SteamWorld Dig

Every now and then you end up playing a game you would normally never have considered, only to discover it’s one of the best games you’ve played in quite a while. Some of the games I’ve reviewed and rated so highly were games I ended up getting because they were in a bundle, or part of a contest, or just too cheap to pass up. However, this is unique case because it was a game that was gifted to me, and I mean really, who doesn’t like free games?

Steamworld Dig is a fun little game that combines platformer, RPG, and adventure elements into a surprising concoction that feels like the classic arcade game DigDug crossbred with Metroid to produce something that’s somewhere in the middle there in terms of complexity. In this game you take on the role of Rusty, a little robot that goes out to a nearly abandoned mining town (population 3) after his uncle leaves the town’s sole claim to Rusty upon his death. Of course there’s the whole narrative where Rusty never really knew why his uncle would leave the mining claim to him, and isn’t sure what to do. However, once you find the uncle’s pickaxe, it’s off to work.

It's a little cliché, but this isn't really a game you'll play for the story anyways.

The basics of the game are pretty simple. Your goal is to continue digging downwards. As you go, you’ll come across ores or jewels you can sell in town for money, caves that you can explore to find upgrades or nice treasure, and enemies that you’ll want to avoid/kill. The deeper you go, the harder it becomes to progress. It may take more swings of your pickaxe or more turns of your drill to make it through rock and dirt. You’ll come across enemies with a range attack that you cannot counter. You’ll find that you don’t have enough lantern oil to keep digging, or your pouch will fill up with ore and gems too quickly to accomplish much. You’ll also have to make sure you don’t dig yourself into a corner, because you’ll soon find you can’t dig diagonally upwards in order to make some stair steps out.

Thankfully, you’ve got a couple of means of countering this.

The first is minor upgrades. As I said, when you head back to the surface you can sell ore and gems for cash, which clears out your pouch. You can then take that cash and use it at one of (what eventually will be) three stores. It’s here that you’ll gain access to things like additional light (which increase the amount of time you can dig before you must return to the surface), more health, water tank capacity (water fuels certain items and abilities), more powerful digging tools, and supplies like ladders, dynamite, a full heal, or teleporters.

There are a good number of upgrades, but there is more than enough ore and gems to buy it all.

The second is the major upgrades. These are new tools or abilities that, while they can be further upgraded at the stores, change the way you play the game. A drill that will let you cut through rock (this is impossible with your pickaxe, even fully upgraded), steam powered boots that will rocket you up into the air, the ability to double jump, avoiding fall damage, and a ranged rocket fist that can be charged up to either deal damage or blast through dirt are all the kinds of upgrades that let you move about and access areas you never could reach before. You’ll find these upgrades in some of the major caves, which will generally test your platforming skills, and they’ll mark some serious progression in the game.

Mechanics wise, Steamworld Dig is a pretty fun game, though not without its flaws. One of the more annoying features is the inability to dig upwards at an angle without disturbing the block immediately below it, meaning that there is no way you can create a stair case to get yourself out of a trick situation, or get that gem deposit that is just out of reach. You’ll either need ladders, of which you can only carry 5, dynamite, which is also limited to 5, or your rocket fist ability, which you don’t gain until about 2/3rds of the way through the game. You can wall jump your way out of some situations, but if you find your upwards path blocked by a single unit wide piece of dirt, you won’t be going anywhere. Wall jumping itself is tricky, and more than a bit annoying, and even after 7 hours of play, something I could never really get the hang of, especially when trapped in the center of a C shaped area and trying to jump upwards on the same wall (you know, go to the edge, jump out in to space a little bit, but not so far you can’t reconnect with the wall just above where you started). It really wasn’t until I unlocked the double jump ability, which comes towards the end of the game, that movement became so much easier.

This game gets bonus points for the reference.

Other than that little gripe, I’d say this is a pretty fun game. It doesn’t give you much in the way of guidance, but it’s simple enough you should figure most stuff out. It just might take a few occasions of accidently digging under a rock, only to have it crush you, and thereby cause you to lose half of your current cash and drop all the ore and gems in your inventory, though at least the those items can be recovered. Similarly, it might take a while to realize the big nasty guy who throws dynamite at you can be killed if you make them fall just one block, so dig underneath them. It took me about 7 hours to beat the game, but if you want to beat the challenge for speed you’ll need to do it closer to two, and, if you are familiar with the mechanics, that shouldn’t be an issue. It is a rather short game, though enjoyable because of its simplicity. If I had picked it up for myself I’d expect to pay $2.50 or thereabouts. It makes a nice little game to break up some of the more serious titles out there, and if you want to give something else a shot, I would recommend this, because it's a simple, though enjoyable, 8 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 8/10

Suggest Price: $2.50

*****

For more SteamWorld Dig, check out this collection of screenshots otherwise unused in this review. Click on any one for a large image.