Excavate through an infested planet with your giant drill-city and fight to survive in the roguelite city-builder CitaDrill.

Background: One City, One Drill, One Descent

CitaDrill is a roguelite city-builder built around one inverted image. Instead of a drill that pierces the heavens, the game gives you a city mounted on a larger-than-life drill that pierces the earth.

The setup is simple: One domed city. One drill attached to its base. One planet to dig through.

The city is enclosed in a big dome, and the player advances by digging downward through an infested planet. The game is presented with lush pixel art, and it was made playable through a demo during Steam Next Fest.

Development: Resources, Buildings, and Pressure Build Into Defense

The game starts with very little. All the player begins with is a humble drill and a need to dig downwards. As the drill crushes different kinds of blocks, it nets resources, and the type of resource depends on the colour of the blocks crushed.

Those resources are then used to build up the domed city in a typical city-building fashion. Different fixtures provide various bonuses. A pressure valve may reduce a pressure buildup status, while power lines may be needed to get certain buildings and modules working. The player may also decide to print a worker to get jobs done.

Even with these construction tasks, the main purpose of the loop remains drilling. The city is built so the drill can keep moving downward through the planet.

The threats create the next stage of the loop. Nasty, giant creepy crawlies want to munch up the city, so the game adds a tower defence element. To fend off incoming baddies, the player attaches various weaponry and defences to the drill-city. The combat is slower paced and less screen encompassing than a bullet heaven, but it still carries some of that genre’s vibes.

Nasty-looking bosses add more pressure, and because the creatures and bosses keep coming, the player is not starved of battles.

The game also has a whole cat-themed element, which the material presents as a touch of quirkiness. It references a real-world meme, an aspect the reviewer finds less appealing, especially given the game’s style, but not off-putting enough to avoid trying the demo.

Latest: The Demo Is Live on Steam Before the End-of-Year Release

The current playable stage is a demo on Steam, available as part of Steam Next Fest. The full release is described as coming before the end of the year.

For a reader deciding whether to try it, the demo compresses the game’s central promise into a short test: dig down, collect colour-dependent resources, build the dome, add power and pressure fixtures, print workers, attach weapons, and survive creepy crawlies and bosses.

The known timeline remains Steam Next Fest demo now, full release before the end of the year.