Let's drill!

July 20, 2020 3:56 PM

A couple of developers (Johan & Johan) have made Pico Driller, a free, simplified rendition of arcade classic Mr. Driller, in Pico8! It's a good introduction to the Ways of the Drill. Good luck!

How to play:

• Use the arrow keys to move left and right, and aim your drill in four directions. Press Z or X to drill. Move into a ledge at most one block high for a second to climb.
• Dig into a block to break it, removing it from the board. Doing this will dislodge blocks left unsupported, causing them to fall in about a second. Don't get squished!
• If a falling block touches another block of the same color, even if falling by it, it'll join onto it, making a bigger block.
• Blocks of four or more units in size vanish on their own, possibly dropping other blocks. This can cause chaotic chain reactions, so be careful!
• Drill down, drill deep! It's harder than you think! How low can you go?
• The deeper you get, the faster your air runs out. Collect air capsules to get more time.
• X blocks take five hits to break, only break one unit at a time, and cause you to lose 20 air units if you break one yourself. Try to shatter them by connecting them together.
• The basic trouble in drilling is, you're safe if you drill straight down, but you'll have to dig from side to side to collect air and go around X blocks, and that introduces the chance of getting squished.
• Mr. Driller is a game that, ultimately, requires practice to get good at. Don't be disheartened, and good luck!

posted by JHarris (22 comments total)

Mr. Driller is incredibly addictive (if you're a certain kind of person), and becomes punishingly difficult after a while. Until very, very recently I don't think there was an official version available for any US system, but if you like this, and you have a Switch, well... rejoice?
posted by The Bellman at 4:15 PM on July 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

Mr Driller had a PC version that came out in 1999. I still keep an optical drive for when I need to install it from the CD. The theme tune is wonderful, and is like a more relaxed cousin to the one from Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg.
posted by pipeski at 4:23 PM on July 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

The Dig Dug guy's son has done pretty well for himself.
posted by wanderingmind at 4:29 PM on July 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

> Mr. Driller is incredibly addictive (if you're a certain kind of person), and becomes punishingly difficult after a while. Until very, very recently I don't think there was an official version available for any US system, but if you like this, and you have a Switch

Pretty sure Mr Driller was on GBA in the US.
posted by pwnguin at 4:48 PM on July 20, 2020

I've always wondered about Pico-8. Would you folks say that there's enough good stuff on there now to pay for it?

Massively looking forward to the Switch version, too...
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:50 PM on July 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

Pretty sure Mr Driller was on GBA in the US.

Looks like you're right. And apparently XBOX as well. Sorry about that!
posted by The Bellman at 5:05 PM on July 20, 2020

Meh. Going back to SteamWorld Dig. YMMV.
posted by Splunge at 5:27 PM on July 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

One thing I keep getting hit by is getting squished by blocks while not actually on the ground. Also they seem to have a higher terminal velocity than I do, which means my strategy of digging down until the bottom most falling block matches something isn't working.
posted by pwnguin at 5:41 PM on July 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've always wondered about Pico-8.

I bought a pocket CHIP that comes with pico-8 and its pretty great but I don’t use it enough because I haven’t worked out external controllers an the ‘keyboard’ takes so much force that it aggravates my pre-existing strain issues in my hands/wrists. I’m not sure if that’s useful but it’s a cool device at a decent price imo, with plenty of cool games plus it’s a whole little open source computer.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:07 PM on July 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

If you've played enough official Mr Driller, the gameplay differences in Pico Driller become more apparent. I've noticed:

• The special blocks, White Blocks and Crystal Blocks, are absent.
• The frame rate is lower, and it doesn't take as long for blocks to fall once unsettled.
• Pico Driller is a lot more willing to squish you. In cases where you could do a quick escape (leaping out of the way) in the official game, you just get crunched in Pico. You also move horizontally more slowly.
• In official Mr Driller, you actually get about 22 air from capsules instead of 20, despite what the screen says. You can detect this, when you collect a capsule, by paying attention to what your air count is; in official versions, you can detect having a little air over what you should have when the display is updated.
• Digging upward, in classic Driller, resets the fall timer on blocks overhead, a trick that can be used as an expert move to give yourself some extra time. That doesn't seem too work as well in Pico Driller.

