Bore Blasters review

In the world of video games, Dwarves and mining have become as indelibly linked as anime schoolkids and fighting demons. But unlike the latter, the former doesn’t feel like something with the legs to really carry it. Deep Rock Galactic cornered the market and hasn’t stopped kicking it since it launched, so even winning the right to have “Dwarf” become a Steam tag likely won’t be enough to let any other Dwarf mining game take the hotspot. Which brings us to Bore Blasters, a game that literally only features Dwarves because they’re cool right now.

Because Bore Blasters is one of those incredibly simple and addictive games that needs no context and so provides very little. You are a Dwarf piloting a mining gyrocopter who could have just as easily been a very intelligent beagle or a bricklayer from Croydon and it would have affected the game not one bit. Your goal in each stage is to blast through bedrock, collecting precious gems, and shooting enemies like bats and… crowns?… and bizarre alien bugs, until you either reach a special big chest at the bottom of the level or, more often, run out of fuel or shields.

Each level appears to be procedurally generated, though it doesn’t really matter as they’re all functionally the same. Different hazards present themselves, such as vines that grow back, eggs that disgorge bugs, or tougher types of stone to blast through. You’ve a big cannon for destroying rock, which you can upgrade with run-specific buffs like more firepower or explosive rounds, while you can spend acquired gold on permanent upgrades to your shields, fuel capacity, speed, and rate of fire.

What Bore Blasters never does though, is evolve or progress in a meaningful way. You can unlock different characters who bring slight variations on the theme such as different primary firepower, but they’re not a huge departure. There are quests that amount to finding a certain type of new rock or item, but it never really gives you much to do beyond shooting and flying.

As such, I found it more enjoyable in short bursts rather than long sessions. It’s essentially a mobile game, designed to kill time when you’ve got 20 minutes here and there. It keeps the gold and the upgrades coming pretty thick and fast, but even that could only hold my attention for so long.

The slightly drab, samey levels are nothing to get excited about, and watching new stages unlock when I finished one filled me with a weird kind of resignation. It’s perfectly serviceable and fun for what it is, but I never finished a stage and wished for three more to take its place. All in all, Bore Blasters is a fun little time-waster, but it’s not an experience you’ll remember after you’ve moved on.