44 replies to this topic

[Ze_ro]

Important Note: This weeks competition is over and no further scores will be accepted.

You are Dig Dug, the underground miner. With your jet-powered shovel, you create intricate, subterranean mazes. Ever on the watch for vegetable prizes, you must also look out for the fierce Fygar and mean Pooka that lurk underground. Their touch kills! Worse, these two meanies can transform into spooky ghosts that will appear out of nowhere and haunt you to death.

Game Information

Game Name: Dig Dug Released By: Atari, 1982 Left Difficulty: N/A Right Difficulty: N/A Game Mode: Normal Game Mode Chosen By: vjames Post your scores right here in this thread, and I will add them to the list. Remember to play the game with the recommended game mode and difficulty settings as shown above so that your scores will be consistent with everyone elses. The deadline for posting scores is Wednesday October 14th at 1:00 AM (CST).

Current High Scores 1,000,000 (oyamafamily) [+11] 1,000,000 (Zoyx) [+11] 1,000,000 (godzillajoe) [+11] 428,650 (toymailman) [+10] 400,870 (vjames) [+9] 285,200 (Captain Beard) [+8] 259,240 (Atardi) [+7] 234,130 (keilbaca) [+6] 228,320 (roadrunner) [+5] 135,840 (darthkur) [+4] 88,640 (aftermac) [+3] 85,810 (SpiceWare) [+2] 17,370 (LarcenTyler) [+1] 9670 (LoneWolfSeth) [+1] Best Tips godzillajoe [+2] Challenges None yet TwinGalaxies Top 3 (Game 1, Difficulty B) 3,111,110 (Tom Duncan) 2,497,060 (Scott Stilphen) 2,110,800 (Todd Rogers)

Current Standings toymailman [61] Atardi [59] Captain Beard [49] Deteacher [44] godzillajoe [41] shadow460 [39] darthkur [37] Zoyx [33] Vectorman0 [29] keilbaca [25] vjames [21] SpiceWare [16] devwebcl [13] Nathan Strum [11] homerwannabee [11] CebusCapucinis [10] LarcenTyler [8] kote [8] aftermac [7] roadrunner [7] Hornpipe2 [7] Mister VCS [6] 4Ks [4] Wickeycolumbus [4] chuckwalla [3] Shannon [2] jeremysart [2] vintagegamecrazy [2] sloth713 [2] jjd [2] LoneWolfSeth [2] ChrisKoopa [1] Impaler_26 [1] Nati [1] disjuakifa [1]

Scoring Points in Dig Dug

Dig a chunk of earth - 10 points Drop a rock on... One enemy - 1000 points Two enemies - 2500 points Three enemies- 4000 points Four enemies - 6000 points Five enemies - 8000 points Six enemies - 10,000 points Seven enemies - 12,000 points Bonus Prizes: Carrot - 400 points Turnip - 600 points Mushroom - 800 points Cucumber - 1000 points Eggplant - 2000 points Bell Pepper - 3000 points Tomato - 4000 points Onion - 5000 points Watermelon - 6000 points Galaxian - 7000 points Pineapple - 8000 points Inflating Pooka or Fygar: Top soil layer - 200 points 2nd soil layer - 300 points 3rd soil layer - 400 points Bottom soil layer - 500 points Inflating Fygar from the side is worth twice the points listed above. You win your first bonus life at 20,000 points. After that, a bonus life is won at every multiple of 50,000 points up to 200,000 points. The maximum number of lives you can have at any one time is eight.

Hints and Tips

The Manual

As always, you really should read the manual. In case you don't have a copy of it, AtariAge has a typed copy and a scanned copy available online. Here are the hints it provides:

• At higher rounds your priority should be to get the bonus vegetables because they're worth more points than destroying meanies.
  
• The prize will not appear in a round until two boulders have fallen and there are fewer than seven meanies on the screen.
  
• The last meanie on a screen will always try to escape, thus ending the round. So, if just one meanie remains and the prize hasn't appeared, you may want to stun that meanie long enough to allow the prize to appear.
  
• Since the last meanie will always try to escape at the top left side of the screen, you can strategically position yourself above ground on the left and wait for the meanie to emerge then quickly blow him up.
  
• You can't pump through the soil, so back off if a ghost is approaching through the dirt toward your tunnel. Wait until the ghost gets indise the tunnel then quickly turn and pump it up.
  
• To crush a ghost, tunnel under a rock and wait (as long as you don't move, the rock won't fall). When a ghost covers the rock, quickly move out of the way and the ghost will be crushed.
  
• A good way to trap and squash several creatures at once is to tunnel straight up under a rock and wait for the meanies to follow. When they get close, quickly move out of the way to the right or left. They will be trapped in the path of the falling rock.
  
• If a meanie is pursuing you, try to get to a tunnel. Since you move more quickly in a tunnel than through soil, this gives you a better chance to escape.
  
• Try to group meanies behind you by stunning them and then running. (You can run right through a stunned meanie.) When several are in pursuit, lead them toward a boulder and drop it on them for high points.

