DIG
Arcade · 200 coins to play · free in your browser
You are underground with a shovel and a quota. Every level is a twelve-by-eighteen block of solid earth with gems buried in veins through it, and you tunnel until you have collected enough of them to open the exit, then get out. The catch is the boulders: they sit in the dirt doing nothing until you dig out whatever was holding them up, and from that moment they are the most dangerous thing on the board. The whole level is drawn from the day's seed, so everyone playing the daily is digging the same ground — and a level you die on regenerates exactly as it was, which makes it a puzzle you can learn rather than a roll you have to re-take.
Is this your next game?
For deliberate route planning with sudden hazards. Start with the held D-pad; use swipe-to-run only when you can see the tunnel ahead.
Choose a cabinet in the arcade →How to play
- Hold an arrow to step one cell at a time, or swipe to run that way until something blocks you.
- Collect the quota to open the exit, then reach it — nothing scores until you get out, so a death costs the whole level.
- A resting rock is safe and a falling one kills: dig under a boulder and it drops the moment you step away. Gems fall too.
Mouse and keyboard
- Arrow keys or WASD, held — the digger steps while a key is down and stops when you let go.
Controls on a touchscreen
- Hold an arrow on the d-pad to step one cell at a time. This is the precise mode, and it is the one to use anywhere near a loose rock.
- Swipe anywhere on the board to RUN that way instead, digging until something blocks you. Good for crossing ground you have already cleared.
- STOP halts a run immediately. A swipe leaves nothing held down, so this is how you stop one on purpose rather than by hitting a wall.
Scoring
- Every cell of dirt you dig is worth 1 — a small, constant trickle that adds up over a tunnel.
- A gem is worth 60, multiplied by your vein (see below), so the same gem pays between 60 and 150.
- Clearing a level pays 200 times the level number, and stops climbing at the twelfth — every clear from there on is worth the same 2,400. When the run ends you are paid 250 for every life you still hold.
Combos and multipliers
The combo is the VEIN: gems collected within about 1.3 seconds of each other chain together. Three in a chain pays 1.5 times, six pays 2, and ten or more pays 2.5. This is why the gems are buried in blobs rather than scattered — a vein is something you can see and drive a tunnel toward, so the multiplier is a decision rather than an accident. A death ends the chain along with everything else.
How a run ends
The run ends when your third life is gone or when the run clock runs out. There is no final level to reach: the levels keep coming, and the clock is what decides how far you get. It is a single budget for the whole run, starting at about 132 seconds, and every level you clear buys some of it back — but the refund SHRINKS as the run goes on. For the first couple of minutes you get the full sixteen seconds back; seven minutes in, a clear is worth about three; past eight and a quarter it is worth nothing at all. That is the whole shape of a long run. You are not racing a fixed clock, you are racing the moment your clears stop paying, and it arrives whether or not you are playing well.
Worth knowing
- NOTHING SCORES UNTIL YOU REACH THE EXIT. A level keeps your gems in hand, not in the bank, and dying drops all of it. That is the decision the game is built on: one more gem, or out now.
- A resting boulder is completely safe, even directly over your head. It only becomes lethal once it is falling — and it starts falling the moment you step out from under it, which means it is always one cell behind you as you go down.
- Gems fall too, on exactly the same rules, and a falling gem kills exactly like a rock. A boulder rolling sideways off another one, by contrast, can never enter your cell — so the only thing that can kill you is something dropping straight onto you.
- You can shove a boulder sideways into an empty cell, but never upward or downward, and never one that is already moving. The quota is only about 60% of the gems on the board, so the rest are optional risk.
- Walking into something solid buys you one tick of mercy: a move that gets blocked will not be punished by a rock arriving that same instant, provided you were moving the tick before. Standing still against a wall earns nothing. It is a narrow reprieve for the player who misjudged a gap by one square, not a way to shelter under falling rock.
- Seal yourself in with no legal move and you will be dug out the hard way after about three seconds — it costs a life and restarts the level, which beats watching the clock drain with nothing to do.
Your first run
- Locate the exit and a path through enough gems before opening dirt beneath a boulder.
- Once the quota is met, compare the remaining tunnel to the exit with the risk of one more vein. STOP ends an automatic run when you need to reassess.
A mistake to avoid
Digging directly beneath a loose object without a side exit. Falling gems are dangerous too; valuable does not mean safe.
Worked example
At a 1.5× vein multiplier a gem contributes 90 points instead of 60. Level-one exit adds 200. The level bank is secured at the exit, so dying while carrying a vein loses that unbanked work.
Examples describe in-game points or resources. Wallet rewards are calculated separately after submission.
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Entry, rewards and fair play
Sign in to play. A run costs 200 coins. You need the full fee: with a lower balance, the run does not start and no coins are charged. Claim an available daily bonus before trying again. Your score can earn coins back and is validated by the server before ranking. How the economy and verification work →
DIG is in the daily rotation: 3 of the 16 games in the rotation pool carry a ranked board and a share of the community prize pool each day, drawn from the calendar date. This pool includes legacy BlockDrop and differs from the public catalog. On its day this cabinet wears a gold star.
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