1986 · Famicom · Game story
Dig Dug II (1986): The Day Dig Dug Learned to Redraw the Island
Dig Dug II moves the series from underground tunnels to a floating island, then hands the player a tool that can erase parts of the map. Pumping a monster is immediate and intimate; driving cracks through the ground can drown a crowd, but may leave Dig Dug standing on the wrong shore.
In this story
The ground is the prize
Dig Dug II begins with a wonderfully destructive change of scenery. The first game made its drama out of tunnels below ground. Here, Dig Dug stands on the surface of a small island with the sea waiting at every edge. Pookas and Fygars still want him gone, and the familiar pump is still in his hands, but the ground is no longer a backdrop. It is a piece of the plan that can be cut, divided, defended and finally dropped out of the world. 1 2 8
Nintendo describes the result as a strategic island-collapsing game, which is exactly the useful phrase. A monster is not only something to face. It is something to herd onto the side of a future crack. A safe path is not only a route away from danger. It may be the larger share of land you need to keep. The island becomes a changing board whose edges are redrawn by the player’s decisions, and every new line asks a practical question: who will be left on which side when it closes? 1 3 8
Trivia The islands can be wider than the screen, so the action scrolls horizontally as Dig Dug moves across them. That matters to the feeling of a collapse. A crack can be started in one neighbourhood of the map and become significant somewhere the player cannot see at first glance, making the island feel less like a single arcade panel than a little stretch of coastline with dangerous distant corners. 8
See it in action
Two tools, two tempos
The controller gives Dig Dug two sharply different verbs. The B button fires the pump ahead of him; the A button drives the drill into a peg to make a crack. One tool deals with a face in front of you. The other edits the geography under everyone’s feet. That contrast keeps a round from becoming a simple choice between running and attacking. A player is constantly deciding whether the nearby danger needs an answer now, or whether a few seconds spent reshaping the map will make the next danger much easier to manage. 4 5 9
The pump is the personal solution. It reaches in the direction Dig Dug faces, latches onto an enemy within range and fills it until it bursts. The jackhammer is the architectural solution. Used on a peg, it sends a fault line out from Dig Dug’s facing direction; held down, it can continue the crack through several turns, and releasing the button removes the peg. The player is not just making a weapon choice. They are choosing whether the next few seconds should be about a single body or the shape of the whole island. 9 5
Trivia A fully inflated enemy requires four stages before it pops. Let go too early and the monster gradually shrinks and resumes moving; while it is inflated, though, Dig Dug can touch it safely. The pump can therefore be used as a brief pause button on a dangerous pursuer even when the player has no intention of taking the final burst immediately. 5 7
A crack is also a wall
The first smart use of a peg may not be a collapse at all. A fresh crack creates a line that solid monsters cannot simply walk across. Suddenly a pursuing group has to go around, or change into its ghostly form before it can cross. In the little pause created by that hesitation, Dig Dug can create distance, turn around with the pump, or run toward a more useful peg. The line is not merely damage waiting to happen; it is a temporary piece of traffic control. 7 8 9
That makes the player’s path feel inventive. You can draw a rough fence, leave a gap as a gate, lure enemies through it, then close the final edge once the group is standing where you want it. The same move has a defensive and offensive reading. A crack protects Dig Dug by slowing a chase; it also sets up the moment when the chase has been arranged into a score opportunity. The game’s tension comes from trying to make those readings agree before the monsters force a decision. 10 7
Trivia When a Pooka or Fygar turns into its eyes-like ghost form to cross a crack, it moves more slowly. That transformation is dangerous because it restores access across the barrier, but it also gives the player a readable moment of weakness. The wall has not solved the problem forever; it has bought a rhythm change that a quick player can exploit. 7 9
The smaller shore falls
Eventually a crack reaches the sea and turns the line into a verdict. When the island has been separated, the smaller piece falls into the water, taking every monster standing on it. The rule is simple enough to say aloud and difficult enough to make exciting in play. Near an even split, the player has to read the geometry quickly: which side is actually smaller, where are the enemies, and is Dig Dug standing on the land that will remain after the noise stops? 5 8 10
The danger is essential to the appeal. A collapse can remove several enemies at once, but Dig Dug can drown with them. The game is not asking for a grand demolition from a safe control room. It places the operator on the edge of the very land being cut away. A beautiful plan can become a mistake because one tile of ground, one confused turn, or one misread proportion has placed the hero on the wrong shore. The island’s drama is always half calculation and half nerve. 1 2 11
Trivia The game gives an edge-of-the-island stumble its own little name in the GCGX guide: ottotto, roughly the sound of an unsteady ‘whoa!’ If Dig Dug is standing at the rim when the section falls, pressing toward the remaining land can save him. A huge strategic action ends with a tiny, almost comic corrective nudge. 5
One enemy now, or many later?
