Drill Dozer

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Synopsis

Drill Dozer is a platformer video game developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance (GBA). Directed by Ken Sugimori, the game stars Jill and her mech Drill Dozer, which has a drill that the player can rotate in both directions to fight enemies, drill into certain surfaces, and screw objects. Sugimori aimed to make an action game that does not use traditional types of combat, and was inspired by the concept of a tokusatsu monster who could drill through anything. He also wished to make the drill not just pushing a button, but instead using one of two buttons to activate the drill (either drilling forward or in reverse). When drilling, the built-in rumble pack will activate, a feature suggested by Nintendo. Sugimori wanted to make the protagonist a little girl, as he felt it would be more unusual than a larger male character piloting the mech. Artist Hironobu Yoshida, who struggled when drawing female characters, found her difficult to design, but managed to make progress when he was inspired to design her hair after roll cakes, having his wife hold one on either side of her head. The game was released on September 22, 2005, in Japan, and on February 6, 2006, in North America. It was initially unreleased in Europe, only arriving there upon being released on the Wii U's Virtual Console in all three regions in 2016. Drill Dozer has been generally well received, regarded as one of the best GBA games by multiple writers. Its level design and drill-focused gameplay was particularly well-received, credited as being unique and setting it apart from other platformers. The music's reception was more mixed; while some enjoyed it, others found it repetitive. The game ended up being a commercial failure, attributed by multiple authors to it coinciding with the Nintendo DS release and poor marketing. This led it to being viewed as a hidden gem.

Text license: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

Details

Type

Game

Release date

September 22, 2005

Genres

action game, platformer

Platforms

Game Boy Advance, Wii U

Created by

Game Freak

Countries

Japan