Indie Game of the Week 449: A Game About Digging a Hole

There's a specific format of game that rose up in the Flash era that I've tentatively named "loopers": those that have a simple curve of incremental upgrades that facilitate higher scores and more fruitful runs that in turn provide the currency for more upgrades, presenting in microcosm the sort of gradual "from zero to hero" ascension typically only seen in RPGs and even there usually at a much slower pace. Back then it was mostly those games where you'd yeet something at a specific angle and it would go flying for hundreds of yards, but the less common mining variety was one that picked up speed with Motherload and others that resembled the first SteamWorld Dig and continued to evolve from there. A Game About Digging a Hole simplifies the process even further while adapting it to the lesser seen 3D format, where the whole goal is to dig up your backyard in search of treasure. That is pretty much the entire game: you dig, you occasionally find minerals by way of coal or iron ore, you sell that ore to pay for your electric shovel's fuel and on upgrades to its efficacy, and you keep on digging ever downward.

I did think for a moment not to cover A Game About Digging a Hole via this feature because trying to come up with approximately 1,000 words on a game with a conceit this deliberately paper-thin, to its no-frills title on down, would not only be challenging but might not necessarily do the game's modest charms justice. That loop, for the brief duration it lasts, is very effective at what it sets out to do. It also organically creates new wrinkles as you continue to excavate your modest suburban lawn: issues like getting back out of the hole to refuel at your garage or breaking through tougher rocks that the shovel (and later drill) is incapable of scratching. It's not just a spiral of upgrades and bigger holes, though it is also entirely that if we're talking purely about the progression, and you'll regularly find yourself dipping into your funds for lamps and sticks of dynamite as both become essential the further down you go; of course, with the shiny ores found at the lower depths you'll be making plenty of money to pay for them.

What could it be? Coal? A fossil? A slightly darker rock? The possibilities are endless.

An intelligent feature I've not before seen in a game like this, or indeed any game, is to lock all of the achievements behind NG+ runs. The only one you can actually earn on your first playthrough is reaching the end of the game normally. This obviates the sometimes obsessive need to check in on achievement lists and guides before starting a new game just so you're not looking at a handful of achievements still active on your list you had no idea were missable at the tail end of a 30-hour playthrough, at the cost of spoiling some of the mystique and discoverability factor. Not only is the game so short that it's no big deal if you don't earn anything in your first run but there's a few that are retroactively applied like the milestones that might ping the moment you start your second attempt. This isn't really the type of game that can be spoiled (I'll avoid talking about the ending though) but this is a pretty cool idea I could see other short-length games employing just to assuage us OCD types looking to master a set in a single run that we can go into that first playthrough entirely blind and be just dandy.

One critique to counter that feature is that the game really doesn't have much to offer in subsequent playthroughs nor does it have much steam past the point where you can directly drill into the earth rather than rhythmically tap away at the ground with your shovel (it's never made quite clear where the dirt goes, but I suspect your next-door neighbors are in for a shock). There's only a handful of mineral types, getting progressively more valuable the deeper you are, and the keys to a mysterious lockbox found in the garage provide the only non-natural "treasures" beyond the specific hoard you're searching for. The game's mostly over by the time you've maxed out every upgrade, which doesn't take long due to how quickly matters accelerate once you've a few upgrades under your belt and don't have to come back up for air/fuel quite so often, and it's never going to become the sort of game where you'll have to worry about load-bearing scaffolding or poison gas pockets or magma seeping out of a new incision made in the bedrock. That said, there's only so much "depth" you need or want in a game like this before the novelty of its central conceit wears off, so it's perhaps wise in its choice to tap out when it does. I'd liken it to prospecting for chunks in a half-liter "cookies and cream" ice cream tub: rewarding for a while, but eventually you need to put that bad boy back in the freezer before the migraines and stomachaches start to set in.

Oh right, I still have to get out. Well, time to start digging up.

A Game About Digging a Hole is purposefully basic and banal: the goal is to give you something to potter away at during your downtime—much like actually digging a big hole in your yard would be like if you felt you could get away with it without drawing the ire of the water company, the power company, the local council, the NWA (the less cool one), or all of the above—and add a bit of mystery to the proceedings as things get darker and stranger the deeper beneath the earth you descend. I wouldn't quite say it goes full chthonic horror the way some digging sims might but there's certainly some unexpected surprises in store. Really, though, this is... a game about digging a hole, and it delivers exactly what such a premise entails in around two or three hours at most. Without playing it directly it's hard to properly convey the Zen-like appeal of such a singleminded cycle but thankfully it's cheap enough (or free on Game Pass right now) that it wouldn't hurt the wallet too much to check it out for your own perusal. Once again, my keen critical acumen reaches the conclusion of "just play it yourselves, dummies"; it's any wonder why the Pulitzer Prize juries aren't beating my doors down.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

<- Back to 448: To a T

-> Forward to 450: ???