The Dig

Moby ID: 354
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

A group of scientists discovers an asteroid that is on its way to a collision with the Earth. Is there any way to prevent the disaster? Boston Low, a NASA veteran, is sent to command a space expedition on the asteroid. Accompanied by the journalist Maggie Robbins and the archaeologist Brink, Boston investigates the asteroid and finds a strange structure that undoubtedly belongs to an alien civilization. During the course of investigations, the team finds itself on a seemingly deserted planet. They have no knowledge of the planet and no possibility of going back. Will they ever discover the secret of this strange world and find a way to get home?

The Dig is a point-and-click adventure game with a simple one-cursor interface. Most of the puzzles are inventory-based, tending to be somewhat more complex than in most preceding LucasArts' adventure games. There are also a few logic-based puzzles, which require understanding and manipulation of alien technology and life forms on the planet. Traditional branching dialogue system is utilized; however, the game focuses more on puzzle-solving than on conversations to advance the plot.

The game's story is influenced by science fiction literature and movies, and strives to be realistic, departing from the comedy style of LucasArts' adventures. Despite that, humorous elements are present in some of the dialogues and text descriptions. The game utilizes hand-drawn graphics with a few pre-rendered 3D images.

Spellings

  • 异星搜奇 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 디그 - Korean spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

235 People (207 developers, 28 thanks) · View all

Designed by
Directed by
Based on a Concept by
Dialogue by
Additional Story by
Additional Additional Story by
Art Style
Creature Concept
Lead Artist
Background Art
Supervising Animators
Animators
Special Effects Animators
Additional Animation
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 38 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 236 ratings with 21 reviews)

I did not dig The Dig

The Good
Really nice music, and the graphics were beautifully drawn and lit.

The Bad
The gameplay was boring, tedious, sterile and repetitive. Like Myst. Fitting crystals into holes, fiddling around with panels and codes, wandering down or through endless unpopulated corridors and caverns. You get the idea. I'm sorry but I'm not obsessional or patient enough for a game like this (though judging by the other reviews, there are plenty of others who are).

The Bottom Line
Lucas arts are famous not only for their comedy, but also for their dialogue and their characterisation. This has very little of either, but may appeal to those who like puzzles.

DOS · by jossiejojo (37) · 2004

Not sure if I can dig it

The Good
Dig is a real oddball among the fine creations of LucasArts. They made it when the golden age of comedy adventure was already gone, and the meditative, minimalistic techniques of Myst began to mesmerize people. This game is, in a way, a tribute to Myst done by developers whose previous work was associated with quite a different type of adventure design.

First things first: Dig has killer production values. I think it was supposed to be a movie at some point, and that really shows. Dramatic animated cutscenes, gorgeously drawn backgrounds, and a rich musical score complemented by perfectly placed sound effects immerse you as if you were in a cinema. You really feel you are lost in a gorgeous, but strange and possibly hostile alien world. A sense of wonder and grandeur permeates the exotic scenario.

The plot may not be the epitome of sci-fi storytelling, but there is something in the strange tale of a race that mysteriously vanished despite achievements like crystal-powered trams and immortality. Seriously, the game's story does deal with that latter issue - not the Abrahamic afterlife or the Indian reincarnation, but in the plainest sense of endless physical life reminiscent of primitive alchemy or Chinese Daoist searches for elixirs. You can play the game for yourself and discover the rather philosophical and certainly thought-provoking conclusion.

While Full Throttle could not combine cinematic treatment with challenging gameplay, Dig presents the most "hardcore" puzzle system LucasArts ever designed. If tough puzzles is your primary requirement for an adventure game, this one will be an excellent choice. The (in)famous turtle-reassembling puzzle is not alone in the constellation of hair-pulling tasks you'll have to face in this game. Prism-adjusting or critter-catching are just examples; the overall difficulty stems from the open nature of the game and the abundance of abstractly designed, in a certain way really "alien" mechanisms, where success depends on patience and persistence as much as it does on logical thinking and experimentation.

While Full Throttle was too short and too small (in terms of playable, explorable locations), Dig puts you into a large "hub" world that steadily grows as you solve puzzles and advance step-by-step. In fact, the game world itself is designed like a gigantic puzzle, since connecting the light bridges and gaining access to the planet's "inner sanctum" is one of the game's overarching tasks. The architecture of the game is pretty impressive, and at the very least you can feel that it was designed with a lot of thought and care.

The Bad
Ultimately, however, what matters most is whether the game is fun to play or not. Unfortunately - while I'm sure many will disagree - the experience of actually playing Dig is at best strenuous, and at worst tedious and awkwardly sterile.

The truth is that LucasArts were really out of their element in this one. They strove to beat Cyan at their own game, and they even got most of the tools right - but they weren't truly inspired to do that. Dig doesn't feel like a typical LucasArts product because it seems contrary to what its developers stood for. I may be grossly mistaken, but while I was playing the game I felt its creators didn't really want to make it - even though they obviously did a very solid, professional job.

There is no spark in the puzzles. In vain would we try to find here the wit and the elegance that has distinguished LucasArts' works. The few atypical (i.e. logical, observation-oriented) tasks such as for example the lens-retrieval early in the game were actually better than the more mundane inventory-based exercises LucasArts are usually so good at. Worse, those puzzles are often needlessly repetitive. It's okay to use a rod to open the door, but why is it necessary to have five rods to open five doors (and go through the same color- and shape- changing procedure), and a couple of rods which have nothing to do with the doors but are there just to cause more confusion?

One serious problem of Dig is its pacing. At first you feel awe-stricken at the sight of an exotic semi-abandoned alien world. You explore, solve tough puzzles, and rejoice when a new area opens up to you. But the more you play, the more you become entangled in the same type of activities - only the size of the game world grows, while the actual gameplay remains strikingly similar. There is no gradual building up to a climax, no diversion, no change of pace. Full Throttle had tiny linear areas we couldn't get attached to. Dig has a large hub that gets more and more boring as we explore it. Both games failed to capture the spirit of exploration the way other LucasArts' games did.

The difficulty of the puzzles in conjunction with an ever-growing world essentially means that the game largely consists of backtracking. After a while the monotony takes over completely. Throughout nearly the entire game, you'll be running back and forth through a lifeless world, fetching items and tinkering with rather unexciting alien mechanisms. Myst did it before, and frankly, it did it better, since its puzzles were more interesting. It even had a larger scenery variety, and that's saying a lot.

The emptiness of the world and the almost complete lack of characters to interact with would have worked for the introductory part. But you can't tell a compelling sci-fi tale with dead machinery and tiresome crystal-fixing. There must be some encounters, friendly or hostile, some dynamism and drama. Near the end of the game you finally get what you've been craving for - but it's too little and too late.

The Bottom Line
Dig is certainly LucasArts' most controversial, and generally least beloved adventure game. I've played through it two times, and my opinion fluctuated widely between the camps of the "haters" and the "redeemers", until I found myself assuming a middle position of sorts. There is surely a lot of quality stuff to be found in the game, and it is by no means the failure some people make it out to be. But in the end, your tender comedy-inclined hearts probably won't be able to favor majestic alien monotony and insane turtle puzzles over having a hippie design the American flag or telling your pirate opponent that he fights like a cow. They tried to catch the elusive soul of Myst, but lost the bright spirit of LucasArts in the process.

DOS · by Unicorn Lynx (181780) · 2014

It's OK...

The Good
I played a demo for this way back when I first got my sound card and it blew me away (the demo ended just when things were getting interesting). A few months later, I picked up a LucasArts value pack that had this game and a few others in it. I did my typical thing -- I played 'em for awhile, then put 'em back in the box and moved on.

Then a couple days ago, I played Full Throttle through to the end. It was awesome, so I figured I'd give 'The Dig' a whirl.

To appreciate the game, you have to put your brain into retro-mode -- the graphics are VGA (or maybe SVGA), so you're gonna see pixels the size of golf balls. It's an old game, made when Voodoo was still a religion.

Once your brain learns to adapt to the the pixel signals that your eyeballs are sending it (hey, it happens...) you'll see that the graphics are actually pretty cool, and the cut-scenes ain't bad either.

The characters in the story are sort of two-dimensional, but I really liked the main character -- he's a regular joe like me. He's no genius, and some of the things he says in the game are just laugh-out-loud funny (click on the dead guard beasts in the tomb and you'll see what I mean ^_^).

As far as gameplay goes, the interface is pretty basic and doesn't get in the way of the game. And then there's the music -- a great cinematic score that really set the mood for a great game.

BUT.....

The Bad
....Even though things started out pretty interesting, it got to a point where I had to revisit some of the areas over and over again. And again. And again. And again. To be honest, I ended up printing out a walkthrough of the game just so I could find out where to go next instead of searching the whole place. Again.

Most of the puzzles weren't too hard to figure out, but there were a few that turned the game into a full-scale clickfest when trying to figure out what object to use with what area. Then there were a few that were too hard for my tiny little mind to process. But then again, I had my handy little walkthrough.... heh heh.

The worst thing about 'The Dig', though, was the lack of suspense. There was no sense of urgency, and nothing that really drove me to keep playing other than hoping that something would happen. Nothing did.... not really.

There really was no plot, no big surprises, no interesting twists. The only goal was to get pixel-boy and his buddies back home.

I found a couple of possible bugs -- sometimes (well, a lot of times) I had to double-click on things since the game didn't register the first click for some reason. And I had to save, quit, and restart the game a few times when the game slowed wa-a-ay down. Maybe it was just my machine.

The Bottom Line
Bottom line, huh? Bo-o-oring. Pass it up unless you don't have anything better to do... and get a walkthrough.

DOS · by James Hicks (8) · 2000

[ View all 21 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Messy credits chirinea (47504) Jun 16, 2007
How did you like the voice acting in this game? LepricahnsGold (142748) Jun 8, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Dig appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Alien and planet name

The planet and aliens are not given a name, however the credits refer to the "Cocytan leader".

