dig_dug.jpgEli Sanders! Dig Dug is only the greatest video game of the 1980s! Forget Ms. Pacman, Space Invaders, Centipede, and that WTF game with men in spacesuits riding on ostriches. “Dig Dug? I can’t even figure out what I’m supposed to do in this game,” you asked in this post. “There are people trapped underground. Do I rescue them? When I rescue them, they kill me. Do I dig myself out from underground?”

It’s really quite simple, Eli: You dig down into the holes where various monsters are trapped, shove your long hose in ’em, and pump ’em until they freakin’ EXPLODE.
I credit the thousands of hours I spent playing that game at the video arcade on Rush Street in Chicago—in the heart of the city’s famed “Viagra Triangle”—with my success as an advice columnist. A Dig Dug lab should be a requirement for all budding sex researchers, therapists, and columnists.

27 replies on “Dig Dug For Beginners”

  4. Sounds like a subliminal training for the oil companies, The Last Starfighter style! I’m surprised after playing that game so long and getting good at it you weren’t rewarded by a knock on your door from Big Oil telling you you’re perfect for finding and drilling, offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with a seven figure a year job.

    …Man, I’m fasting today and it’s messing with my imagination. >.>

  11. “shove your long hose in ’em, and pump ’em until they freakin’ EXPLODE.” I think I’m going to have to revisit Dig Dug with a new perspective.

  14. Dig Dug:Eli Sanders::the Taco Bravo truck:Jonah Spangenthal-Lee.

    Thanks for the response, Dan!–although I’m with #3: Joust is fairly near to Dig Dug in 80s arcade goodness.

  16. Joust is my favorite from that era. I did love Dig Dug though. Not enough to turn me gay like it did Mr. Savage, but it was a fun game.

    Robotron 2084 required the ability to manipulate two joysticks at once. A skill I never mastered, which is probably why I’m straight.

  17. Dig Dug best?!
    Great yes! Best? No.
    Elevator Action, Spy Hunter, Joust, Galaga
    Any of those could potentially be best

    I’d had Q*Bert, Moon Patrol, Donkey Kong Jr., Tempest, Battlezone, Centipede, Championship Sprint, among others, to the list.

    Difficult to choose!

  18. I must admit I preferred my off-brand computer game that I believe was an attempt to capitilize on Dig Dug’s popularity. It was called BoulderDash and it involved spelunking through caves filled with, yes, boulders. And I loved it and lost hours upon hours to it on my computer as a wee girl.

  19. there used to be this arcade game called “Naughty Boy”, where you ran around and threw rocks at stuff, it was very surreal, does anyone remember it?

  23. @22-Warrior needs food, Badly!

    Gauntlet: Dark Legacy for PS2 was a great sequel. It didn’t tamper with the core concepts of the game (hack, hack, hack, and also slash) but just made it all bigger and flashier.

  24. @17 Huzzah for Battlezone!

    I was also addicted to another called Crazy Climber which I used to play at a local pizzeria. I never saw it anywhere else.

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