heading helps you aim, so put it exactly where you want to dig rather than somewhere roughly nearby.

Boulders, lava and bombs

Round boulders cannot be drilled at all. Go around them, or blast them with a bomb. Glowing lava is a wall you have to go around, so plan your tunnel to avoid it instead of pushing straight down. Both are usually cheaper to avoid than to fight.

A bomb clears a 3x3 block of rock under the drill, hard rock and all. Space drops one on a keyboard, and there is a bomb button on a phone. The best moments to use one are when a lock is blocking a vein you can already see, and just above the core, where a clean blast saves a long detour. When your bombs run out, a short video refills them, so there is no need to hoard the last one.

Stars, coins and the core

Stars are given for how much you bring up from a mine, so a level where you emptied the best veins earns more than a quick dive for the core. If you want the full stars, make a loop of a few trips before you lift the core at the end.

After a level, a short video doubles your coins, which is worth taking when you know the next upgrade is just out of reach. Your level, coins and upgrades are saved in the browser, and the leaderboard ranks the highest levels, so every upgrade you buy carries over to the next, deeper shaft.

Frequently asked questions

Guides & tips

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• Core Drill — Dig to the glowing core and fly it home