Dig Dug Mechanics Help ..

Hello everybody, I am not quite new to game development, but now I decided to create a different game and develop my methods of learning… I was watching old arcade games and I decided to try and make one similar to Dig Dug … I would like to know how they get that feeling, I mean it doesn’t look tile based game, or am I wrong… Hope you’ll understood what I am trying to explain…

Dig Dug Youtube Link-> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrvmDJxq86I

Dig Dug is a 1982 game, so its internal code is probably something like Z80 assembly using tricks of the hardware it would be hardwired into. Makes Java4k look extravagant, and doesn’t leave a lot of room for abstraction. That game had a lot of very subtle strategies, like leaving thin walls that monsters couldn’t walk through but you could pump through if the monster was on the immediate other side of it. That was probably a bug, left in because it made the game more interesting. Stuff like that is what you’d have to replicate if you wanted to clone the game.

You could still make your version tile-based with a fine grid you position NxN larger tiles such as the monsters, the hero, rocks, and of course, passages, and allow them to overlap (where the hero of course dies if overlap occurs with a monster).

Thanks for the info… Guess I’ll just do as you suggested, since I can’t find another simple way… :wink: