Digger is an addictive, timeless little game released during the late 80's, early 1990s by Windmill. I have fond memories of this game as it was the first game-in-colour that I had and I loved the cool little theme song 'Popcorn' by Hot Butter; the song alone adds to the excitement and thrill of the chase! I played it often as a kid, so did my parents off and on for a bit of fun...Dad still maintaining to this day that he ruled the scoreboard.
It is not suggested how many levels there are, however I was only ever able to make it to Level 7. The format is similar as you progress, although it becomes very tricky: with more enemies encroaching, more treasure to collect and more ground to cover before being able to advance any further. You can collect maximum points on any level however and still be entered into the High score list, on any level.
The object of the game is to guide 'Digger' around the screen as he chomps through earth in an attempt to collect gold, emeralds and the elusive 'Bonus Cherry'. The bonus cherry only appears once Digger has collected enough points or killed enough Nobbins or Hobbins. It appears as reward and will disappear, if not
collected quickly, from the entrance tunnel through which the enemy arrives onto the screen. Once collected, the William Tell Overture song kicks in and the screen flashes indicating that you have about 12 seconds to race around and 'Eat' the enemy or collect as much treasure as possible without being eaten. In essence, you become invincible for a short amount of time. Good time to tie up loose ends and get the hell out of there! You cannot progress to another level unless all emeralds have been taken or the enemy has been annihilated completely.
The Hobbins are the trickiest to kill because they create their own tunnels, thus they have the ability to attack Digger directly, through their own means. The Nobbins, on the other hand, can only use the tunnels created by Digger, and so their movement is limited. Hobbins are created when a few Nobbins interact or pass each other on the screen so it is important to kill as many Nobbins as you can early on, to avoid the dreaded Hobbin.
Bags of gold litter the tunnels and these must be pushed onto the heads of the enemy in order to kill them. Once dropped, the gold can be collected in coin-form. The game becomes very strategic in this sense as you can usually set up your enemy for the fall by running under bags of gold to trigger their fall and then, as the enemy follows through, the bags drop onto them. Or you can lead the enemy to their demise by letting them collect in a certain area before dropping bags of gold on their heads at once. Quite often, a level is considered complete if you don't collect any treasure at all but instead rely on just killing the enemy. You don't rake in many points though however and this technique should only be used if you're more at risk of being killed. Try to collect as much treasure as possible: bags of gold can just be pushed and collected to earn points, but once pushed, you must reach them in a short amount of time or they will disappear!
One of the lesser known methods of killing the enemy is done by pressing the F1 key. I never came across any instructions on how to play this game as a kid and only stumbled on the shooting method by mistake one day by pressing numerous buttons at once out of sheer frustration. After deducing that it was the F1 key that would momentarily 'shoot Digger's eyes off' and kill the enemy, I was elated. The only downfall is you have to wait until his eyes reappear to employ the shooting method thereafter.
All in all a classic, simple, yet incredibly fun game, which I would recommend to anyone.
