"A mole's descent that pays off, then digs itself flat"
About
Diggin is an incremental mining adventure where you play Doug, a mole drilling to the bottom of a meteor crater to learn what happened to the moles who dug before him. Each run sends you downward until fuel or stamina runs out, then you spend the ores you collected on drill upgrades and a skill tree that pushes the next descent a little deeper. A density mechanic gates how far you can burrow, and later abilities like the laser, dynamite and overdrive start firing automatically as you fall. Progress unfolds across four broad upgrade tracks, and most of the run is watching that slow crawl turn into a plummet.
Verdict
Diggin knows exactly what it is: a five-euro incremental about drilling deeper, and for a few hours the loop delivers the small thrill of watching a wall you kept failing against crumble on the next attempt. The trouble is the back third, where the systems stop asking anything of you and the screen turns to visual soup while crashes and broken achievement counters wait. There's no prestige or second gear to keep you digging once the credits roll. Worth the small ask if you want something short and focused, but temper your hopes for the finish.
You'll like it if …
- +You want a brain-off incremental you can finish in an evening or two
- +You enjoy the slow-burn payoff of an early grind suddenly breaking open
- +A tight, non-bloated scope appeals more than endless prestige loops
You'll dislike it if …
- −You expect meaningful decisions to keep coming after the skill tree fills
- −Progression walls that stop you dead until a specific unlock frustrate you
- −Heavy screen shake and particle clutter give you motion sickness
Breakdown
- +The mine-upgrade-dig-deeper loop pays off in the mid game, when a single skill unlock turns a wall you kept bouncing off into rock you tear straight through
- +Almost every run ends with a new unlock, so you rarely dig for nothing
- +The moment overdrive kicks in and you drop through several layers at once is the payoff the early grind is building toward
- −Early runs stall hard, and until the right upgrade unlocks you can hit a density wall you simply cannot pass
- −Fuel loss on hard rock feels punishing rather than tactical: one bad patch and a quarter of your run is gone
- −Late-game screen shake makes some players motion sick, and overheating turns the finish into a chore
- +Four upgrade tracks give the early and mid game a decent spread of things to chase
- +The design stays focused and never bloats itself with padding systems
- −Most players reach the bottom in three to five hours and there's little reason to dig back in
- −No prestige loop or reset mechanic, so the final third loops the same descent with nothing new to decide
- −Once the skill tree is filled, the automatic abilities do the work and player choice thins out to almost nothing
- +The mole-hunting-his-ancestors premise gives the digging a light frame, and the opening and closing cutscenes bother to tell it
- −The story barely touches the mechanics and the ending lands with a shrug
- +The cartoon pixel art draws comparisons to Yoshi's Island, and the digging sounds are chunky and satisfying
- +The intro and outro cutscenes are the visual high point
- −The endgame drowns in particle clutter and effects, and turning them off doesn't fully fix it
- −Frame rate sags on older hardware once the screen fills with debris
- +The menus and UI are clean and easy to read
- −Startup crashes and late-game white-screen freezes force restarts for some players
- −Achievement tracking misfires, notably the 300k blocks counter
- −Fossil and artifact pickups break at late-game fall speeds, and having to physically retrieve them frustrates
score
