Pixel Arcade
About this game
Tunnel Digger is a maze game where you build the maze. You start in solid soil, and every step you take carves a tunnel. Two kinds of creature live down there — a round one that chases and a fire-breathing one that shoots flame along horizontal tunnels — and both use the passages you dig.
The four-way pad or arrow keys move and dig; the pump on space or the FIRE button attaches to a nearby creature and inflates it. Each pump takes time and holds you in place, so committing to a kill in a corridor with a second creature approaching is how most runs end. Four pumps burst a creature for 200 to 400 points depending on depth.
The higher-value play is the rock. Rocks sit embedded in the soil; dig the ground out from underneath one and it falls, crushing anything below it for 1000 points and more if you catch two at once. Setting that up means baiting a chase along a specific tunnel, which is the real strategy layer of the game.
Deeper strata pay more but spawn faster and more aggressive creatures. Games that let you excavate the playfield instead of memorising it were a small, distinctive branch of the maze genre in the early 1980s.
FAQ
Is the pump or the rock better?
The pump is reliable; the rock is worth far more. Two creatures under one rock is the biggest single score in the game.
Why do enemies move through solid soil?
When a creature loses track of you it turns into a ghost form and drifts straight through the dirt toward you. It cannot hurt you in that state, but it will re-solidify next to you.
Touch controls?
Yes, a four-way pad and a pump button.
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