Dig Dug

Dig Dug Arcade Game

Dig Dug was by far one of our favorite games of the 1980’s, and a quarter would go a long way with minimal skill.  The game was released in 1982 by Namco, and released under Atari’s moniker in the USA.  A sequel, called Dig Dug II, was released in 1985.  The objective of the game was rather simple, albeit a bit strange, whereby the player would control the character, Dig Dug, to eliminate underground enemies by either pumping them up until they explode, or dropping rocks on their heads.  There were two types of enemies in the game:  Pookas were little tomatoes with goggles, and Fygars were little fire breathing dragons.

As far as game strategy was concerned, it was important to remember a number of things:  Partially inflated enemies would eventually deflate, enemies could float from one underground cavity to another, smashing multiple enemies with the same rock resulted in more points, the last enemy will try to escape, and bonus points could be obtained by getting the fruit that would randomly present itself in the center of the screen.

Dig Dug Arcade Game Cabinet

Dig Dug, like many successful arcade games of the time, was released on home consoles like the Atari 2600, Intellivision, Commodore 64, etc.  It was later part of contemporary classic arcade hits compilations for system like the PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox, and even part of the Jakk’s Pacific plug and play TV arcade unit.