History VideoGame / TheDig1995

* BittersweetEnding: Depending on the choices you make. The best ending baits the player with this before flipping it over to HappilyEverAfter... allegedly. However, the fact that the player does NOT have any life crystals to spare is a pretty major plot point, and the game is coded to prevent you from yanking the two crystals that you DO have out of the machine after Maggie's death, so accessing this alternate ending requires a bit of extra effort. [[spoiler:The trick is to get two extra crystals right after Brink dies by reactivating the machine.]]

* MiniGame: The PDA has a very simple orbital lander minigame. Brink even comments as you play, such as claiming "the button was stuck" if you screw up.

A novelization by Creator/AlanDeanFoster, was included in the box with some releases of the game. If you're getting the game these days, however, it's more likely that you'll be getting the game without a box of any kind, since today it is sold by [=LucasArts=] on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. (The GOG.com DRM-free version, though, includes the manual.) The game, however, had dialogue written by well-known sf writer Creator/OrsonScottCard and by designer-director Sean Clark. Card also developed detailed backstories for the main characters, which appeared in Foster's novelization.

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: First averted, later TranslationConvention is used and then played straight.

* AlmostDeadGuy: [[spoiler:The Cocytan scientist is so ancient that the life crystals are losing effectiveness and he can only remain "alive" for minutes at a time before "dying" again. Until the crystals lose all effectiveness and he dies for real.]]

* BittersweetEnding: Depending on the choices you make. The best ending baits the player with this before flipping it over to HappilyEverAfter... allegedly. However, the fact that the player does NOT have any life crystals to spare is a pretty major plot point, and the game is coded to prevent you from yanking the two crystals that you DO have out of the machine after Maggie's death, so accessing this alternate ending would require a bit of extra effort. [[spoiler: the trick is to get two extra crystals right after Brink dies by reactivating the machine.]]

-->'''Maggie (before):''' This is the greatest story of my life. The only trouble is, I have no way of telling it to anybody.
-->'''Maggie (after):''' Adios, ciao, sayonara, auf Wiedersehen.
* BrokenAesop: [[spoiler:The story emphasizes the importance of death and how it can’t be abolished. Then in the final minutes, your new Cocytan friend's idea of a thank-you gift is to bring your two dead friends back to life with no consequences through Space Time Six. Downplayed as the Cocytan experiences regret over creating the life crystals.]]

* LateToTheTragedy: The Earth astronauts missed the Cocytans by a undefined length of time that's stated to be at least a few million years, and they are far from the first to judge by the collection of abandoned rusting spacecraft they encounter.

* MiniGame: The PDA has a very simple orbital lander minigame.

* MultipleEndings: The game has a few extra scenes in the end depending on whether or not [[spoiler:you choose to revive Maggie with a life crystal]]. However, the fact that the player does NOT have any life crystals to spare at the end is a pretty major plot point, and the game is coded to prevent you from yanking the two crystals that you DO have out of the machine after Maggie's death, so accessing this alternate ending requires a bit of extra effort and foreknowledge.

** Also played straight with Cocytus' atmosphere, although the humans first use their suits to check if the atmosphere is breathable, concluding that it's "at least as breathable as the air in L.A." Low also mentions the possibility of airborne infectious agents, but Brink shrugs it off by assuming that they haven't evolved to take advantage of their cellular structures.

* OutOfContinues: Implied; the Alien Inventor exposits that the life crystals can't be used an infinite amount of times, and their effect wears off gradually with each use, until they fail to resurrect the target at all. This is never actually seen in the game proper, however.

* WhatTheHellHero: [[spoiler:After seeing the [[CameBackWrong effects of the life crystals]], Maggie tells Low not to use one on her if she dies. After she's killed reactivating the Eye, you can use one to bring her back to life, but she commits suicide to stay dead. Later, when the Cocytans bring her back properly, she slaps Low in the face.]]

* AlienSky: The planet's two suns and two moons. [[spoiler:One puzzle requires Low to manipulate the moons' positions to create an eclipse. That is, changing their positions in a "planetarium" room moves the ''actual moons''.]]

The game starts when an asteroid appears, seemingly out of nowhere, on a [[ColonyDrop collision course]] with Earth. NASA sends a shuttle mission to the asteroid to plant nuclear charges in the hopes of deflecting it into a more stable orbit. The mission is an apparent success, but on a standard EVA to survey the "new moon", the astronauts discover that in reality, the asteroid is an artifact manufactured by intelligent beings, and inadvertently activate a device that transforms it into a starship, [[FasterThanLightTravel whisking them off to a distant star system in the blink of an eye]].

The three astronauts who make the journey: TheStoic Commander Boston Low (Creator/RobertPatrick), OmnidisciplinaryScientist Dr. Ludger Brink (Creator/SteveBlum) and [[IntrepidReporter Investigative Journalist]] Maggie Robbins (Mari Weiss), find themselves on an alien planet, littered with the ruins of an ancient civilization, with no apparent way to get back home. They must find a way to survive both the hostile alien environment and their own interpersonal conflicts while searching for a clue to the fate of the planet's original inhabitants.

