[HN Gopher] The Dig
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The Dig
Author : doppp
Score : 66 points
Date : 2021-07-23 16:19 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.filfre.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.filfre.net)
| sixo wrote:
| I had no idea this game wasn't beloved. I played it at about the
| age of 9 and was obsessed. Above all I remember the strangeness
| of the alien world - for a kid it was incredible.
| dfabulich wrote:
| I think he's overstating the case. It's true that it wasn't a
| huge seller, and reviewers were kinda lukewarm, but my
| impression is that the reviewers were saying, "ho hum, another
| point-and-click adventure game, aren't these games over by
| now?"
|
| I furthermore think he's taking that approach because he
| himself doesn't like the game, which, if you know his tastes,
| should come as no surprise.
|
| The author's aesthetic for adventure games is that the puzzles
| have to be fair and solvable without hints.
| https://www.filfre.net/2015/07/the-14-deadly-sins-of-graphic...
|
| I've argued with him in the past that this attitude closes him
| off from enjoying games that are pretty good but have a couple
| of unfair puzzles. (You can see the argument there in a comment
| thread on that 2015 article, and again recently on his Full
| Throttle article.)
|
| Thus, the key paragraphs from this article are when he points
| out that the alien skeleton puzzle is unfair (and, isn't it??)
| and the "alien control panel" (where you move the lens to the
| light source by programming a little robot, but there's no
| hint/clue what you're "supposed" to make the robot do).
|
| I think he's spot on that those puzzles are unfair, but, in his
| mind, that means the whole game sucks as a game.
|
| His criticism of the acting and plot are a matter of personal
| aesthetic, but I think I agree with him that Dig's ending is
| not great, especially when you consider what happens to the NPC
| five minutes before the ending.
| djur wrote:
| Well, I like Full Throttle better than he does, despite the
| demolition derby, but I completely agree with him on The Dig.
| I don't think you can chalk his attitude up solely to that
| handful of bad puzzles.
|
| It seems to me like a lot of the people who liked it the best
| also had read the novelization, which makes sense -- my
| biggest problem with the game, and I think Jimmy's as well,
| is that the characters are mostly ciphers. I'm sure the
| supplementary material helped fill that in.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Yeah, almost all of the characterization that hit the
| cutting room floor wound up in the novel and the game is
| _far_ richer having read the novel. The characters _do_
| actually make a lot more sense given the descriptions of
| their thought processes in the novel.
|
| In some respects, The Digital Antiquarian's take here on
| The Dig actually is far weaker for mentioning the novel but
| not including it in the final review, especially when
| contrasted with the linked Loom review where the Audio
| Drama is lauded as being usefully central to the project
| and the understanding of it.
|
| That said, I'm in the group that read the novel first and
| found the game worse because of it because you could
| directly see all the holes of "this thing the novel
| described is probably a puzzle that got dropped at the last
| minute" and "this scene in the novel of great importance
| probably was a cutscene that was cut for time" and so
| forth.
|
| The Digital Antiquarian rightfully mocks OSC's somewhat
| hackneyed dialog and it is rare for anyone to wish the Alan
| Dean Foster dialog on a finished project that ADF did the
| novelization for (and I say that having loved many ADF
| novelizations nearly as much as the films), but The Dig is
| probably high on the list where the novel's dialog was far
| superior overall to the game's and it _showed_ even beyond
| the internal monologues and characterization that couldn 't
| make it into the game and/or were cut.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| The book by Alan Foster was less of a companion to the game and
| more of a necessary crutch. Without it, the ending doesn't
| quite make sense unless you _really_ squint.
|
| It is a neat game though, I agree. It deserves props for
| introducing me to the word "pulchritudinous".
