I remember having a lot of fun in my very early days as a video gamer playing on the Atari. One of the games I ended up playing a lot (that actually turned into quite the competition) was Dig-Dug. It was a simple enough game where you controlled a little space man as he dug into the ground and used some space-age bicycle tire pump to blow up monsters until they popped. Ah, those were the good old days, huh? Anyway, the reason I mention that is because Mangrove Games and Julien Charbonnier have set out to bring that sort of gameplay to the tabletop with their push-your-luck card game, aptly named DIG.
DIG uses cards to create “The Hill” – a mystical place where both treasure and danger can be found. Players will take turns “digging”, or drawing cards from the hill, and risk their necks to seek out precious gems. Beware, though, because not all things found on the hill are precious. There’s a chance you could encounter dastardly monsters, such as orcs and skeletons, through your digging efforts, so you need to manage your panache and luck if you want to gather some shinies and stay alive!
As you dig you can use crystals that you find to hire recruits. These recruits can be placed on cards to create galleries, which are a sort of cache of all your collected goodies. Each time you get a chance to dig you can either add a card to one of your galleries or reveal the card to collect it and start a new gallery. For each set of 5 cards in a gallery you’ll receive a gem, and the first player to amass 10 gems will win the game!
Though there are perils with digging at The Hill you can also hire Companions that offer up all sorts of different skills to aid you in your digging efforts. Use the Companions to fight off monsters and last longer while pushing your luck to dig deeper down into The Hill. DIG is currently fully funded on Kickstarter, and for $19 you can get a copy for yourself. If you’re feeling extra fancy you can even pick up a copy of the game plus a sweet playmat for $35. With 13 days to go, you better get to digging through the web to the campaign page and use some of your hard-earned treasure to snag a pledge before it’s too late!