In the novelization, Brink decides to name the planet "Cocytus" from Dante's Divine Comedy, Cocytus being the exterior circle of the Underworld and the only way out. The aliens thus are referred to as "Cocytans". However, these concepts are not taken into consideration in the game.

Development

The Dig is based on the original concept of Steven Spielberg who originally created the storyline to be an episode in his Amazing Stories tv series. It would have been too expensive to shoot, so Spielberg approached LucasArts in 1989 with an idea of making it a game. The game itself went through several re-writes at LucasArts, so only the main storyline and a couple of puzzles were carried out from Spielberg's original ideas.

The Dig went through three phases of development while in production, each with different project leaders.

The first phase was led by Noah Falstein. In this version, the game was set upon a jungle planet, very unlike the final version. One major part of this version apparently was that you had to collect and consume food and water to keep your character alive.

The second phase was led by Brian Moriarty. Moriarty tossed out all of the old art from the first version, as well as the "collecting resources" RPG-style elements.

In this version, there were four characters: Boston Low, Ludger Brink, Judith Robbins, and Toshi Olema, a Japanese physicist. As in the final game, this crew was transported to an alien planet via a ship disguised as an asteroid.

This version was controlled via a standard LucasArts-style interface at the bottom of the screen containing visual icons for the functions Examine, Pick up, Use, Move, and Talk, as well as inventory items. Strangely, the game was not programmed in LucasArts' standard SCUMM engine, but instead something called StoryDroid Development System.

After a long series of internal conflicts, Brian Moriarty left the company and Sean Clark took over the project. Clark was the one who actually got the game finished. He changed Judith's name to Maggie and removed Toshi Olema from the plot.

In early betas of Sean Clark's version, the characters looked the same as they did in Brian Moriarty's version (with Low and Robbins both having blond hair). These sprites were later changed and made more visually striking.

In addition, though early betas of this new version used an interface at the bottom of the screen with the same icons for interaction as in Moriarty's game, this was later rejected for the final "one-click-does-it-all" interface which the public saw.

Also, the voices in the final game were not the same as those heard in early betas of Clark's The Dig. Those unused voices lasted long enough to be present in the official demo of The Dig.

Extras

Some copies of The Dig came with a free copy of the Trade Paperback version of Alan Dean Foster's game novelization (a $12.95 value according to the box sticker).

Novel

Although there's no movie based on it, there is a book based on the game, also called The Dig, written by science fiction writer Alan Dean Foster.

References

  • Main character Boston Low is voiced by Robert Patrick, who incarnated the evil liquid terminator in the movie Terminator 2. At one point in the game, Boston shows Maggie a photo of lost comrade Brink, and asks her "Have you seen this boy?", paraphrasing the evil terminator's trademark question in that popular movie. Also, when the player looks at his PenUltimate he's gonna say that it's the "T-1000 Model".
  • According to the game's demo, the ship that carries out the Attila mission in the first part of the game is Space Shuttle Atlantis. However this reference was cut from the final game.

Shapes

Take a look at the PenUltimate communicator and you will notice that there is a geometric shape on it. It is what the plates inside Atilla look like when they are put together.

Soundtrack

Even though Michael Land's score for the game was released on CD (albeit in a very low amount), it suffered from the worst 'disease' of all official soundtracks, painfully well known to collectors of film scores - it was cut, and not all the music appearing in the game was included. However, the tracks can be extracted with external utilities. Details can be found in the tips & tricks section.

Title

After finishing the game, you might start to wonder if the game's title is in any way connected to the over-usage of the shovel item in the game (main character digs holes every now and then, and rather often), because there is definitely no dig site to explore (not assuming half-blasted asteroid).

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #3 Top Vaporware Title in Computer Game History

Information also contributed by ATMachine, Boston Low, ClydeFrog, Daniel Albu, Dirk Struan, G J, Jaromir Krol, MAT, Swordmaster and Trixter

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Related Sites +

  • GJ's Dig Site
    Character profiles, images including ads, screenshots, backgrounds, etc, humour.
  • Hints for The Dig
    These won't spoil the game, but will give you just what you need to solve the game. Final solutions are included.
  • ScummVM
    Get "The Dig", as well as many other adventure games, to run on modern systems by using ScummVM, a legal and free program.
  • The Dig - FAQs & Guides
    Several walkthroughs and other files on GameFaqs.com
  • The Dig Museum
    Includes interviews with creators, creation information, and "Ask Yoda" section.
  • The Dig Soundtrack
    Music from the game
  • The Dig Walkthrough
    Start to finish solution for The Dig

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 354
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

Linux added by click here to win an iPhone9SSSS. Windows added by MAT. Macintosh added by Jason Savage.

Additional contributors: Mickey Gabel, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Apogee IV, G J, CubbyKatz, CaesarZX, Picard, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added November 1, 1999. Last modified February 16, 2024.