Declan had done some pixel art before but it never had a deadline and it usually wasn't this sort of theme however the art still turned out amazing.
The planet was originally planned to be much bigger however doing art for the entire surface proved to be very troublesome. This caused us to scale down both the planet and drill causing the modern effect.
The grindy gameplay is caused by a lack of objectives the player has. If there were more destructible, things to do with the drill early on and more weapons/bombs I think the gameplay would of felt satisfying for the entire game. There was also an idea of adding enemies that would break the drill and fire at the enemy to add some more bits of gameplay.