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I also first heard "pulchritudinous" in a game, Sandy
| Petersen's 1991 space combat role-playing game _Hyperspeed_.
| As an adult of 36.
| tracedddd wrote:
| I too adored this game, it was magical as a kid and quite scary
| at times for an overactive imagination.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| Yeah I similarly have pretty fond memories of the whole
| atmosphere of the game, although in retrospect I've mostly
| forgotten the characters and what they were like. Unlike with
| many other adventure games, I can't even recall a single one-
| liner.
|
| The fate of the alien civilization revealed at the end still
| has resonance to me in an age where people are talking about
| uploading their consciousness or living out the rest of
| eternity in some _Ready Player Two_ digital-ethereal realm.
| adamrezich wrote:
| I was just about to post the exact same thing. I played it a
| few years after release as a child, and was thrilled to find a
| single copy of the novelization tucked away in my local
| Borders. I liked Sam & Max Hit The Road and Day of the Tentacle
| more, because they were hilarious, but I thought The Dig was at
| the very least pretty great at conveying an utterly haunting
| sense of atmosphere, between the art and the soundtrack. this
| retrospective says the voice acting and character writing
| wasn't great, and I suppose it wasn't, but I wonder if it seems
| worse than it was specifically because, without basing the game
| around humor like all the other SCUMM games, the writers had to
| make A Serious SCUMM Game Script, and it's kind of hard to
| convey anything resembling serious drama in the SCUMM engine
| with VGA graphics. again, I was young when I played the game
| and read the book, but I liked Boston Low's characterization as
| the tough ex-military reluctant protagonist who spends most of
| his time on an alien planet alone, trying to figure out where
| to go next and what any of what he's seeing means, keeping a
| sense of sarcasm when talking to himself to mask his underlying
| feeling that he will probably never make it back home.
|
| the strategy guide had a "making of The Dig" section at the
| end, and now I'm going to have to dig my copy out of storage
| and compare its portrayal of events with the likely more
| cohesive and truthful story told here.
| DevKoala wrote:
| I played a demo of this game that came with a CD inside of a
| magazine. It was very atmospheric but I had no clue of what I was
| doing and got stuck.
| tolien wrote:
| Weirdly the turtle skeleton puzzle and the ending are the only
| two parts I can really remember of The Dig.
|
| I think I wound up using a walkthrough to finish the puzzle. It
| was a bizarre thing to include and probably a sign that nobody
| had bothered play-testing that part of the game although at the
| time I didn't really care.
| allenu wrote:
| I remember the ending. I remember you had to make a sort of
| moral decision on behalf of one of the other characters. It was
| an interesting question posed to the player, but I remember
| watching a clip of what happens if you do the "bad" thing and
| found it played out a little goofy. (Sorry, no spoilers here,
| but you can look it up.)
| totetsu wrote:
| Never finished this as kids. Got stuck on the part where you're
| supposed to hold a crystal up to some light with no
| explanation.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| I spent a bunch of my parents' money calling the LucasArts
| 1-900 number to get past obstacles like that one!
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| What's wrong with this guy lately? I generally love his essays on
| old games, but last two entries?
|
| First, he bashes _Full Throttle_ , an absolute gem, and my
| favourite LucasArts adventure. Next, he is not happy with "The
| Dig", a game I deeply loved back then.
|
| If he didn't write an essay on Star Control 2 earlier, at this
| point I would filly expect him to be _unimpressed_ even by SC2.
| endymi0n wrote:
| Having played both, I must say I was more intrigued by The Dig
| than SC2. Granted, Star Control had a pretty great story arc,
| but the feel was just very comic-arcade-like. I also played it
| because it was so hyped and maybe my expectations were just sky
| high because of that.
|
| Then again, I played The Dig much younger as a pre-teen and can
| still distinctly remember that intro. It was one of the few
| games that pulled you in just like a movie. The atmosphere was
| really dense and it felt way more like a movie you could
| interact with than a game.
|
| I didn't care about the shallow, less coherent story back then
| and I also don't remember it as a game that was so great I
| wasted months on like XCOM, but it was definitely pretty good.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| The Dig and SC2 are very different games, but they share one
| key theme: the touch of unknown, a great mystery that lies
| beyond. And I loved them for it.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| So your complaint is that he criticised games that you liked?
|
| You can still like games that have serious objective flaws,
| dude. It's ok.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| His criticisms of Full Throttle were completely unfair, this
| is a one game that doesn't have any flaws at all. Well, maybe
| it is too short, if you play it for the second time.
|
| One such criticism is his bashing of the second arcade puzzle
| (the demolition derby) - he complained about the objective
| being "unclear". How can it be "unclear" after the player is
| given a briefing on what to do and is constantly bombarded by
| voice instructions during the whole event?!
