Dig Dug
Dig Dug is a “strategic mining game” released by Namco in 1982. This arcade game featured the very cute premise that you can kill animals by inserting a bicycle pump under their skin, then inflating them until they pop like a balloon!
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- Create a tile-based level. The world is made of dirt tiles (with different colors for different layers).
- Create the protagonist. You can walk and dig up, down, left, or right. Digging into a tile will destroy it, turning it into an air tile.
- Create enemies. They will spawn in open spaces (3-5 connected tiles) and will walk back and forth in their spaces.
- Every now and then, an enemy will “burrow” towards the player, turning into a pair of eyes as they move through the dirt. Enemies will stop burrowing when they reach an air tile.
- Create rocks. When the tile below a rock is dug out, the rock will shake for a second, then will fall. It will kill anyone that it collides with (including the player).
- Give the player an “air pump” weapon. They will shoot a hose in the direction that they are facing. If it connects with an enemy, the enemy will swell up and explode.
- Add a score counter, a life counter, and a level counter. Enemies will get faster with each level.
- Create a starting animation for the game. Dig Dug will start on the surface and burrow down into the center of the level before the game starts.