The Dig

The Dig is a 1995 by the American game developer LucasArts realized in collaboration with Steven Spielberg point-and- click adventure. Originally this material was provided as the basis for a science fiction movie, but this was never realized due to cost reasons in favor of the computer game.

• 4.1 Reviews in game magazines
• 4.2 Awards of games magazines

Contents and action

In the present: An asteroid keeps with collision course for Earth and threatens the future and the future life of their inhabitants. NASA decides to force him by atomic explosions on a stable orbit, and thus rendering them harmless. The player assumes the role of the commander of the mission, Boston Low, together with the reporter Maggie Robins and the Danish ( i.e. in the OV German ) to scientist Dr. Ludger Brink execute the mission. Two other crew members of space shuttle pilot Ken Borden and Senator Cora Miles will remain with the use on board the shuttles.

During the mission, the away team discovered upon examination of the asteroid that it is the Meteor is an alien spacecraft. This is activated accidentally by Low, Brink and Robbins, after which the trio is transported to a distant planet. Here, the team comes across traces of an extraterrestrial civilization that has inexplicably disappeared. To get back to the earth, the three must solve the riddle of the ancient culture.

Low and Robins found on a five - island archipelago evidence of a race of highly evolved beings, who has knowledge of space flight and mysterious crystals. Especially the latter make the team to create, as the perished in planetary exploration Brink can be revived by this though, but he visibly through their effect is unpredictable. When the team finally wants to put a machinery in motion, which is important for their potential return, the events come thick and fast: It is a fight between the maddened Brink and low, in which the Doctor dies. And Robbins leaves when activating the machine their lives.

Low left and comes to revival of a leading planet being the disappearance of civilization on the track: This was on the search for immortality and developed a device for this purpose. This has commuted all the planets inhabitants in disembodied spirits and also transferred into another dimension. Using Low manages to make the people back to life, according to which the essence of gratitude Robbins and Brink resurrected.

The team then returns with one of the alien spaceships back home.

Technology and control

Technically, the title is based on version 7 of the LucasArts SCUMM own language. In this game, LucasArts simplified again introduced with the Sam & Max Hit the Road operating concept by was automatically performs the correct action with the cursor ( One-Click- Does -It-All - concept ). The inventory was displayed only when needed. The dialogues were, as is known from Sam & Max, conducted with the help of icons, which showed the intention of the next statement.

History of development

The idea of ​​the game is from the 1980s by Steven Spielberg, who wanted to use them for a film originally. Since the then state of technology in special effects not yet met his expectations and their development would cause enormous costs, the idea was initially suspended for a few years, then later completely rejected.

The development originally started already in the 1980s and was successively supervised by a total of three teams. This manifests itself among other things in the game in three different graphic styles. But the story, the places and the characters changed from team to team:

• In Noah Falsteins first version four cities should be explored on the planet: a half- sunken city on the ocean, an associated blew sand from the desert town, an area covered by snow and ice city in the mountains and a city within an artificial life form. In addition, it should be necessary to manage the food stocks of the team and to supplement resources from the planet.
• Brian Moriarty's second version was almost completely redeveloped. The Alien Planet should be a dangerous place, the cost should also crew members life. More generally, the game was very much created violent than the final third version. So it should be necessary to have low kills an eel and it cuts out an eye. In the second version, an additional character was planned: a Japanese business man who should have contributed significantly to financing and technical equipment of the Shuttle mission. This version was originally supposed to appear in 1993 on CD- ROM and floppy, missed its " Milestones" but several times.
• After the departure of Brian Moriarty Hal Barwood took over the second version and tried to save some changes, but had little success, so finally Sean Clark took over the project and in 1995 the well-known third version could be published.

The last development team consisted of:

• Design: Sean Clark, Steven Spielberg
• Programming: Gary Brubaker, Livia Mackin, Jonathan Ackley, Mark Crowley, Sean Clark
• Graphics / Animation: William Tiller, Bill Eaken
• Dialogues: Orson Scott Card, Sean Clark
• Music: Michael Land ( parts in the original by Richard Wagner)
• Effects: Clint Bajakian

As the game originally contained four main characters, the cover graphics of the game initially showed four astronauts. One of them was later retouched to match the cover of the finally published version of the game, which contains only three main characters. This was for the cover of the novel and the audiobook also available but to forget: There are still seen four astronauts.

Publications

The game was released in 1995 for MS- DOS and Mac OS. Later, a port to Windows in a limited edition took place. Since July 2009 the game via the Steam platform for operating systems from Windows XP is available. Furthermore, the stock is supported by the interpreter software ScummVM.

For the German marketing of The Dig is committed known German voices. So Christian Rode says the Commander Boston Low, while Franziska Pigulla (including Gillian Anderson in The X-Files ) lends her voice Maggie Robbins.

For the history of the game is a novel written by Alan Dean Foster.

Soundtrack

The original soundtrack of 11 songs from Michael Land was published in 1996 Angel Records as an audio CD, this was also a playable demo of the game. Can be described as a mixture of Wagner Preludes and Ambient Music The style of OSt.

Press

Reviews in game magazines

• Gamestar 03/ 98 76 %
• PC Games 01/ 96 89 %
• PC Joker 01/ 96 74 %
• PC Player 01/ 96 86 %
• PC Power 01/ 96 90 %
• Power Play 02/ 96 85 %

Awards from gaming magazines

• PC Games Award, PC Games 01/ 96
• Platinum Award, PC Power 01/ 96
• Voted, Power Play 02/ 96