Arcade Game Series: Dig Dug – Achievements Guide

Introduction

The goal of this guide is to help other players unlock Dig Dug’s Steam achievements. That being said, this guide will not cover how to play Dig Dug or basic strategies.

The Steam version of Dig Dug has some extra settings that make it easier to obtain some of the game’s achievements. Changing these settings will omit your score from the leaderboard, but you will still get the achievements.

To enable the settings, navigate to the Options screen, go to Settings > Game Settings, and change Starting Round to ON, Starting Lives to 5, and Extra Lives to 20000/60000/60000. Alternatively, you can leave these settings off for a more… historically accurate experience.

Unlocking the Achievements

Below are the game’s achievements, followed on my advice.

• Round 1 Cleared (Clear round 1!)
• Round 2 Cleared (Clear round 2!)

Clear the first two levels.

• Surface Assassin (Defeat an enemy on the surface.)
• Just Passing Through (Pass through an inflated enemy!)
• Clean Harpoon (Clear any Round without digging!)
• Rock And Roll (Defeat all enemies in a Round using rocks!)

These achievements shouldn’t give you much trouble, but you’ll need to be deliberate.

• Carrot (Obtain the Carrot that appears after dropping 2 rocks in a certain Round.)
• Turnip (Obtain the Turnip that appears after dropping 2 rocks in a certain Round.)
• Mushroom (Obtain the Mushroom that appears after dropping 2 rocks in a certain Round.)
• Cucumber (Obtain the cucumber that appears after dropping 2 rocks in a certain Round.)
• Eggplant (Obtain the Eggplant that appears after dropping 2 rocks in a certain Round.)
• Green Pepper (Obtain the Green Pepper that appears after dropping 2 rocks in a certain Round.)
• Tomato (Obtain the Tomato that appears after dropping 2 rocks in a certain Round.)
• Watermelon (Obtain the Watermelon that appears after dropping 2 rocks in a certain Round.)
• Pineapple (Obtain the Pineapple that appears after dropping 2 rocks in a certain Round.)

Below are the “certain rounds” on which the bonus vegetables/fruits appear. You can use the Level Select option to make this process easier.

• Carrot – Round 1
• Turnip – Round 2
• Mushroom – Round 3
• Cucumber – Rounds 4 & 5
• Eggplant – Rounds 6 & 7
• Green Pepper – Rounds 8 & 9
• Tomato – Rounds 10 & 11
• Watermelon – Rounds 14 & 15
• Pineapple – Rounds 18 & above

Note that in order to spawn the vegetable/fruit you only need to drop two rocks (not defeat enemies with rocks). At the start of the round, quickly drop two rocks and get back to the center to collect your prize. On later rounds enemies are more aggressive, so you may have to quickly dispatch an enemy or two during this process.

Interestingly, Garlic (Rounds 12 & 13) and Galaxian (Rounds 16 & 17) are not used for Steam achievements.

• 2 Enemies (Crush 2 enemies with one rock!)

Start from a low point and dig straight up towards a rock. Try to bait enemies before triggering the rock to fall. Also, you can pump to immobilize them beneath the rock for an extra bit of insurance.

• 4 Enemies (Crush 4 enemies with one rock!)

Same idea as 2 Enemies, but you’ll have to get crafty. Dig a long vertical tunnel beneath a rock after drawing aggro. You may find this easier on higher level, where more enemies are present. Also note that you don’t have to survive to earn the achievement.

• Dig (Dig through the entire area on any Round!)

Focus on clearing a quadrant of area at a time, so you won’t have to backtrack as often. You’ll need to keep two enemies alive, so try to inflate your pursuers to buy a bit of time, and opt to take a death, and continue on your next life. Repeat until complete. Alternatively, if you defeat an enemy with a rock and harpoon at the same time, the game glitches, despawning enemies and freezing time. While this essentially soft-locks your game on the current level, you are still able to dig the entire area, completing the achievement. In Game Settings, make sure Version is set to OLD for this strategy to work.

• Rambler (Dig 1000 spaces! (1 space is the same size as 1 character)

Each level has 196 “spaces”. It won’t be very easy to clear the entire area each time, so aim to dig as much as you can each level without losing lives. If you average about 125 spaces dug on each level, you’ll get this achievement during level 8 or 9.

• Centurion (Defeat 100 enemies on a single playthrough!)

If you defeat every enemy on every level without letting any escape, you’ll get this achievement on level 15. The Extra Lives and Bonus Lives settings will come in handy for this achievement.