Okamoto was so impressed with Dig Dug (and Xevious) that he even said he tried to be hired by Namco, but “couldn’t get into their company” and ended up with Konami and then Capcom instead. Do! just happened to be given an extra level of care that allowed it to succeed on its own merits, as well.ĭig Dug on Namco Museum Switch, viewed in its original vertical arcade orientation.ĭig Dug would be cited as a favorite for some prominent developers of the 80s, such as Yoshito Okamoto, who produced Street Fighter II and would later go on to found Flagship, the studio funded by Capcom, Sega, and Nintendo that co-developed a number of prominent Capcom properties like various Resident Evil titles of the day, and developed a few Zelda games including Oracle of Ages and Seasons, as well as Minish Cap. As Fukio Mitsuji, the creator of Bubble Bobble who led the discussion said, it’s not “just” a clone of Dig Dug, as it has its own gameplay elements, but it existed in the first place because Japanese developer Universal saw Dig Dug and its success and said, “hey, we need one of those.” Just like the developers behind Zig Zag, Pixie Pete, Pumpman, and the rest of the digger maze clones of the era Mr. Do! reached arcades in September of 1982 Dig Dug had released in February of the same year. Management directly told us to copy the game. Do was basically a clone of Dig Dug (obviously!). Do!’s designer, Kazutoshi Ueda, explains that there was nothing subtle about the inspiration for the arcade game, saying, “I made that, and then quit Universal. Do! In a 1989 discussion among Japanese game developers, Mr. At the time, as with anything successful, there were a number of clones and games very openly borrowing ideas from it, the most well-remembered of which is Universal’s Mr. And why Namco decided to go in a completely different direction for its first sequel, because what worlds were left to conquer that Dig Dug hadn’t already made its own the first time around?ĭig Dug spawned a genre that continues to this day: diggers. Even with all of the advances made in video games in the decades since Namco’s classic “strategic digging” game launched, it’s easy to see how Dig Dug developed the following it did, both with players and with developers who found inspiration within it. It’s still a joy to play over 40 years after its release, and still compels you to try again in the same way it did when it first became a staple of arcades in 1982. The longer you play and more familiar you become with Dig Dug and its subtle intricacies, the more comfortable you can feel chasing score over survival, and the further up its leaderboards you’ll shoot. You can also play again and again until your movement and decisions become more instinctual than strategy, in a desperate struggle to avoid losing a precious life that will see you digging up the vast majority of a map in order to avoid death and defeat a relatively small number of increasingly aggressive foes. It has a simple premise, and you can get a few enjoyable minutes out of a single credit without understanding any of the deeper gameplay strategies, playing it pretty safe until things speed up to the point that you won’t advance without that knowledge and the skill to deploy it. ĭig Dug is such a perfect representation of the best of the golden age of arcade games. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link. This column is “XP Arcade,” in which I’ll focus on a game from the arcades, or one that is clearly inspired by arcade titles, and so on.
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