HomeNewsTo The Core (2023)
To The Core contains interplanetary mining with the spectacle of Vampire SurvivorsA partly idle game about destroying planets
A partly idle game about destroying planets
It’s part idle game, partVampire Survivors, and it’s out now.
To The Core Trailer (release date August 10)I play video games to see lots of colourful pixels move around.Watch on YouTube
To The Core Trailer (release date August 10)
When I say ineffectual, I mean ineffectual, since to begin with you can rotate your ship to point your drill, but that’s it. You can’t steer, beyond obeying gravity and angling a bounce off the planet’s surface. Progress is slow, then you explode.
After death, you can take your meagre haul and unlock some upgrades in a small skill tree. First you’ll gain the ability to hold the shift key to prevent bouncing, then the ability to steer with WASD. Then you can increase damage output from the drill and reduce fuel consumption, making each expedition more profitable. After each explosion, progress gets faster.
Each unlock and maxed-out node causes the branches of the skill tree to grow outward. Your humble beginnings provide a strong contrast for how powerful you rapidly become. Planets are made from layers of different materials and each is a resource that can be applied towards a different kind of upgrade, and soon enough your drill is diamond-plated and sand or coal or titanium has granted you access to passive buffs that are delivering extra resources for every block mined. At the point I’m at now, I’m armed not just with a drill but with a mining laser, regenerating grenades, auto-firing missiles, auto-firing electricity bolts, and the aforementioned drones and aerial bombardment lasers, and every attack triggers a chain of secondary and tertiary projectiles and explosions.
This is the Vampire Survivors of it all. I’m the same small mining ship I started as, but now I sit at the centre of a chaotic swarm of pixellated destruction.
Even the mining expeditions can become an idle game of sorts. I mentioned above that you were initially immobile except for gravity’s pull, but at my current power level, I have returned to simply letting my mining ship fall towards a planet’s core while my army does the work for me. One of my favourite things to do, after destroying a planet core, is to spin in the gravity well it leaves behind and simply wait until I’ve consumed the remainder of the planet from the inside out.
Despite enjoying myself with it, there is some part of me that wants to condemn To The Core. There’s nothing nutritious about it, it’s pure sugar. Yet philosophically, I don’t believe in guilty pleasures, only pleasure. To The Core is a pleasure. It’s Jupiter Ascending toΔV: Rings Of Saturn’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
With a 30% launch discount, it’s currently £4.68/€5.45/$5.59on Steam.
