In horror manga artist Junji Ito's The Enigma of Amigara Fault, people from around the world are drawn to mysterious human-shaped holes that appear on a fictional Japanese mountain. Each visitor claims there is a hole made just for them – calling out, almost – and one by one they disappear into their own claustrophobic hell. But let me tell you something: if I were to turn up to that mountainside, I would simply be immune to the supernatural allure of my own stony silhouette.
That's because the perfect hole isn't one that's been made specifically for me. In this instance, the journey really does beat the destination – the perfect hole is the one you dig yourself. Or, in my case, the one I spend every day resisting the urge to create. When my two-year-old husky digs in the garden, a possessed look in his eye, part of me bellows for him to stop and another, secret part of me craves to join him in the dirt. Digging rules. Holes rule. A Game About Digging A Hole, which is a short indie game about digging a hole, rules.
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A Game About Digging A Hole begins with the player buying a puny, surface-level home. The home doesn't really matter. What matters are the rumors of buried treasure in its garden, and wouldn't you know it, you've brought a shovel! Somewhere down there is a wealth of riches (supposedly), and that's all you know – and frankly, need to know – before getting to work.
There's a mischievous joy, like eating someone else's chocolate, in taking your first scoop of dirt out of the pristine lawn. Unearthed soil handily disappears – sorry, Realism Mode Diggers – but you do have to manage your battery, used up by digging, and your health, which tends to go down by falling into the product of said digging.
Learning nothing from Minecraft, I opted to dig directly down before realizing that I had no way of climbing back out. In this instance I had enough battery left to corkscrew-dig my way back up, but if you run out, you're teleported back to the garden without any of the stone or precious metals you may have found. These natural treasures can be sold in your garage, while the profit is used to heal, recharge your battery, and upgrade gear. That includes fairly grounded things like a larger battery size, extra inventory slots, and a wider digging radius for your shovel. But it can also be used to buy a jetpack – crucial for getting out of deeper holes despite it greedily sucking up your battery – along with single-use lamps and dynamite.
As the materials you find become steadily more valuable (and upgrades predictably pricier), A Game About Digging A Hole settles into a fairly straightforward formula. Dig as far down as you can, leaving just enough of your battery to jetpack back to the surface, then sell your goodies and spend cash before delving into the ground once more.
I'm a goblin in human flesh, so this is all I need to feel alive. My only hang-up is having to buy lamps, which make sure I can see what I'm doing when my hole spirals so deep I can no longer see the sky. I couldn't tell you why spending money on light irritates me so much – perhaps it's because gloom feels like an essential part of the subterranean experience – but even my long-professed love of the underground isn't enough to work in total darkness. Curse you, sun-spoiled eyes.
At this point, you know all there is to know about A Game About Digging A Hole aside from one little thing – the small matter of treasure – and that's not for me to spoil. If you're anything like me, you'll find minute satisfaction in every plunge of your shovel, the mere thought of turning a minor pothole into a cavern of Moria-esque proportions will feel like biting into forbidden fruit. A Game About Digging A Hole's Steam page is filled with positive reviews from people who Just Get It, with praise varying from "a religious experience" to those grappling with an awakened "primal instinct" to dig.
The game itself is short – don't expect more than an hour or two of play – but as the internet has become fond of saying, at $3.99 it costs less than a cup of coffee (how much are you all paying for coffee?) and delivers everything it promises. Having recently dug the foundations for a patio, I can also promise that it's much easier than the real thing. More importantly, it captures the same sense of playing god, of making the very ground we walk upon your own, and carving out your own domain beneath the dirt, and… look, maybe my dog is onto something, alright?
A Game About Digging A Hole is out now on PC. Here are the upcoming indie games of 2025 we're most excited for.
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