| WorldMaker wrote:
| In addition to the other comments in the thread, it is
| useful to point out that even the game's manual itself was
| critical of the action sequences, especially the demolition
| derby and went out of its way to point out the key sequence
| to just skip them.
|
| (As a player, while I've grown more tolerant of the
| motorbike action sequences than I was as a kid who didn't
| play much in the way of action games, I can't say if I've
| ever completed the demolition derby "properly". Just can't
| find the interest in me.)
|
| (Personally, I still think more games should have a "I'm
| bored with this action sequence / boss fight, please just
| skip it" button and hold up this aspect of Full Throttle as
| one of the best parts of its design, even if it was offered
| mostly as an apology that they didn't quite get what they
| wanted from the aging SCUMM engine in terms of action.)
| djur wrote:
| I grew up with Full Throttle and like it more than he does
| (mostly because I really enjoy its aesthetic and humor),
| but I didn't see a single criticism in his article that
| wasn't spot on.
| dbalatero wrote:
| I'm a huge Lucasarts fan and I played FT for the first time
| last year. I found it to be the weakest adventure title and
| found his criticisms mirrored a lot of my experience. I
| found a lot of the puzzles and gameplay (particularly the
| action-y ones) not very fun as well. So, YMMV.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| It doesn't take much effort to find other dissenting
| opinions:
|
| "The problem is that Full Throttle is still a SCUMM
| adventure game, but layered with bizarre action sequences
| that have aged like a tuna sandwich someone left in the
| back of the fridge for two decades. A few motorcycle fights
| mid-game are awkward but bearable, but a late-game
| demolition derby sequence is just about as obnoxious and
| unplayable today as it was 20 years ago." [0]
|
| A guy I watch on twitch played Ocarina of Time for the
| first time a year or so ago. I love that game, having
| played it to death in my childhood.
|
| He hated it.
|
| I asked him why.
|
| He then proceeded to enumerate all of the ways he hated it:
| Navi's interruptions, time-wasting animations and
| transitions, and of course the entire water temple [2], to
| name a few. I had to tell him that yeah, every single one
| of his criticisms was entirely valid. I love the game
| anyway. Is it nostalgia? Maybe in part [2], but I think
| it's also possible that the things I really enjoy about it
| outweigh the things I dislike. Either way, it doesn't make
| his criticisms any less valid.
|
| It's possible Maher's criticisms aren't very fair, I don't
| know since I never played Full Throttle. But I will say
| that I highly doubt that's the case from having read his
| other work.
|
| [0] https://www.pcworld.com/article/3190569/full-throttle-
| remast...
|
| [1] If you played OoT and don't know why people hate the
| water temple, it's because you played on the 3DS, where
| they made some changes to make it less confusing and
| tedious.
|
| [2] He also hated Outer Wilds, and once again I found no
| flaw with his criticism but love the game anyway.
| grillvogel wrote:
| >objective flaws
|
| opinions are not objective
| taneq wrote:
| How dare people not like what I liked?!
| [deleted]
| lou1306 wrote:
| For better or for worse, he puts a high, _high_ premium on
| gameplay. He already gave non-enthusiastic reviews of many
| games that many consider "classics" (such as most Sierra
| adventures, or Myst, just to name a few examples).
|
| It's an opinionated approach, sure, but at least he's open
| about it and seems to apply it consistently.
| Keyframe wrote:
| I didn't realize game was such a production mess. I love(d) the
| game.. but in retrospect, I loved how it captured my imagination
| more than the game itself.
| jl6 wrote:
| I enjoyed reading the backstory to what I had always assumed had
| been a troubled production. Overall, I think the article's
| assessment is fair. But for all its flaws, it's not a _terrible_
| game. It just unfortunately stands deep in the shadow of half a
| dozen _great_ LucasArts predecessors.
|
| The hype in gaming in 1995 was fully focused on 3D and FPS
| titles, and I distinctly recall thinking how dated the pre-
| rendered sequences of The Dig looked.
|
| Still, just because a game isn't an instant classic doesn't make
| it a failure either, as long as you judge it for what it is, not
| what the hype made you think.
| yummybear wrote:
| I loved this. Amazing atmosphere.