We played this game in the High Score Club before, check it out here.

keilbaca

This isn't like the arcade at all. In the arcade, if you move forward and pump, you pump faster. In the Atari version, you pump slower. Stand still and mash that button for the fastest pumping.

godzillajoe

Contrary to what others say, NEVER approach a Fygar from the side, you will get burned sooner or later and it's not worth the couple hundred extra points to essentially give awayh those lives. The pineapple levels are your goal and you'll need those lives

Monsters only ghost at the edge of a tunnel, when there are two in there at the start of a level, attack from the middle to give yourself some time to run away if they ghost. You can leave a small layer of dirt and still get your pump in there to blow them up.

When things get fast, destroy the closest monsters first, preferably the Fygars. But try and leave two, quickly drop two rocks to get the bonus if you can. Let one escape if necessary.

Don't be greedy. You don't need to get the bonus and the major squish points EVERY TIME. Save it for those levels where the board is set up nicely to do that.

--Zero

[godzillajoe]

108,760 to get things started with a feeble attempt.

I wasn't crazy about last week mainly because I had to play it on an emulator and was too lazy to load it up in the CC2, so only played once.

But this week, I plan on kicking ass

bring it!

[roadrunner]

199,160

Good choice for this week Dig Dug is one of my favorite games

[Zoyx]

Yep, this game is more like it - 266150

[toymailman]

Does anybody know what settings I have to enable in my browser to view the "current standings"? I have not been able to see them since the site was upgraded. I am using IE8 if that helps. Thanks!

[Zoyx]

Dunno. Default install of IE8 shows the slow scroll up just fine for me. So does FF and chrome. Here is the top 15...

1.Atardi [59]
2.toymailman [59]
3.Captain Beard [49]
4.Deteacher [44]
5.godzillajoe [41]
6.shadow460 [39]
7.darthkur [37]
8.Zoyx [33]
9.Vectorman0 [29]
10.keilbaca [25]
11.vjames [21]
12.SpiceWare [16]
13.devwebcl [13]
14.Nathan Strum [11]
15.homerwannabee [11]

[LarcenTyler]

17,370

[aftermac]

55,530

[oyamafamily]

Ze_ro, I'm suggesting a special rule for THIS GAME: CONTINUES ARE NOT PERMITTED!!
[You continue this game pressing FIRE button on title screen after losing all your lives on previous gameplay].

[roadrunner]

oyamafamily, on Wed Oct 7, 2009 7:55 PM, said:

Ze_ro, I'm suggesting a special rule for THIS GAME: CONTINUES ARE NOT PERMITTED!!
[You continue this game pressing FIRE button on title screen after losing all your lives on previous gameplay].

I didn't use continues. I didn't even know this game had continues.

[Ze_ro]

oyamafamily, on Wed Oct 7, 2009 7:55 PM, said:

Ze_ro, I'm suggesting a special rule for THIS GAME: CONTINUES ARE NOT PERMITTED!!
[You continue this game pressing FIRE button on title screen after losing all your lives on previous gameplay].

Doing so resets your score to zero, so I fail to see how this could be used to any real advantage.

toymailman said:

Does anybody know what settings I have to enable in my browser to view the "current standings"? I have not been able to see them since the site was upgraded. I am using IE8 if that helps. Thanks!

All I'm using is a standard HTML <marquee> tag in order to make it scroll. I'm not sure what settings would cause that not to work. Shows up fine for me in Firefox.

--Zero

[Captain Beard]

285,200

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[toymailman]

Zoyx, on Wed Oct 7, 2009 6:36 PM, said:

Dunno. Default install of IE8 shows the slow scroll up just fine for me. So does FF and chrome. Here is the top 15...

Thanks, I wonder if it is Norton Anti-Virus stopping something then?

[Zoyx]

Got on a role - 467050. Beats my teenager hi-score (314480).

[vjames]

400,870

I may have read this in the last forum but... after you drop two rocks the fruit appears (which in later levels gives you more points than killing the monsters).

As with so many of the games we could probably all get higher scores if it weren't for a few mistakes at some of the easy plays (I expect to loose a few when things get tough but I get mad when I lose them at easy parts).

I'm using firefox and I have no problem seeing the scores.

I'm guessing the problem with the "continue" is that it erases your score if you hit the button after the game ends (which I almost did).

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Edited by vjames, Thu Oct 8, 2009 1:59 PM.

[godzillajoe]

300,070 in my first proper try, wanted to get back to the baseball game so i started screwing around.

[Zoyx]

Does the score roll at a million? I think someone needs to do that.

[godzillajoe]

It does. And I think it goes goofy after that. I remember trying it in the Stella debugger.

[oyamafamily]

A SPECIAL NOTE: When the score rolls over at 1 Million points, you gain a special bonus life. I rolled the score when I played on emulator (Stella 2.8.4), but for practice ONLY.

Edited by oyamafamily, Thu Oct 8, 2009 7:59 PM.

[toymailman]

My first submission.

204,890

[LoneWolfSeth]

7580 using stella

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[LoneWolfSeth]

LoneWolfSeth, on Fri Oct 9, 2009 1:59 PM, said:

7580 using stella 9670

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[roadrunner]

a small improvement 228,320

[aftermac]

88,640

[keilbaca]

Here's my tip: This isn't like the arcade at all. In the arcade, if you move forward and pump, you pump faster. In the Atari version, you pump slower. Stand still and mash that button for the fastest pumping.