Quite charming! The game feels really crunchy (in a good way!) The subtle sound effects and screen shake are excellent. It did take me a little bit to get a hang on how the controls worked. I was trying to rev up the drill on the ground, and even later it seemed a bit weird that I had to do a tiny hop whenever I wanted to use the drill.

I'm also a fan of the cute pixel art. Great entry!

Pico-8 Games are always very charming. I love the graphics in this one. The contols felt good when I understood them, it took some time for me to understand how to control the character, but that might just be a "me problem". The particles when digging do a whole lot to improve the feel of the game too.

Love a fun PICO-8 game. The effects are really good. Gives the game a great feel. Good sprite and sound work as well. Great Work!

Sweet visual and solid gameplay. Great job!

Really good game! Lots of fun to play and learn.

Very good idea there, a bit hard to handle the controls but once you got it it's super fun.

The freeze frame is a very nice touch ;)

Really nice game! Once I realised that I can span drill button it became really fun :D
Good job!

Ok i really want to like it - but you got the weirdest controls there... I don't know if that is Pico-8 related but i just can't use them properly. What is wrong with wasd (move) + space (jump and drill as it only works in the air anyway)?

That sounds really negative but only because the game feels great otherwise and i just miss out on a lot xD

What i really like is everything else. The sound fits the actions in game great and the music has a nice simple rhytm to it. The main mechanic is fun and also supports the theme. You even have an alternate play mode which is a super cool idea on its own (and was easier to use for me as well for some reason). And the pico graphics are also nice/cute.

So i will bookmark this page and hope that you can implement other controls. Other than that it is a really, REALLY good entry.

I liked the your pixel art! I think that the controls feel a bit awkward, but it may just be me! It is nice that you exported it for Linux and even for the raspberry pi!

Always love seeing Pico8 games as the limitations and small resolution size always make for a great design space and it typically always means seeing some snazzy pixel art (this game being no exception)

Really enjoyable little digger arcade style game! Sprites are great and the sound effects really add weight to the animations and drill. I enjoyed the boppin song on the title screen but felt a track that played in the drill section would have really gone a long way.

Like some others pointed out the controls felt a little awkward. I think having jump and drilling down works fine, but jumping to drill left and right always felt a bit odd and awkward. Trying the harder drill mode actually felt a lot smoother so potentially having that/tweaking that and making it the default drill mechanic might also be an avenue.

Either way really solid entry and great stuff!

As many people pointed out the flaws with control scheme, unfortunately, I cannot change it for fairness sake until the voting period is over. Luckily, if things go well on my side, I'm planning a **deluxe edition** with some stuff I hadn't been able to do within the 3 days of the jam - with a few extra areas, some powerups and _a revamp of the control scheme_

@willoxs same key for jumping and drilling doesn't really work: you'd have to release the jumping key to perform the drilling move, which would make it harder to use precisely at a specific altitude - and I did try this. The current button layout is the default PICO-8 one, which is what's also used in many emulators _and_ modern platforming games that don't use the mouse, as it approximates a NES gamepad, albeit with d-pad and buttons swapped to use the arrow keys as a d-pad surrogate. For a vast majority of platformer players, _this_ is the preferred layout in place of WASD+space

@cardboard-box Yeah those are valid points. At the end of the day the controls are personal preference and i am just a hardened wasd user.

pico-8 :D great sfx and visuals; I particularly like the rainy game over effect. The fact that you had to jump before drilling seemed odd to me, but I suppose I got used to it eventually. really nice game!

Getting serious Downwell vibes :) Nice work!

Very cool! Art, sound and gameplay feels great. I agree with it being kind of hard to control, but it doesn't sustract much to the experience. Having two drill types is also a nice bonus.

Overall, it feels very polished, and it's fun! Great job!