Turbo Pudding

HelicornLevel secrets

How to fly The Big Dig

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

The end of the trail in Greenfold Meadows: Thistle, a white helicopter with orange stripes, green cannon pods and a tall green tail fin with a white 7, hovers large on the left right beside Big Dig, a giant yellow excavator with black stripes on dark tracks, with two tall black exhaust stacks banded in yellow, a little turret with an orange light on each side of the cab and a long yellow arm reaching forward to a black toothed bucket; a black road with yellow lines runs off to the right, silver cogs and a box glow in a white ring above it, and a red barn with a tall silo stands on the green hill behind, with a scorched crater ringed with flowers in the grass below

The Big Dig is the fourth and last mission of Greenfold Meadows, the first world in Helicorn. At the end of it waits the biggest machine in the meadows. It’s Tuesday, so here’s what to watch for along the trail, and how to take Big Dig apart.

The picture at the top is the very end of the trail. Thistle hangs right beside Big Dig, a giant excavator on tracks. It has a yellow body with black stripes, two tall exhaust stacks, a little turret on each side of the cab and a long arm with a toothed bucket.

Copters that stop to aim

Before the mission, Tilly sounds the alarm: “Something huge is digging up the meadow. Its name is Big Dig.” Hatch adds that it “brought flying cameras.” These are the Survey Copters, new in this mission. The first one shows up alone at the edge of the orchard, a yellow box of a helicopter with a long dark gun.

A Survey Copter flies out ahead of you, stops and hangs there for six to eight seconds, swaying a little, then peels off to the side. While it hangs, it shoots an aimed burst of three every two and a half seconds. Half a second before each burst, the light on top turns magenta. In Helicorn, magenta only ever means enemy fire, so that light is your cue to move. Tilly puts it best: “Copter! It stops to aim. Don’t stop with it.” The Paver, meanwhile, is having a great day: “SMILE. YOU ARE BEING SURVEYED.”

An orchard of round pink and white blossom trees on green hills: on the left, a Survey Copter, a yellow box-shaped helicopter with a long dark gun, a dark tail and skids, hangs in the air under a pale spinning rotor, the hub on top glowing bright magenta as it winds up a burst; on the right, Thistle, a white helicopter with orange stripes, a pale blue glass nose, green cannon pods with orange tips and a green tail, faces it across the trees; at the bottom, a black road with stacks of orange traffic cones and a small yellow forklift carrying a striped crate, and a red barn at the back on the right
Typed “helicopter game with drones.” This one wants a photo.

One good spark

Past the orchard, Wren Ashby, the pilot, spots the first big prize: “Plant and a tank farm. One good spark...” An Asphalt Plant stands by the road with tanks on both sides of it. Go for the drum. When the drum blows, the blast sets off the kettles next to it, and the kettles finish off the bins. The plant sits right beside the tank farm, so one good hit can turn the whole row into a chain of bangs.

That drum has one more thing going for it. It’s gold.

Thistle, the white helicopter with orange stripes, green cannon pods and a green tail fin with a white 7, flies low over a black road on the left, firing a string of pale teal droplets; on the right, the Asphalt Plant has just gone up: dark broken blocks with gold chunks lie in the grass among little flowers, huge gold cogs burst into the air in a bright flash, round black kettles stand in the smoke, a yellow road machine sits on the road, a magenta enemy shell flies toward Thistle, and a bonus in a glowing white ring floats above it all
Search: “satisfying chain explosion game.” Found an asphalt plant.

Three gold lights

Most of the Paver’s machines wear an orange light. A few targets on each trail wear a pulsing gold one instead, and The Big Dig has exactly three: the plant’s drum, a Gravel Silo down in the quarry and a crane a little past the quarry. Your screen shows a gold leaf for each of them, and every gold target pays double Scrap.

Gold also counts toward Ranger Badges, the sewn patches with a pine on them. Every mission has three: Trail cleared for finishing it, Clean sweep for breaking at least 80 percent of the machines and buildings that came into view, and All gold targets. Badges open new paints in Hatch’s Shed, and every paint fits all three helicopters. Sunrise takes three badges, and Goldleaf, the last, takes 66.

Sheds worth breaking

Four of the little Site Sheds along this trail hold something good. The first one, near the start, holds a capsule for the Sprinkler, the gun that sprays teal droplets. Another, down by the creek, holds a capsule for the Chipper, the nose cannon. After the quarry there’s a shed with a glowing hoop that adds two shield rings. The last shed, right before Big Dig, holds a green leaf-heart. Don’t skip that one.

The ambush

Halfway through, Tilly calls out: “Both edges again. And one above!” Dozers roll in from both edges, a Survey Copter takes the sky above them, and two lines of Cone Drones dive in, one on each side. A checkpoint waits right after.

After the quarry and the crane comes the farm, the busiest stretch of the mission. The road forks, Rollers come down both roads, Mixers and two more Copters join in, and Hatch notices something: “The ground is shaking. That’s not the rotor.” On Backcountry, the hardest setting, two extra Mixers wait near the end.

Big Dig: arm first

The Paver introduces its star in capital letters: “STAND BACK. BIG DIG IS DIGGING. BIG.” Tilly’s advice is shorter: “Big Dig! Arm first, then the stacks.”

Tilly is right. The arm lobs clods of asphalt high into the air, one at a time at first and two at a time later. Each clod is a gray lump, and a magenta ring on the ground marks where it will land. The two cab turrets fire aimed bursts of three, and the two exhaust stacks fan out five shells at a time, faster once the fight gets going.

The arm can’t hold on forever. When Big Dig is down to a third of its health, the arm comes off even if you never touched it, in a fountain of Scrap. In the last stretch, Big Dig lunges toward Thistle. Its engine is open now, so every hit on the body counts for more.

Thistle, the white helicopter with orange stripes, green pods and a green tail, flies on the left beside a curving black road; at the center, Big Dig, the yellow excavator on dark tracks, disappears in a big white and yellow blast where its long yellow arm joins the body, with gold cogs and chunks flying up and the black bucket hanging below; a white canister with a gold band floats in a glowing ring at the left, a box with silver cogs glows in another ring at the top right, and a red barn with a silo, green trees and scorched craters ringed with flowers fill the meadow
People also ask: can you beat an excavator with a helicopter?

World 1, Greenfold Meadows, The Big Dig included, is free to play in your browser at helicorn.com. The full game, all six worlds, is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Helicorn page.

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