| the_af wrote:
| I really loved The Dig, and filfre.net has disappointed me again
| after his review of Full Throttle. No, not because he disagrees
| with me about games I liked, but because I think he overstates
| his case and downplays the strengths of those games.
|
| What I loved about The Dig: how cinematic it feels
| (unsurprisingly, I also liked this about Full Throttle, but The
| Dig feels like a movie at times). That the plot is "serious"
| scifi. That unlike most point-and-click adventures of its time,
| it takes itself (mostly) seriously: The Dig is a serious work of
| scifi, not an excuse to write gags.
|
| That ending where you can choose to break a vow and something you
| promised not to do -- powerful!
|
| The Dig is hard, true, but compared to one other "serious"
| adventure game I can think of it's a piece of cake: it's way
| easier than I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (which I couldn't
| finish without a walkthrough).
| Causality1 wrote:
| I really wish this would get a remaster like Monkey Island did.
| It's technically playable on modern PCs but it's very clunky and
| crashes a lot.
| dfabulich wrote:
| It works great in ScummVM https://www.scummvm.org/
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I've posted it above, but it deserves one more: a gorgeous HD
| intro for "The Dig"
|
| https://youtu.be/xHJlIhpNS2I
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| By the way, I stumbled at a gorgeous HD intro [1] for the Dig,
| apparently made by some talented guy.
|
| Now I _badly_ want a real HD remake of the actual game.
|
| [1]: https://youtu.be/xHJlIhpNS2I
| subsubzero wrote:
| The dig came a bit after Myst(a game I absolutely loved) and I
| felt like it was going after those players who wanted "more"
| after beating myst. The graphics were ok, but my biggest
| complaint was some of the puzzles being really really hard(I
| remember the skeleton part and was like "what am I supposed to do
| here?"). a little QA would have gone along way to fix that but I
| don't remember it being horrible like the author states.
| golyi wrote:
| The art direction of this game is incredible, puzzles were tough
| though.
| mthamil wrote:
| This is an all time favorite game from my childhood. It captured
| my imagination in a way that had a lasting impact. Like others
| have said, I was obsessed. While the Monkey Island games were my
| first adventure game loves, the serious subject matter and eerie
| otherworldliness of The Dig appealed to me at some primal level.
| The art, the incredible soundtrack, the sense of isolation, even
| the insane puzzles, all added up to a very different experience
| from other adventure games of the time.
| nateroling wrote:
| Never played the game, but I loved the book as a kid. Along with
| his novelizations of the Alien movies, Alan Dean Foster was right
| up there with Stephen King as far as I was concerned.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Outstanding adventure game with an immersive world - and with the
| protagonist voiced by The [other] Terminator!
|
| I'd argue it's the most atmospherically-memorable of the
| LucasArts adventures, and am surprised at the article-author's
| conclusion.
| atombender wrote:
| Chiming in to say that I, too, loved The Dig when it came out.
|
| At the time, I read the lukewarm reviews, and it wasn't hard to
| see that The Dig had suffered a bit from being so long in
| production. That said, while technology-wise it was perhaps a bit
| behind some other games at the time, as a _LucasArts_ game, it
| definitely felt state of the art, from the lush music to the
| high-quality voice acting and the gorgeous pixel art. Only Full
| Throttle came close.
|
| And while it wasn't a perfect game, its sense of place was
| superb. To a young adventure gamer seeking fantastic, alien
| worlds, it did feel immersive.
|
| There was another adventure game that came out around the same
| time that's now largely forgotten: Heart of Darkness [1], by Eric
| Chahi, notable for making Another World (aka Out of This World).
| It had a similar troubled development process, and had a
| similarly pretentious marketing boasting of music performed by a
| real symphonic orchestra (the Sinfonia of London), and it met
| similarly lukewarm reviews. The game is actually beautiful
| (except for the horrifically outdated 3D cut scenes), but it's
| also not quite the classic that Another World was.
|
| (Coincidentally, Chahi also worked on a sci-fi point-and-click
| for Delphine back in 1989 called Future Wars [2]. It's a
| beautiful game that has some parallels with The Dig, though
| modern players are going to be really put off by the horrible
| user interface.)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness_(video_game)
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Wars
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