Dig Dug is a Digging Game by Namco, first released as an Arcade Game in 1982. The objective of the game is for your player (initially just named "Dig Dug", but later changed to Taizo Hori) to dig underground and eliminate all of the monsters on each stage using a special pressure pump to inflate them to bursting. You can also dig out the dirt beneath buried rocks to drop them on enemies. There are two types of foes: Pookas, somewhat harmless round things that bounce around and go about their business, and Fygars, dangerous dragons that can breathe fire. The further down you are when you kill an enemy, the more points you'll receive—and you score double for killing a Fygar horizonally. Throughout each level, you'll sometimes come across vegetables that will boost your score. The enemies can turn into ghosts and slowly work their way through the dirt to close in on you and/or run off the screen.
A few sequels have been released (Dig Dug II, the PC-only Dig Dug Deeper, Dig Dug: Digging Strike, and Dig Dug Online) as well as a spinoff series in Mr. Driller, set in the United Galaxy Space Force series. Taizo himself appears in two ShiftyLook properties, Namco High and Mappy, oddly still being referred to as Dig Dug.
Taizo Hori himself appears in the turn-based strategy RPG Namco × Capcom, his backstory portraying him as a retired soldier who now works as a Digger. His ex-wife, Toby "Kissy" Masuyo from Baraduke (who is teamed up with Burning Force's Hiromi Tengenji), is also playable in the same game, still apparently holding a grudge against Taizo. The characters are respectively voiced by Toshio Furukawa (Taizo), Yūko Mizutani (Toby), and Chisa Yokoyama (Hiromi).
Has nothing to do with Diglett or Dugtrio.
Individual Games
- Dig Dug
- Dig Dug II: Trouble in Paradise
- Dig Dug Arrangement (1996)
- Dig Dug Deeper
- Dig Dug Arrangement (2005)
- Dig Dug: Digging Strike
- Dig Dug Island
- Dig Dug: New Frontier
Tropes used in Dig Dug:
- Armless Biped: Most artwork depicts the Fygars having visible arms which are just hidden in-game by the simple graphics, but they have occasionally been officially depicted as not having arms, such as in the Namco Museum Battle Collection edition of Arrangement.
- Bittersweet Ending:
- When Dig Dug drops a rock on all enemies... and himself. The player loses a life as expected, but then the "round completed" sound plays unless it was on the last life.
- When Dig Dug kills all remaining enemies with the second rock. The round completes, but the vegetable comes up at the end with no way to collect it!
- Breath Weapon: Fygars have a fire breath, which is signaled by them flashing their red wings. In some home computer ports, the breath fires instantly with no cooldown or charge time.
- Cute Is Evil: The Pookas and Fygars are rather adorable, but still they are enemies.
- Dig Attack: While a monster is moving around on the surface your character can tunnel up below him and attack through the surface of the ground, pumping the monster full of air and destroying it.
- Easier Than Easy: "Teddy bear" difficulty.
- Elite Mook: Sequels added stronger variations of the Pooka and Fygar species, determined by their color. Elite Pookas were either faster or required more pumps to burst, and Elite Fygars could shoot their flames upwards, with even stronger Fygars in Deeper that had longer and steerable fire.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: "Bloop!"
- Fast Tunnelling: The main character does this at walking speed, the tunnel's dirt goes nowhere.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Happens if you turn downward after digging out a rock - it falls and kills you along with any enemies it hits. Exaggerated in the original Arrangement, where a text pops up saying "PoorPlay!"
- Improbable Weapon User: Taizo uses a pressure pump to inflate his enemies until they explode. He can also excavate the dirt underneath a rock so that it falls and crushes an enemy.
- Inflating Body Gag: Every enemy is defeated by inflating them until they burst. In Arrangement, it extends to where the players can do this to each other.
- Intangibility: Pookas and Fygars normally walk around in their pocket. Eventually, they'll switch to ghostly eyes or faces to travel through the soil and rematerialize when they reach a tunnel.
- Invincible Minor Minion: The Ghost Fygars in Digging Strike. They cannot be popped (instead remaining at their biggest size), and dropping rocks on them only stuns them.
- King Mook: The Game Boy version of the first game and the first Arrangement has giant Pooka and giant Fygar as its bosses with the former version giving them more menecing designs. This trend continues in the second Arrangement only with other gigantic versions of newly introduced enemies as bosses included.
- Lag Cancel: There's a small amount of lag when pumping up monsters. It may be cancelled by moving slightly and firing the pump again.
- Mascot Mook:
- There's a lot of Pooka merchandise. They even appear as enemies in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS' Smash Run.
- Fygars can fit the bill as well, due to them being the only enemy other than Pookas to appear in every game of the series.
- Musical Gameplay: In the original arcade game and Digging Strike, the music stops whenever you let go of the joystick/directional pad.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The Fygars. The original Arrangement adds one more type of dragon that hurls fireballs, capable of digging through dirt.
- "Pop!" Goes the Human: Or in this case, the Pooka or the Fygar. The protagonist typically dispatches his adversaries by inflating them with air until they burst like a balloon. Played straight in the original Arrangement where an Evil Knockoff of Taizo exists, armed with its own pump to inflate and explode Taizo with, and in two-player co-op, the two Taizos can do this to each other, for 5,000 points for each betrayal.
- Punny Name: Taizo's name is a pun on the Japanese phrase "ほりたい ぞ!"(horitai zo!) ("I want to dig!")
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Sometimes, if there's only one enemy remaining, it will try to run away from the stage. Whether you manage to catch it or not, the level is complete.
- Shared Universe: As mentioned already, this series shares continuity with Baraduke and Mr. Driller.
- Sir Cameos-a-Lot: Pookas tend to appear in other Namco games, especially games in the Pac-Man series.
- Sleepy Enemy: One of the enemies in the Battle Collection version of Arrangement is a snake-like creature that typically starts the round asleep, but wakes up if it hears a loud sound (such as an enemy popping) nearby.
- Spin-Offspring: Mr. Driller, starring Taizo's son Susumu.
- Squashed Flat: Falling boulders will squash whatever is underneath to half-height.
- Super Title 64 Advance: Dig Dug: Digging Strike, for the Nintendo DS.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: This happens at the secret ending of Digging Strike when Taizo finally got the fame he's been seeking for and his son not stealing it this time. Only for his ex to drag him away from it all for bailing on their appointment together.
- Tunnel King: Taizo Hori, who can dig out the entire underground without taking much time.
- Underground Level: Every level in the original is underground, with the player making their own tunnels. Dig Dug II simply uses islands instead.
- Underground Monkey: Games such as Arrangement, Deeper, and Digging Strike added multiple variants of Pooka and Fygar.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Who hasn't tortured the last mook by trapping it in a continuous inflation/deflation cycle at least once?
- Waddling Head: The Pookas, red balloon-like enemies with tiny limbs.
