When it comes to oil, who thinks of deep holes and long drilling shafts? Oil is also called the black gold and you often have to dig as deep for it as for real gold. With a little luck, a real drilling professional will eventually come across a well and become fabulously rich.
Our oil refinery is already waiting at the top of the screen. With the drill head, the drilling shafts are combed for small spots of so-called oil pellets. Only after collecting all points, the screen spanning level is finished. There are also all kinds of vermin and monsters in the underground which grapple with the long pipeline. They take one of the 3 lives from the player when they touch the drill pipe. The only way to counteract them is to get ahead of the monsters and touch them with the drill head. This will make them disappear for a while.
Being a declared non-fan of roleplaying games, but a bit of a fan of Buck Rogers (the 1930s serial being somewhat forgettable, but the first season of the 1970s series being totally excellent), this game always had me torn. I gave playing it many serious attempts, sometimes not getting anywhere, but gradually getting better at it. Time to have another go!
Countdown to Doomsday, from the outset, makes a couple of very good design decisions. First of all, the player is not allowed to play Buck Rogers himself or even have him in the party. Given that character's status as an immortal icon in this universe, it would have been unthinkable to have him fail at comparatively simple tasks at the hands of a less than perfect player. Second, the game opening is simply excellent: the party of new recruits of Earth's military is immediately thrown into battle when during their welcome, their base is attacked. So the game begins with a tense, action-packed scene (sort of a "quest 0") even before letting the player take a breath to really take inventory, visit the bar for some rumors etc.