Dig Dug (Arcade)

Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug. These three are practically the holy trinity of Namco’s early arcade offerings, often cropping up together when Namco wishes to evoke some nostalgia or repackage their games in a new collection, although Galaga’s progenitor Galaxian and Pac-Man’s wife Ms. Pac-Man sometimes stand in for those two. Dig Dug is unique among the three though because it is essentially the son of the other two, the game inspired by the desire to rework the maze game format that Pac-Man popularized while using the Namco Galaga arcade system board. Despite being born by this strange union, Dig Dug feels distinct from the other two, its format even heavily breaking away from the Pac-Man formula. While it’s been perhaps too charitably described as a maze game where you build the maze, Dig Dug’s digging still gives it its unique gameplay style, one that wasn’t copied as often as its fellow trinity members’ designs.

Dig Dug’s eponymous hero, known in later years as Taizo Hori, starts each level of his first game underground, a pre-built tunnel in the center serving as his starting point before he begins to dig his own path. Dominating most of the screen, the subterranean world is mostly filed with multiple layers of soil that Dig Dug can dig out with ease, his movement speed slowing as he does so but the process only as difficult as walking into the soil. One of the more delightful features added to Dig Dug is the sound that plays when the hero is moving around. Whenever he takes a step, music begins to play, just as abruptly stopping when he comes to a halt. Moving forward will make it play continuously and at the end of the stage it will begin to speed up as you scramble to finish it in time. While this doesn’t have any real gameplay purpose besides the sound speed up to tell you to wrap the level up, it gives the game an extra layer of character that the blue-skinned, almost Smurf-like hero couldn’t do just on design alone. He does have something more useful to gameplay than musical feet though, that being a pump he uses to deal with the two enemies he finds underground.

 

The goal of a stage in Dig Dug is to clear out every enemy, the process of defeating a monster usually involving firing a pump into them to inflate them until they burst. The pump itself can extend its hose as long as it can travel straight through a tunnel without touching a wall, but once it’s found purchase in a monster, the player must hammer the pump button to inflate them until they pop. The first and simplest enemy in Dig Dug seems designed to be a good fit for this elimination method. The red Pooka enemy is shaped a bit like a balloon and its expansion before bursting feels like a natural way of taking it down, the popping even feeling like you’ve just overinflated a ball rather than killed a creature. Its little scuba mask and pipe-like tail make for a simple enemy design cute enough that Pac-Man would later pull him into his own games just to capitalize on that adorable look, but here he is the easier of the two enemies, mostly trying to charge into Dig Dug to touch him and take away one of his lives. Pookas are a bit faster than the hero, but they must come to a stop when the pump gets embedded in them. If they aren’t inflated to popping point they’ll deflate and begin the chase again, this becoming a factor in later levels where Pookas become more aggressive and charge at Dig Dug in greater numbers. While it is fairly easy to handle one, when they start coming at you in clusters or from different angles, the inflation speed isn’t quite enough to pop them all in quick succession, the player having to rely on carving out better tunnels to escape them or only delay the pursuing Pookas until you find the opening to properly pop them.

The other enemy to watch out for underground are Fygars, little dragon creatures that are tougher than Pookas and provide more points when popped. These little monsters pursue the hero as well, but they can also breathe out a gout of fire that can easily fill a small tunnel, making them a foe that has to be handled a bit more carefully. However, despite the additional attack, they mostly behave in a similar manner to Pookas, right down to both sharing a special ability that kind of makes the whole “build your own maze” aspect not quite true. While the two enemies prefer traveling by tunnel, you’ll notice immediately they begin compartmentalized into little dirtless chambers. While you can dig into these areas to pop them, if you leave for them for too long or are in a later level where the enemies take initiative more, you’ll find both foes can turn into ghostly faces and fly through the soil unimpeded. While this feature does negate some of the importance of tunnel-building, it also adds the extra spice to the affair that makes Dig Dug more dynamic. When they chase after you down a tunnel you can plan their defeat pretty easily, usually the process involving luring them into a spot where you can safely pop them or digging a tunnel up towards a boulder so that it will fall on them and squish them. By being able to pass through the soil freely if need be though, the enemies can turn the tables on you and gang up on you if you’re becoming too dependent on your tunnel layouts for handling the monsters. This ability also makes completing a level for maximum points a touch more difficult, the last enemy always trying to reach the above ground area and flee once all other monsters are defeated. Letting him get away isn’t penalized, but snagging him ensures a higher score, more points also being earned if you go for the riskier rock kills that can also squash you if you don’t move out of the way quickly enough.

 

Dig Dug features 15 unique subterranean layouts before they begin to loop, the designs mostly determining how many of each type of monster is present and where the rocks are if you want to try and squish them. It’s only a minor degree of variation truthfully but still a tangible one, more monsters appearing together and the dragons getting emphasized more and more as you reach the later rounds. While it does amount to mostly shuffling the same few things around, the variations give a player a pretty decent set of unique levels to conquer with the loop after being there for high score chasers, the climb in difficulty making getting to level 16 an appropriate challenge. There are a few things that do continue to change after the last unique round, those being the flowers above ground that will continue to appear to track your level number and some bonus fruits that appear when you drop at least two rocks. The bonus fruits continue their climb to higher point values and different looks until they settle into a pineapple for round 18 onward. The point system actually has a few intricacies to it, digging out dirt providing a few and the layer an enemy is defeated at determining how valuable they are, so there is more to do as a score chaser than clearing things quickly with the most efficient attack method. Dig Dug could have still done with throwing a better bone to those looking for more variety outside of point earning, but the two are pretty decently balanced, especially since the looping isn’t easily reached.

THE VERDICT: With 15 unique level layouts and a points system that is as layered as the soil but still easy enough to pick up on, Dig Dug manages to be an arcade title that can please progression minded players and score chasers even if they could get heartier experiences from games more focused on either approach. The digging mechanic is definitely the star feature, the player able to manipulate the two enemy types with how they build tunnels but both pack ways to get around them so that the game never settles into a stagnant loop. That influence over the play area and a steady climb in difficulty make Dig Dug fun to play and open to new outcomes, all while a delightful little ditty plays every time the digger takes a step.

 

And so, I give Dig Dug for arcade machines…

A GOOD rating. I’ve mentioned in the Doggo Dig Down review why I think digging is a fairly satisfying gameplay mechanic, it especially working well in a game where you see a cross-section of the dirt you’re digging down into. You have a great degree of influence over the area of play when you’re in charge of digging out the tunnels through it, and Dig Dug makes clearing soil more than just a means of expanding the area that’s been dug up. Carving out areas for speedier navigation, setting up rock traps, and tricking the Pookas and Fygars so you can pick them off safely makes tunnel-building somewhat strategic without requiring an intense degree of planning. It’s got that good curve to it where a casual player can pop in and enjoy the first few stages before the enemies get aggressive and end their run while a player putting in a bit more time will learn how to wrangle the foes and keep going until they’ve hit the last unique level or push further to earn an impressive score. It could benefit from more stage variation, but its current form still benefits from its mild rearrangements without shaking the boat too much.

 

Dig Dug certainly belongs alongside Pac-Man and Galaga as a Namco classic even if it’s the one whose gameplay type was least evolved and iterated upon in the years after its release. The son of this game’s hero would become Namco’s digging hero with his own gameplay approach drastically different from popping underground dragons and scuba balloons, but his old man still provides a fun time in his old game with a game style that can please most types of arcade players.