The Switch version of Mr. Driller, Drill Land, is already out, and it's great! It's a port of the much-loved PS2/Gamecube version that never made it to the U.S., and has several alternate mode that change a few rules in such a way as to turn them into entirely different games, all of them just as fun as classic Mr. Driller. It's also got a "casual" mode that reduces the difficulty, which is great since at its hardest difficulty few people can keep up with Mr. Driller's later stages.
posted by JHarris at 6:17 PM on July 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

pwnguin: It does require some adjustment if you're used to the original games. The "zig zag" strategy of digging to the side then down over and over, so you're constantly out from under blocks that are preparing to fall, is a bit less viable because blocks tend to fall faster.

Here's an observation: in this age where almost all games have exhaustive strategy guides on the internet, I have yet to find any good one for Mr. Driller, and not for want of searching.
posted by JHarris at 6:25 PM on July 20, 2020

I can't figure out how to get past the opening screen -- what do I hit to select Arcade or Marathon mode and actually start the game?
posted by jacquilynne at 7:34 PM on July 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

Either Z or X, same buttons used to drill.
posted by wanderingmind at 7:36 PM on July 20, 2020

Pretty sure Mr Driller was on GBA in the US.

I had the Japanese version on a flash cart, never realizing there was an english-translated version. Oh well, it was still crazy fun to play.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:50 PM on July 20, 2020

Meh. Going back to SteamWorld Dig. YMMV.

goddammit I wish you hadn't said that
posted by hearthpig at 8:11 PM on July 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

There was a Mr Driller for XBLA, I’m pretty sure.
posted by Merus at 8:27 PM on July 20, 2020

Mr. Driller comes preloaded on the PS Classic (pretty sure it's the only legit way to play it in the US rn), if anyone is interested.
posted by RobertFrost at 9:11 AM on July 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

There are quite a few legit ways to play it in the US on old hardware. GameBoys are sturdy--plenty of 20-year old ones still work.

(Also, I just learned via Wikipedia that Mr. Driller is the son of the guy from Dig Dug (who, despite my best guess at the time, was not named 'Doug') and one of the women from Alien Sector.

I feel like it was such a labor of love to create these elaborate backstories for, like, 8-bit era and older games when the technology clearly wasn't up to the task of telling the tale. Here's the manual for Atari 2600 classic Missile Command, a game about a planet with built-up cities, rich in resources, void of crime and violence, and fighting off an interplanetary attack. Here's what gameplay looked like (be sure to turn the sound on, and note that those beautiful cities are destroyed and rebuilt at the end of each round).)
posted by box at 9:37 AM on July 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yep, also, Taizo (the Dig Dug guy) and Tobi (her game was originally called Baraduke) are separated, but Tobi still lives in the neighborhood, and, according to the lore in Drill Land, has written a book, "The Fighting Mother's Guide to Parenting." If you're lucky enough to get a Rescue item in Star Driller (a mode in Drill Land) Tobi shows up with supplies!

Taizo got a more recent starring role of his own in a DS game, Dig Dug: Digging Strike, which combines the gameplay of the original arcade game and its lesser-known sequel. Taizo is playable in some Mr. Driller games. He's very quick, and when he drills blocks they disappear instantly, but suffers from higher air consumption. I hear his other son, Ataru Hori, is a favored character for speedruns.
posted by JHarris at 9:55 AM on July 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

If you got the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality back in June, you got Pico-8!
posted by Harald74 at 11:55 AM on July 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Jeremy Parish has just done a retrospective on Mr. Driller as part of his Works series.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:55 PM on July 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Jeremy Parish is great! His livestream of the original Japanese release of Drill Land helped convince me to put the money down for the Switch version!
posted by JHarris at 7:03 AM on July 24, 2020