CozyWorld game guide · By CozyWorld
This guide covers our own game, written from the current game rules and browser checks.
Burrow Down Guide: How to Reach the Star Seed
Burrow Down is a game of knowing when to turn back. Here is how energy works, what to buy first, where every treasure is buried and how to bring the Star Seed home.
Burrow Down is our cozy digging game. A mole with a lantern lives in a cottage at the top of a garden, and under the grass is a column of soil nine tiles wide and ninety deep. The goal is the Star Seed in a crystal chamber on the very bottom row. You will not reach it on the first trip, or the tenth. Each trip you dig as far as your energy allows, pick up treasure, head home to sell it and buy better gear, then go back down your own tunnels. This guide covers how energy works, when to turn back, what to buy first, where every treasure is buried and how to bring the Star Seed home.
How a dig works
Burrow Down is turn-based: nothing happens until you move, and there is no timer. Each move costs energy. Digging into soft topsoil costs 2, roots and clay cost 3, stone 4, deep rock 5 and crystal rock 6. Walking along a tunnel you have already dug costs only half a point, and climbing up one costs 1 with bare paws. Walking on the grass is free.
The energy bar at the top shows what you have left, and the marker on it, with the number beside it, shows what it would cost to walk home from where you are right now. It grows the deeper you go, and it always follows the cheapest way back through your own tunnels. The Home button (or the H key) walks that route for you.
Knowing when to turn back
When the energy you would have left after walking home drops below 5, the bar turns red, the Home button pulses and the message says Energy is low. Little dots also light up the way home. That is the moment to turn around. You can press on for one more dig, but hard soil eats energy quickly.
If you do run out underground, nothing is lost for good. Friendly worms carry the mole home. You keep the more valuable half of your finds, and the rest drop in the tunnel where you fell asleep, ready to pick up on your next trip. The Star Seed always comes home with you. A worm rescue still counts as a trip, sells what you kept and refills your energy.
A full bag is the other reason to head home. Treasure you dig into with a full bag stays where it is, so you can come back for it.
What to buy first
Finds sell by themselves when you reach the grass, and the trading stall there sells five kinds of gear, each with three upgrades. The lunchbox sets your energy: 50 to start, then 80 with the Picnic (30 coins), 120 with the Hamper (110) and 170 with the Feast (300). The backpack holds 5 finds, then 8 with the Satchel (25), 12 with the Knapsack (90) and 16 with the Rucksack (260). These two pay back on every trip, so buy them first.
Claws decide what you can dig. Soft claws only get through topsoil and clay. Iron claws (70) break stone and make digging 20% cheaper, Steel claws (200) break deep rock, and Diamond claws (520) break crystal rock and halve every digging cost. The first stone appears in the clay layer, so Iron claws are your third buy.
The lantern lights 2 tiles around you, then 3, 4 and 5 (30, 100 and 280 coins), so you spot treasure from farther away and dig straight to it. Boots make climbing cheaper: 1 energy a step, then 0.8, 0.6 and 0.4 (45, 150 and 400 coins). A good order is the Satchel, the Picnic, Iron claws, the Oil lamp and Grip boots, then the Hamper and Steel claws once you reach deep rock.
Where every treasure is buried
The garden has five layers, and each has its own treasures. Topsoil (depth 1 to 15): the Lost button (3 coins), Acorn stash (4) and Glass marble (7). Clay (16 to 35): the Pottery shard (9), Teacup (12) and Copper coin (15). Stone (36 to 55): the Amber drop (18), Fossil fern (22) and Silver spoon (28). Deep rock (56 to 75): the Ammonite (40), Quartz geode (52) and Gold nugget (66). Crystal caves (76 to 90): the Moonstone (90) and Starry geode (125).
You can only see treasure your lantern has lit. Each time you go home, the garden hides two new treasures in the soil around the depths you have reached, in soil you have not seen yet when there is any, so there is always something new to find. Worm tunnels are short passages that are already dug. Breaking into one saves you the digging, so follow them when they head your way.
Digging efficiently
Dig one main shaft straight down and branch sideways from it. Every trip starts by walking back down that shaft for half a point a step, which is much cheaper than digging a new one, and the deeper you go the more it matters. Climbing back up is where good boots pay off.
Hard soil comes in clumps. A stone pocket in the clay can cost more to dig through than to go around through softer soil beside it. Before you have Iron claws, stone simply stops you, and the message tells you which claws you need.
Bringing the Star Seed home
The Star Seed rests in a small crystal chamber on the bottom row, so you need Diamond claws to reach it, plenty of energy and good boots for the long climb back. It always fits in your bag, even a full one. Carry it to the grass and the mole plants it by the cottage, where a star tree grows.
The treasure shelf keeps count of everything you have found. Treasures you have not found yet show as shadows with their value, and found ones show how many you have and a short note about each.
Controls, saving and accessibility
Keyboard: the arrow keys or WASD dig and walk, holding a key keeps going, and H walks home. Touch or mouse: use the arrow pad (hold it to keep digging), or tap the tile next to the mole to move or dig that way. Tapping a tunnel you have already dug walks the mole there.
Your whole garden saves on this device: every tunnel, what you have seen, where treasures lie, your coins, gear, bag and shelf. Restarting from the toolbar starts a new garden after asking first. In 80 simulated gardens, scripted diggers brought the Star Seed home in 16 to 30 trips (20 on the median), around 2,000 moves. We checked the game with automated desktop, phone and keyboard browser runs; these are not tests on physical devices or with real players.
Keep digging
Once the Star Seed is planted, a star tree grows by the cottage and the garden stays yours. Every trip home still hides new treasure, so there is a shelf of fourteen finds to fill. If you like a calm game with a collection to complete, Ripple Lake is a fishing game with a journal of 18 fish.