A genre of Puzzle Game with some sort of terrain to dig through and Selective Gravity, wherein objects fall down (squashing characters in their path) but characters generally don't. They can be seen as Puzzle-Platformer with a flying protagonist, or a Maze Game with a more obstructed environment; the emphasis on solving puzzles as opposed to dexterity varies from one game to another. Also known as a rocks-and-diamonds game. Expect Fast Tunneling.
The Trope Codifier is Boulder Dash (of which a huge number of freeware ports exist), and many games in the genre name themselves after a kind of gemstone, a kind of cave, or both.
Please note, trope names are not literal, so not every game that involves digging or mining (or contains a shovel) is automatically a Digging Game.
Examples:
- Boulder Dash
- Diamond Mine
- Diamond Digger
- Dig Dug
- Emerald Mine
- Fruity Frank
- Glean
- Lode Runner
- Legend Of Myra
- Motherload
- Mr. Do!
- Mr. Driller (unusual in that the player is subject to gravity)
- The Pit
- Repton
- Rocks N Diamonds (Open source game that contains a level editor)
- Sapphire Yours
- Serenitrove
- SteamWorld Dig
- SubTerra
- Sub Terra Draconis
- Supa Plex
- Super Granny
