To appreciate Drill Bird fully, you need to be comfortable with the idea that a cheap (cheap) game can provide a short, rounded experience doing one or two things incredibly well, and nothing else. Where you sit on this debate will likely sway your overarching impressions of Drill Bird. I enjoyed the game for what it provides, but I wished for something more evolutionary to occur in the gameplay at some point… and it just didn’t come.
If you are an older gamer like me, you’ll remember Dig-Dug. Drill Bird takes the idea that your bird beak is actually an upgradable drill that can drill into increasingly denser rock and material in the world around you. The goal is to drill downwards, collect ores you’ll find along the way in your upgradable pockets, and then bring them back to your nest up top. Over time, your egg will grow big and strong and eventually hatch. The Dig-Dug reference comes to the fore when other animals and creatures are discovered. They’ll wander the depths, follow or chase you, or sometimes just float upwards forever. Depending on how and where you dig, you can drop rocks from above to splatter enemies, have them chase you into a ditch, or into a cave you’ll never intend to open. There’s a Steam achievement for not killing a single creature, and I think that’d be an incredibly tricky task to complete.
If you don’t want to worry about enemies all the time, you’ll need to dig responsibly. Leaving enemies trapped in walled enclosures, whilst still channelling downwards, was my chosen strategy. Later on, as the hole gets deeper, you’ll unlock an ability to use vines to climb straight up at speed, and then plant new flowers to spring vines in the locations you want them. This alleviates the inherent back-and-forth Drill Bird is built around as it helps you return to the bottom or top quickly. This matters because Drill Bird works on a day/night energy cycle, and if you run out of energy, darkness sets in. Similar to Spleunker, when darkness arrives, a ghost will appear and chase you down until you die or get home. You’ll find your vision is narrower in darkness, too. The ghost ties into some hidden extra missions if you want to explore them, and they’ll take you off the main beaten path for a bit. Most of these excursions are optional, but they showcase the platforming elements of Drill Bird more than the main event. I’d recommend taking on their challenges for a fuller, more satisfying experience.
The longer you play, the more you upgrade Drill Bird’s ability to dig through more rock types faster, and to carry more things. Crucially, you can also invest in more fuel, which is the currency of time in the game. Think of fuel like stamina. You’ll be able to complete more actions in a day before needing to rest.
My main critique isn’t about what is here, as what is here is well-made and competently put together. It plays responsively, and has a few nifty set pieces designed to make you think or platform your way to birth. It is more than aside from the wines and flowers that help speed up your return to base, there are no other true game mechanics that are introduced that you didn’t already have in the first minute. Drill Bird is a short game, and you can clear it in under two hours. It knows it’s working with a limited design set and pitches itself appropriately. Even still, I wished there was something that tangibly made digging deeper feel slightly different. My other mild critique comes from the enemies. They appear to be scattered across the game, and all too often are easy to ignore or get rid of. I’d have liked a couple of thoughtful enemy placements that really made me think about my next drilling locations.
The lack of any gameplay progression brought down Drill Bird slightly for me because I mentally translated it to a lack of game progression for me and my character. Just having your egg grow slightly bigger when you’ve fed it X amount of ore didn’t quite feel enough. That said, I was engaged. I would have appreciated uncovering some other fauna that was usable to do another move or two to break things up a bit. Drill Bird does exactly what it says on the tin. Nothing more. Nothing less. It’s here for a good time, not a long time, but just know going in, this is a very focused experience for better and worse.
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