A Game About Digging a Hole from Cyberwave, rokaplay and Drillhounds is a game about digging a hole. Pretty self-explanatory really.

“A minimalist game about digging a hole in the garden of a newly purchased house. Collect resources, sell them, upgrade your equipment and discover a mysterious secret.”

A Game About Digging a Hole isn’t a very long game. In fact, I finished it in a little under 90 minutes. So, if you’re looking for a meaningful and lasting gameplay experience, you’re not going to find it here. The basics are that, you buy a new house that is said to have treasure buried in the back garden. All you have to do is dig up that treasure and become rich. You have four pieces of equipment. A Super Mega Digger 3000 Ultimate 2.0, your digging tool. There’s a self explanatory inventory. A battery, that does need some slight explaining. Finally, you have a jetpack.

All you have to do is dig in your back garden to find resources that you can then sell, and the money can be used to upgrade your equipment. That Super Mega Digger 3000 Ultimate 2.0 starts out as nothing more than a simple and small trowel that can only dig up tiny bits of earth. After numerous upgrades, it’ll become a drill that can dig up much more earth. Your inventory can be increased so you can carry more resources, leading to you making more money per digging run. About that battery I mentioned, your Super Mega Digger 3000 Ultimate 2.0 has a bit of a nasty side-effect, if the battery runs out (which it will do the more you use it), it’ll explode and kill you. You’ll respawn at your house, but you’ll lose any resources that you collected. The battery is also tied to your jetpack, which you use to get out of the hole as it slowly becomes deeper and deeper.

You start by digging up simple resources like rocks and coal, not much value but selling a few of these will get you some early upgrades. The deeper you dig, the more valuable resources you will find, such as silver, gold and platinum. Dig, find resources, sell resources, upgrade equipment, rinse and repeat until you reach the bottom of the hole and uncover the buried treasure. That’s it, that’s the whole game. There are a couple of additions. You’ll need lights the deeper you go, you’ll also need dynamite to remove some larger rocks that your Super Mega Digger 3000 Ultimate 2.0 can’t handle. There are some “hidden” secrets to find too. As I said, I finished the game in under 90 minutes, so A Game About Digging a Hole isn’t a very deep game… while being a game where you need to go deep.

However, the quick and shallow gameplay is reflected in the very low price of just £5. A Game About Digging a Hole is an interesting little title because, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy my short time with it. There was something quite calming and relaxing about just digging a hole. The devs have been a bit sneaky by locking all achievements/trophies behind the requirement of finishing the game first, so you will have to play to the end, to then play more if you want all of those meaningless points on your gamer profile. Honestly, as much as I did enjoy A Game About Digging a Hole and was more than happy to see it out to the end… I really have no interest in playing it for those achievements. This was very much a one-and-done experience for me. Short, sweet and is available now for PC and all the consoles.