BugZy's Review: Dig or Die - Almost as difficult as Super Meat Boy!

[BugZy]

Gaddy Games, the developer and publisher of Dig or Die, have kindly given us some keys for their game for promotional purposes. The following is my opinion.

Welcome to Dig or Die, the wonderful yet terribly hard 2D sandbox game where if you haven’t watched walkthroughs or read any helpful reviews, you’ll go through world after world before actually being half decent at the game. Trust me, this is far from your ordinary sandbox. Oh, and I would like to state that while being inspired by a game like Terraria, it is vastly different and a heck of a lot more difficult.

Here is a little background. Dig or Die is a game released in March 2015 by Gaddy Games. You are a representative for a space-based company called Craft & Co. and have crash landed on a hostile planet, leaving you stranded with no way to get out besides using the equipment manufactured by the company to survive and ultimately build a rocket ship to escape.

When you load up a new world, your gaming instincts will kick in and you will have the urge to kill every creature in sight, but let me warn you that if you do, it will make the game an astronomical amount harder than if you just mind your own business. Of course you will have to kill some things anyway for crafting materials and other stuff, but if you haven’t killed any of its kind and have no reason to, then try to resist the urge to obliterate it with your pulse rifle.

If you are wondering why I am warning you about this, it is because at night the enemies come as a wave of creatures trying to get their revenge. Basically, different types of creatures will attempt to kill you if you have killed said type of creature. For example if you kill a dog, more dogs will attack you. If you kill a giant blue wasp, waves of giant blue wasps will attack you, which leads to my next point.

Defense is a major part of Dig or Die, especially when - as I’ve stated above - the monsters attack in a big wave. You must build a fortified base that hopefully you can survive in by using turrets, sturdy walls and your nifty craft-o-tron to help build these. Be careful though, because the hostile creatures that your base so desperately defends you from can and will tear your base apart, so be prepared to repair things! Also keep an eye out for blocks that are holding up large amounts of other blocks as this game enforces the laws of physics and they, also, crumble apart.

Something I would like to point out is that there are quite frequent flash floods, which add a great deal to the game’s suspense and makes it even more difficult as your base can be flooded in a matter of seconds. This is another thing you should look out for, so just a tip: build drainage pipes!

The game works somewhat in tiers, where you start with MK I gear and try to go up through the ranks to get better equipment, to venture further and get more items to craft better stuff and survive for longer. Eventually, you will have climbed the ladder of better items and will be able to create the rocket ship that I mentioned earlier, which is where the game ends.

The game’s art style is incredibly beautiful, being what you would imagine from a cartoon-styled game set in an alien planet. The animations can seem jittery and not-so-smooth, but if you are not paying lots of attention to them there isn’t really much of a problem.

The music and sound effects feel very fitting to the game’s atmosphere. I have had a few encounters where the music stops altogether when a sound effect plays and doesn’t start again until another sound effect plays, usually when I shoot my pulse rifle, but that is only a very small issue that I have come across and haven’t seen anyone else complain about it, so it could just be for me.

In conclusion, Dig or Die is a brilliant game. There may be some issues here and there, but in the end the game is a great play and for the price it is, I wouldn’t think twice about recommending it to any friend who enjoys 2D sandboxes.

I rate Dig or Die 8.5/10 hungry dingos.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/315460/

[Bind Brisken]

Nice review Bugzy :D