The game makes its trade-off beautifully visible in the score. Pumping a Pooka is worth 200 points; pumping a Fygar from the side is worth 400, because its fire attacks travel horizontally. Sinking monsters with land pays far more as the crowd grows: one enemy earns 1,000, two earn 2,000, three earn 4,000, and the climb continues to 80,000 for ten or more. The score table is not a separate high-score ornament. It is a nudge toward thinking in groups and patiently arranging the island. 6 9 11
But a crowd is not automatically a gift. Keeping several enemies alive gives them more time to surround the player, and Fygars add a horizontal fire threat whenever a direct approach looks tempting. The best collapse is often prepared indirectly: use a crack to slow the pack, use the pump to hold one monster in place, then decide whether there is still time to close the gate. Dig Dug II feels energetic because caution and greed are not separate moods. The player uses one to make the other possible. 7 9 10
Trivia A single-block collapse makes a fish jump from the spot, and pumping that fish awards 500 points. It is a small consolation prize for a very modest demolition. The game finds a way to make even a fragment of fallen shoreline feel like it has produced a curious little event worth noticing. 6 11
The pump is not just for popping
It is tempting to think of the pump as the conservative weapon and the collapse as the exciting one. The better reading is that the pump makes the exciting plan possible. An enemy that has been inflated partway stops moving and can be passed without costing Dig Dug a life. That gives the player time to run past the body, reach a peg, or allow other monsters to gather on the side of the island that has become more useful. A half-finished pump is not indecision. It is stage management. 5 7
The strategy notes even distinguish a quick method: release and reconnect the pump rather than simply holding it, while continuing to face the monster and tapping B. Whether used for a fast defeat or a partial stall, the action rewards a player who sees the enemy’s inflation as a changing state, not a fixed attack animation. A monster can be a threat, a temporary safe object, or bait that holds the right place in a future collapse. That fluidity is the game’s cleverest answer to having only two basic weapons. 7 9
Trivia The final enemy does not always need to be burst or drowned. The Famicom system guide says monsters may eventually flee into the sea, which also clears the round. It is an oddly merciful ending to a tense board: after all the careful cutting and chasing, the last nuisance can sometimes simply decide that the island is no longer worth the trouble. 4 9
Vegetables are a promise to keep cutting
Three successful island collapses bring out a Vegetable Target for a limited time. Nintendo makes that condition explicit, and it gives the round a charming second beat. The player may have erased land for safety or for a group score, then suddenly has a reason to travel across the remaining island and collect something bright before it disappears. A radish, mushroom or later reward turns the map-clearing habit into a little scavenger hunt without interrupting the pressure of the enemies. 1 6 9
The target also prevents the collapse mechanic from becoming too abstract. Cutting land is not only a mathematical way to remove enemies. It leaves the player with a smaller, stranger island and a new object to chase across it. That is a lovely bit of arcade pacing: first create the opportunity, then take a breathless detour to cash it in, all while the board has fewer routes and the surviving monsters are still looking for an angle. 1 6 11
Trivia The listed Vegetable Target sequence begins with a 400-point radish, then a 600-point mushroom and an 800-point eggplant before reaching tomato, watermelon and grapes in later rounds. The reward therefore changes its look and value as a player advances, giving the same three-collapse milestone a different little flourish instead of a single repeated icon. 6
A small island needs an exit plan
The later lesson of Dig Dug II is not simply ‘make larger collapses.’ It is to preserve a place to stand. As land disappears, the board offers fewer long routes, more immediate contact with monsters and fewer forgiving ways to reverse direction. Cracks can still be used as barriers, but ghosts can slowly cross them, and the player must keep reading the shrinking island rather than trusting an old safe corner. The map is a resource that gets spent every time a plan succeeds. 10 7 8
That is why the game’s island theme is more than a visual novelty. Every clean kill alters the relationship between player and space. Pump too much and you may miss the chance to use a perfect crowd. Collapse too eagerly and you may remove the route needed for the next escape. The best play is not demolition for its own sake. It is knowing when to keep an untidy, monster-filled shoreline alive for one more minute because it gives you options, then cutting it at the moment the options have become a trap for everyone else. 1 10 7
Trivia The rare purple fish is tied to rounds 8, 40 and 72, and appears only after ten one-square collapses; pumping it yields 5,000 points. It is the game at its most mischievous. A player who has learned that large collapses are glamorous may discover that a run of tiny, careful cuts has its own hidden spectacle waiting in the water. 6
Sources & image credits
Facts were checked against the links below. Official media remains the property of Nintendo and the relevant rights holders.
- ディグダグⅡ | Nintendo Classics Nintendo ↗
- Dig Dug II™ | NES | Games Nintendo ↗
- ディグダグ ディギング ストライク | ゲームシステム Bandai Namco Entertainment ↗
- 取扱説明書（システム・操作方法） GCGX ↗
- プクプクポン・島崩し GCGX ↗
- スコア・得点 GCGX ↗
- 必勝テクニック GCGX ↗
- Dig Dug II StrategyWiki ↗
- Dig Dug II/Gameplay StrategyWiki ↗
- Dig Dug II/Walkthrough StrategyWiki ↗
- Dig Dug 2: Trouble in Paradise — Instruction Manual World of Nintendo ↗
