Don's Dugout: History

Dig Dug had been one of my favorite games since the moment I first laid eyes on it. It's hard to explain why, but I kind of enjoy the idea of pumping things up until they explode, instead of blasting them with some sort of projectiles like in 95% of all other action games. I also like being able to re-arrange the surroundings and have the other active characters respond accordingly.

After finishing Warp, I felt like writing something a little less technically complicated. I would go back to the basics of Iceblox but put in a real background and some other things I hadn't known how to handle back then -- like sound effects.

OK, so the original Dig Dug most certainly did not have pigs in it. It did have dragons, but the other critters were some kind of unidentifiable things that resembled big-headed bugs in spacesuits. Pigs look a lot more comical when they are pumped, and that settled the matter for me. (Click on the image for some actual screen shots.) I also figured that if the capabilities had existed at the time, the original game would have better-looking tunnels and maybe some realistic sky with plants, so I put that in too. No point in holding back.

The main character in Don's Dugout is a mole instead of a person because, well, it's more natural for moles to dig. But I had to antropomorphize him by letting him wear pants. Otherwise the players might have identified with the pigs instead. :-)

I added the deadly obstacles more as a decoration than to improve the gameplay.