Dig Dug (MB Hall of Fame Inductee)

Hall of Fame Inductee
Dig Dug
Original Release: 1982 (Arcade)
Developed by: Namco
Published by: Atari

Namco was very smart about the properties it pushed in the arcades during the early 80s. They always had cute names and featured child-friendly creatures. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, and Bosconian all had these as their main characteristics. Well, not so much the last one, but Dig Dug not only had some incredible gameplay, it was also very easy for Namco to market. it was extremely successful in the arcades and it also helped Namco to proclaim that it wasn’t just a one trick pony; it had a stable of all-star franchises.

The idea of the game is really simple; destroy all the monsters. Once all the monsters in the level are defeated, another level starts with more monsters. The goal of the game is get the highest score. The player moves around Dig Dug, a guy who looks like an astronaut with a can of aerosol bug spray. Dig Dug is tasked with defeating all the monsters under the earth. He must rid the world of Pookas (the red baddies) and the Fygars (the green dragon-looking evil-doers).

Although the playing area is surround by dirt, both Dig Dug and the enemies can move freely about. However, as Dig Dug explores the underground, he displaces the dirt. If there are nearby rocks and the earth around them is displaced, they will fall which could be good for Dig Dug because it’ll crush the enemies or it will spell doom for Dig Dug because gravity is a law that can be ignored by no one. Another way for Dig Dug to defeat the enemies is to use his air gun to inflate them. Four blasts of air into the stomach of the bad guy will cause them to explode in one of the most comically hilarious deaths in the arcades during the era of its release.

The game had simple controls. A four-way joystick moved Dig Dug left, right, up, and down. Also, hitting the button on the console fired Dig Dug’s weapon.

Its display was interesting in that there was plenty of graphics on screen. From the multicoloured dirt to multiple enemies at once; it was a very pretty game for its time. As the game progresses, the colours would change. Another interesting thing about the game’s presentation was the music. The soundtrack of the game only played while Dig Dug was in motion. The music stopped when he stopped. The only thing that could be heard was the sound effects of the other things happening on screen such as an enemy’s actions or Dig Dug firing his weapon.

Namco still didn’t have a strong presence in the United States and Atari was the company that brought the game stateside. It wasn’t the initial smash hit like Pac-Man was, however it was far from a failure. Luckily for both companies, the game developed a steady following. It became one of the most popular games in the arcades during the early 80s.

Namco took great pride in Dig Dug and used the game to analyze the habits of the people playing the it. According to arcade-gamer.com, Namco noticed there were two types of ways that people played the game: those who like to blow up the enemies and those who preferred crushing the enemies with rocks. You could say that this is one of the first instances where a video game company used a focus group to plan out the future development of their games.

However, the well sort of ran dry for the Dig Dug franchise. Dig Dug II was released three years later in 1985 to a lukewarm response. The game was presented from a different visual perspective which turned off players. It took ten years before Namco would revisit the franchise. Dig Dug Arrangement was released as part of the Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2 arcade unit. Dig Dug Arrangement saw future releases on various home consoles on compilation titles. A 3D remake of the game was released in 2001 for the PC called Dig Dug Deeper. 2006 saw the release of Dig Dug: Digging Strike for the Nintendo DS. Most recently, in 2009 the iPhone received its own Dig Dug game called Dig Dug Remix which had both the original game plus a reworked version exclusive to the platform.

The original game has been able to live on due to the popularity of Namco compilation discs. The original Dig Dug has been ported to pretty much every home console and handheld through Namco Collections and Namco Museum discs. The Namco Museum, in its various forms, has sold over ten million units worldwide; with Dig Dug being on all the releases since 1999. The game has also been released on its own for various consoles. It saw an Xbox 360 release in 2006 for the Xbox Live service and a Virtual Console release for the Nintendo Wii in 2008. It is also available for mobile phones and computers as well.

There have also been whispers about a Dig Dug movie over the years. There had been a fan movie that had hit the Internet in 2009 that received some buzz but there was actually a movement in Hollywood to make a full-feature film. However, the idea has never left the boardroom. This isn’t to say that the movie is dead. In fact, there is a fair chance that a Dig Dug movie could be made considering that several Hollywood studios have wanted to make movies about various classic arcade games for years. Dig Dug is one of those games that has always been mentioned in these talks. It seems though like most people in Hollywood don’t remember the failures of the Super Mario Bros. Movie, Doom, Silent Hill, and many more.

Dig Dug is one of those games that Namco will continue to ram down our throats and we won’t mind at all. It’s a fun game and for those who remember it in the arcade, it brings back some great memories losing a pocket full of quarters on a lazy afternoon. Because of this, future generations will continue to play this game because it’s easy to get a hold of and its simple gameplay makes it easy to get hooked on. Perhaps Namco has big plans for one of their strongest family-friendly franchises in the near future. However, most would be content with easy access to the arcade classic.