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SteamWorld Dig
PC (Steam)
Finally, a Digging Game with a Point.
4.5/5 stars
“SteamWorld Dig” is an Indie game by Image & Form that debuted on Nintendo platforms before being ported to every digital service under the sun. It is also part of the inexplicably-popular ‘digging game’ sub-sub-genre pioneered by “Minecraft” and adapted to 2D by games such as “Terraria,” which “SteamWorld Dig” closely resembles. After being initially excited about “Terraria,” my interest quickly waned due to the genre’s over-reliance on procedural generation and an overall lack of anything resembling a point. With “SteamWorld Dig,” however, I was pleased to see a developer finally mix procedural generation and intentional design in a way that works.
Presentation
“SteamWorld Dig” doesn’t really try to do anything spectacular with its presentation, but is instead content to offer the typical kind of 2D sprite layering found in any free browser-based Flash game, but with solid artistic direction behind it. The game world and its robotic occupants are cartoonishly colorful and eye-catching, the main character’s special moves are nicely animated, and everything in the game is easily identifiable for what it is supposed to be.
The soundtrack is rather nice as well, invoking the combined Wild West and Steampunk themes of the game’s setting quite handily. There is no voiceacting in “SteamWorld Dig,” with the various robotic NPC instead burbling gibberish to accompany their dialog text boxes.
Story
Steambots are the only ‘living’ thing in a world of dust and deserts. Our hero, Dusty, arrives at the small town of Tumbleton, where a handful of other Steambots continue to eke out an existence, despite the recent collapse of the mining economy and disappearance of Dusty’s Uncle Joe (who knew robots could have uncles?). Dusty has come to Tumbleton with Joe’s mining deed in-hand, intent on taking over his family’s business.
With the help of the few remaining residents, Dusty comes upon Uncle Joe’s remains and begins his mining work in earnest. As Dusty digs deeper and deeper through the layers beneath the barren surface of SteamWorld, he comes across a variety of mysterious clues and machines left behind by his uncle, not to mention the ruins of a lost civilization.
The ultimate villain in “SteamWorld Dig” essentially appears out of nowhere, with little in the way of foreshadowing, despite the fact that frequent trips to surface to sell minerals in Tumbleton provide ample opportunities for the towns NPCs to chat with Dusty about his subterranean discoveries. The excuse narrative to push Dusty and the player into the game’s objectives is solid enough, as are the personalities of the townsfolk. There are also a number of clever jokes hidden throughout the game. Really the only flaw with “SteamWorld Dig’s” writing is that there is most of the lore about SteamWorld itself as well as the contents of the deeper mineshafts must be inferred.
Gameplay
“SteamWorld Dig” is a vertical 2D platformer with mining. In essence, it is almost exactly like “Terraria,” but with the crafting elements stripped away in favor of a streamlined system of trading minerals for cash, which can then be traded for upgrades. There are also a number of upgrades that add special abilities to Dusty’s repertoire, but these must be found within the mines themselves. In essence, “SteamWorld Dig” is “Terraria” meets “Metroid” meets “Dig Dug.”
“SteamWorld Dig” features three mineshafts, which are all randomly generated at the beginning of a new game. Each shaft contains randomly distributed ores which can be sold to fund Dusty’s upgrades, which in turn make it easier to dig deeper into the mineshafts. Enemies are also randomly distributed throughout the shafts and do not respawn once killed.
Also distributed throughout the mineshafts are a handful of caves. These caves are not procedurally generated, but feature the same layout each time, as they are designed to hide each sequential ability power-up Dusty needs to eventually reach the very bottom of the world.
I greatly appreciated the “Metroid” inspired ability progression system, as it directly leads the player through a series of well-designed puzzle caves instead of going the typical “Terraria” route of leaving the player to fumble around without a clear objective until they give up and consult the Wiki (which reveals that there IS NO OBJECTIVE). Dusty’s objective is fairly clear from the start – find out what killed his Uncle Joe – and the ability power-up caves (and a few other caves that don’t contain power-ups) serve as breadcrumbs to mark the trail of progress through the game. The fact that the procedurally generated mineshafts themselves are different in each playthrough (they remain the same for the duration of a game, which takes between 2.5 and 10 hours) leads to “SteamWorld Dig” having plenty of replay value and provides the player with a significant amount of open-ended play as they decide the best way to descend to the bottom of each progressively-deeper shaft while still maintaining a route back to the surface. Return trips to the surface are common, since Dusty’s ore bag has a finite capacity and effective navigation becomes much more difficult once Dusty’s lantern runs out of fuel.
Overall
“SteamWorld Dig” sacrifices a large amount of the procedural generation of its ‘digging game’ kin and is a much better experience for it. The tighter focus on exploring a finite amount of space in search of specific objectives allows “SteamWorld Dig” to feel like a complete, cohesive experience instead of a random accumulation of stuff that has been randomly thrown together. Anyone who likes ‘digging games’ should still find “SteamWorld Dig” enjoyable (though probably too easy for their liking), while those who just want a 2D platformer that mixes new ideas with the tried and true will find it a solid and engrossing little game.
Presentation: 4.5/5
Story: 4/5
Gameplay: 4.5/5
Overall (not an average): 4.5/5
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