Diggy's Adventures

 Rating: 7/10 😸😸😸😸😸😸😸

All Ages: it's a tap-click-puzzle game

Diggy's Adventure is probably out there on the Nintendo Switch, but I just play it on my cheap, dumb Android phone. I've had it on there for over a year now and still play pretty much every day at least once or twice. It's free to download, free to play, mostly. It does have microtransactions built in, but you don't have to buy stuff to make good progress or win the game. It does have some watch-an-ad-for-a-reward mini game things. Overall, though, the ads are not intrusive. They only play if you click on the buttons for them. The microtransactions are for in-game currency, but also for older story modules.

Diggy is a dude in a miner's hat with a pickaxe, usually, who goes around breaking blocks of stuff, collecting tons of crap, solving some basic and mostly simple puzzles, and pretty much being a passive participant in the story happening around him. 

His dad's farm is a disaster, but when Diggy shows up to fix everything, he finds his dad is missing. Because his dad is actually an adventuring archaeologist. Or an international thief/spy/mastermind. I still haven't quite figured that out. He also goes traveling through time. And space. Anyway, Diggy sets off to rescue his dad, after fixing up the farm. First stop? Ancient Egypt where he digs up lots of sand, uncovers mysteries, and ends up doing favors for the entire Egyptian pantheon of gods. He also goes fishing in toilets.

Whatever.

I find the game oddly satisfying as I click on boxes to make them disappear. Cleaning up the screen and removing visual junk is pretty mindless but fulfilling. The puzzles are mostly pretty straight forward and not too difficult to solve.

One of the things I like is the energy mechanic. Diggy only has so much energy. Each block has an energy cost to remove. When he's out of energy, you have to let him recharge. Some days, it takes me about two minutes to blast through all my energy. Other days, I'm playing for over an hour. Most of the time, it's about fifteen minutes, then several hours for the energy to refill. It's long enough that I feel like I'm making progress, but short enough that I don't get sucked into the game for hours and spend my entire day just digging up stuff and making Diggy run around. Of course, you can buy better equipment to give him a bigger energy bar and faster recharge rates, why else are you collecting all that crap and money? You can also cook food to feed Diggy for more energy, which also uses up the crap you keep collecting. It's a nice way to limit how much time I spend playing.

I will admit that even after playing for over a year I'm barely into the third area out of six in the main storyline. Part of this is the energy mechanic I just mentioned, but the other reason is a lot more fun. Diggy has tons of side adventures, usually at least one a month. I just played through the Scooby Doo parody Halloween adventure and I'm mostly through a repeat of last year's Buffy the Vampire Slayer story. Most of these stories are really fun spoofs, especially if you're a nerd and know all the stories they are based on. The Lord of the Rings one last year is one of my all-time favorites. It's obvious to me that the people making these are fans, too.

The art is pretty. Loads of saturated colors, fun animations, cute animals, pretty flowers, and just nice art make it very enjoyable to look at. Sometimes the art gets visually noisy, though. Migraine days are not a good mix with the tropical areas. Too many bright colors.

If you're looking for a game that makes a good five to fifteen minute distraction that's basically a point-and-click with fun stories, check out Diggy's Adventure.