Deepbore

You drill down a shaft of coloured blocks, and the clock is your air supply. It depletes constantly and the only way to top it up is buried in the strata you are cutting through, so descending fast and descending safely are different problems.

• Drilling any block in a connected group of four or more of the same colour clears the whole group at once.
• Dislodged blocks fall. A stack landing on you crushes you, so clearing a large group above your head is not automatically good.
• Air capsule blocks refill the meter when drilled. Running out of air ends the run.
• Hot blocks also refill air, but each one raises a heat gauge that decays only slowly.
• If heat reaches the cap you overheat, and your air then bleeds away much faster until it falls back — so hot blocks are a lifeline you have to ration.
• Hard blocks take several drills and never clear by colour, so they are pure time.
• Your score is driven by depth, so stalling safely is its own kind of loss.

• Desktop: Arrow keys to move and drill in a direction
• Phone & tablet: keyboard recommended for this fast descent

• Ration the hot blocks. Two in quick succession will overheat you, and the air you bleed while overheated usually costs more than the air they gave you.
• Let heat decay while you drill ordinary colour groups. Doing nothing about heat is an action, and it is often the right one.
• Look up before clearing a big group. The blocks above it are about to fall, and a four-block clear directly overhead is a way to bury yourself.
• Take capsules when you pass them, not when you need them. Backtracking upward is slow and the meter does not pause.
• Route around hard blocks rather than through them. They cost air, cost time, and give nothing back.
• Depth is the score. A cautious descent that never risks anything finishes lower than a brisk one that manages its air.

Deepbore draws on Mr. Driller, released by Namco in 1999, which turned digging downward into a race against your own lungs. You bore through a shaft of coloured blocks, clearing connected groups as you go, while air canisters buried in the strata are the only thing keeping you breathing.

Blocks fall once their support is removed, and that is where the game lives. The quick route down often drops a column on your head, while the safe route costs air you cannot spare. Hard blocks resist several hits and eat time. The result is a falling-block puzzle played from underneath, where the pieces are trying to land on you rather than beside you.

Deepbore is an original free browser game in the connected-group block-clearing tradition, set in a descending shaft with two difficulty levels. No download needed.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.