As a kid, I loved going to the beach. I have happy memories of paddling in the sea, with sand and little tiny crabs slipping between my toes as they tried to escape, as my uncoordinated child hands dipped into the water to snatch them. I often find myself reminiscing about the time my mum shouted at me when she discovered The Sands of Prestatyn Beach in the back of the car, or when Grandad taught me how to build a sandcastle. Between sunny days, long drives and cans of 7UP, my most vivid memory was trying to dig a huge hole. Admit it, we’ve all tried it at least once (except for those who had to visit those weird ‘rock beaches’). While I was never able to connect China to North Wales or have someone from Australia dig up and meet me halfway, I still look back with a happy smile at how innocent and stupid I was. I assume that feeling is why developer Double Bee set about creating A Game About Digging a Hole, a title that perfectly sums up what you have to do.
Pitched as a game that costs the same as a coffee but gives you a bigger return on investment, A Game About Digging a Hole (AGADAH), starts by taking you to your brand new house and showing you the back garden where the promise of buried treasure is too good to pass up. The square of grass even has a big red X to show you where to break ground. Any fears of buying a nice-looking Three-Bed house for £10k were put to rest as soon as my spade first made contact with the turf, and my adventure below began. Over the course of a few hours, I dug my heart out like a bearded dwarf looking for that chunk of gold in this first-person adventure to the depths.
After a few swipes of my petrol-powered spade, the ground gave way, and I found my first bit of treasure, a stone! It might not be the most exciting find in the back garden, but finding any kind of material is handy, as you can sell the resources to help with the dig. The deeper you excavate, the greater the rewards, with chunks of silver and gold freely collectable, but to begin with, finding a stone felt as good as finding a treasure chest. After collecting 10 or so pebbles, my fuel was running low, and I had no space in my pack for anything else. Flogging minerals has its benefits, such as boosting your bank balance and upgrading the equipment, and while it seems AGADAH has an element of resource management, there was never a point at which I felt under pressure to stop what I was doing and go back to the garage.
The upgrades you can find throughout the adventure are standard things you’d expect to buy: a bigger bag to bulk out your storage, more digging power for your spade, or a jet pack as a faster way to exit the hole. Lamps and dynamite also help if you get stuck during your dive into the unknown. The upgrade I focused on was getting my spade as powerful as possible so I could really cut into the ground. After several trips from the excavation site to my garage, I turned the feeble trowel into a dirt-moving machine, and although it sounded more like a vacuum cleaner than a drill (trust me, we know about these things), it allowed for a speedy descent, and I was hooving up all of the goodies along the way.
Even though AGADAH only ever positions itself as a game about digging, things are rather limited in scope. To paraphrase the dwarven metal band Wind Rose, you CAN dig too deep. There is sadly a finite end to your expedition, and after a few hours, you hit the bottom with a decisive thunk. What’s worse is that the area you can dig always remains the square of your garden. It would have been great if I could tunnel into a neighbour’s backyard to see what they’re up to, or hit a sewer pipe and meet some turtles, but alas, I was confined to my own land. It explains why the property was so cheap, but it would have been nice to have expanded the area outside the small space you have. As the game costs only a handful of coins to begin with, I feel Cyberwave could have gotten away with charging for DLC maps to change the environments and stretch out the longevity a bit.
That being said, AGADAH offered surprising depth, at least when it comes to going from top to bottom. Padding out the experience is a metal detector that guides you to randomly generated loot boxes. These could be full of cash or the key to something more entertaining. In the latter stages of the game, I encountered a few technical glitches that slowed me down. Often, I would be happily digging when the game suddenly juddered before freezing momentarily. After half a second or so, I’d spring back to life, but the camera would point me in a different direction. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but I did find it annoying, as one moment I’d be tunnelling down and the next I’d be looking at the sky.
Sure, the adventure is over in a few hours, but once the campaign is complete, you can simply start again. Just like being at the beach, the hole will magically fill itself in, ready for the next person to begin excavating their own pool. There are achievements for you to unlock and display in the garage (even on the Switch version), but they’re all optional. Heck, I spent a good half an hour trying to dig by using sticks of dynamite. Spoiler alert – it didn’t go well.
A Game About Digging a Hole isn’t about plunging into the depths of humanity, or a critique of capitalism; it’s a game about digging a really large hole and enjoying your time doing it. If you’re after a game where you can switch off and dig a hole without causing any real-world damage, this is a must-have. There are a few glitches here and there, and with only one environment to dig through, some will find it boring, but if you want to reminisce about days spent at the beach trying to get to China, then this is a game for you.
Recommendation Score
In the interest of full disclosure, VGamingNews was provided with a copy of the game in order to conduct this review.
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