Dig Dug
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 Pump it up!
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Dig Dug is a maze arcade game developed by Namco in 1981 and released in 1982. It was planned and designed by Masahisa Ikegami with the help of Shigeru Yokoyama with the game being programmed for the Namco Galaga arcade board by Shouichi Fukatani. Music was composed by Yuriko Keino, including the character movement jingle at executives' request, as her first Namco game. Namco heavily marketed it as a "strategic digging game". This game is the first game of the Dig Dug series.
Why It's Pumped Up
- The gameplay is very fun, simple and straightforward. All you have to do is to dig through an underground area which would eventually become a maze. Now all you got to do is to inflate your enemies (The last surviving enemy will go to the surface and run away). As a result, it becomes addicting.
- Two enemies are unique to each other despite being only 2 enemies. The enemy variety helps players identify the enemy types. Pookas are depicted as red tomato-like creatures while Fygars are fire-breathing dragons. The Fygars are the most deadly due to their range.
- Rocks are placed in the ground which is used to crush the enemies. It's really fun to see the enemies get flat from a falling rock. If you were to squash multiple enemies with a single rock, you can get bonus points. Dropping two rocks in a stage yields a bonus item.
- Even though the enemies may seem like a joke because of their speed, they can easily move faster as time flies thus adding some challenge. Another challenge for you would be how the enemies can turn invisible thus having more mobility. Later stages increase the speed and number of enemies
- The graphics are colorful with some stages changing dirt color. We don't really need to explain since this is 8-bit glory.
- This game offers some good strategy, you need to strategize how are you going to pop the enemies. You may need to prevent your enemies from walking if you were to stun them with your pump instead of destroying them thus having to cause some other plans.
- A simple soundtrack. The majority of the soundtrack comes from Dig Dug's walking because every time you make him walk, you will hear some simple music. This adds some more life to the game.
- The character's sprites are admittedly cute for some with the Pookas being the cutest of the bunch.
Bad Qualities
- In the LCD tabletop version of the game by Gakken, Dig Dug's air pump is replaced with a flamethrower which goes against the source material. This could be justified because of hardware limitations. The Frygars and the vegetable items are non-existent too.
- The graphics on the Apple II and IBM PC do look nauseating due to the color palette.
- Frygar in some versions does look off. The Frygars on the Atari 2600 version looks more like frogs than dragons. On the Atari 5200 and Intellivision versions, they look more like green aliens. The Atari 800 version makes the Frygars look more like ducks.
- The Commodore VIC-20 version looks a bit oversized. Frygar is a notable offender to this.
- The Xbox Live Arcade version does have achievements being more of a cakewalk and sometimes the controls can be unresponsive.
Reception
Dig Dug was a critical and commercial success upon release. In Japan, it was the second-highest-grossing game of 1982 just below Pole Position. This game was popular during the golden age of arcade video games. American publication Blip Magazine favorably compared it to games such as Pac-Man for its simple controls and fun gameplay. Allgame called it "an arcade and NES classic", praising its characters, gameplay, and unique premise, and for its easy home platform conversion. In 1998, Japanese magazine Gamest called it one of the greatest arcade games of all time for its addictiveness and for breaking the traditional "dot-eater" gameplay used in games such as Pac-Man and Rally-X.
Trivia
- It caused a fad of "digging games" to exist including clones like Zig Zag, Anteater, Pixie Pete, Cave Kooks, and Pumpman. The most successful was Universal Entertainment's arcade game Mr. Do! and it even surpassed its clone status. Some mobile games even copy Dig Dug including Diggerman, Dig Dog, I Dig It, Mine Blitz, Puzzle to the Center of Earth, and Doug Dug.
- Dig Dug was renamed to Taizo Hori which is a pun for horitai zo meaning I want to dig. The character would be the father of Susumu Hori and is married to the Baraduke protagonist Masuyo Tobi who would divorce for unkown reasons.
- Pookas make apperances in several Namco games like Sky Kid, R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, Pac-Man World, and Pro Baseball: Famista DS. The Pookas also appeared in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
- Dig Dug, Pooka, and Fygar briefly appears in the film Wreck-It Ralph.