* AlienSky: The planet's two suns and two moons. [[spoiler:One puzzle requires to manipulate the moons' positions to create an eclipse.]]

* BeautifulVoid: The six-dimension space is described as this: beautiful, but empty of life.

** One of the earlier versions that never got released averted this. Instead of the first death among the astronaut crew being [[spoiler:Brink falling down a hole and bloodlessly breaking his neck]], it happened when a Japanese astronaut tried to cross the hard, encrusted top layer of a suspiciously steaming lake. He broke through into the acid pool below, thrashed his way to the other side while ''literally melting to death'', and ended up a bloody skeleton on the other side of the acid lake. In full view of the other [[WhatCouldHaveBeen three]] astronauts. Naturally, this was the version that introduced the HandInTheHole puzzle.

** Also subverted when Robbins asks [[spoiler:the Cocytan scientist]] if there are more of the giant spider creatures around. [[spoiler:He replies with the evasive "There are as many as there needs to be," which seems like it's implying that there are more, but the heroes never see any others.]]

* InformedAbility: Despite being repeatedly mentioned as a former soldier and thus the most physically proficient member of the team, Commander Low is twice bested in a fight by [[spoiler:Brink, a scientist and who probably hasn't been in a fight since kindergarten.]] The second time is even more inexplicable as [[spoiler: Brink]] manages to blindside Low immediately after declaring that he is going to kill him. ''Twice.''

''The Dig'' is a ScienceFiction graphical AdventureGame developed by Creator/LucasArts, released in 1995 and based on an idea originally pitched by Creator/StevenSpielberg. Unlike [[VideoGame/MonkeyIsland other]] [[VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle wackier]] [[VideoGame/SamAndMaxHitTheRoad adventure]] [[VideoGame/GrimFandango games]] by [=LucasArts=], this one has a much more serious tone, in addition to fitting in the hard category of the MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

* GoryDiscretionShot: The camera cuts away right when Low starts to [[spoiler:saw off Brink's [[HandInTheHole trapped wrist]].]]

A novelization by Creator/AlanDeanFoster, was included in the box with some releases of the game. If you're getting the game these days, however, it's more likely that you'll be getting the game without a box of any kind, since today it is sold by [=LucasArts=] on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. (The GOG.com DRM-free version, though, includes the manual.) The game, however, had dialogue written by well-known sf writer Creator/OrsonScottCard and by designer-director Sean Clark. Card also developed detailed backstories for the main characters, which appeared in Foster's novelizatoin.

* BrokenAesop: [[spoiler:The story clubs you over the head from two different angles with the message, "'''Abolishing death is a bad thing, m'kay?'''"... Then in the final minutes, your new Cocytan friend's idea of a thank-you gift is to bring your two dead friends back to life with no consequences by mucking around in the extra dimensions of time. You ''almost'' carried the baton all the way, game...]]
** Except that's not really the aesop that it was going for. It was more like "we found a way to bring the dead back to life, but they turn into zombie crackheads". And then a different way of bringing them back to life is found, which does ''not'' result in crackhead zombie syndrome, so it's all cool.

* DevelopersForesight: There's nearly always some response for using the life crystals on various bones and even electronic equipment, even if it doesn't affect the plot.

* FantasticDrug: [[spoiler:The life crystals, in a way. They make you feel so good you become addicted to them.]]

* GuideDangIt: The goddamn planetarium, among a few other spots.

* InformingTheFourthWall: Former {{Trope Namer}}s, the main character continually talks to himself about various objects and locations, which is really only aimed at the player.

* MiniGame: "The Eagle has landed!" The PDA has a very simple orbital lander minigame. Well, at least it justifies the PDA being a PDA, not just a portable videophone.

* SceneryPorn: And how! Entire gorgeous multi-screen rooms filled with... a door... or maybe that little stick that you have to pick up. And nothing else that you can even examine. But very pretty visuals nonetheless.

* BaitAndSwitchSilhouette: Boston Low walks through a tunnel. The swim is shown from his point of view and at one point, he sees what appears to be a man's shadow. Then he rounds the corner and sees that the shadow was of a pair of rocks that happened to form a man's silhouette.

* BaitAndSwitchSilhouette: Boston Low swims through a tunnel. The swim is shown from his point of view and at one point, he sees what appears to be a man's shadow. Then he rounds the corner and sees that the shadow was of a pair of rocks that happened to form a man's silhouette.

* AlienGeometries: Judging from their architecture and machinery design, the Cocytans are very fond of the five Platonic solids; see SinisterGeometry below.

* StarfishAliens: They're griffins. Space griffins. They look only vaguely humanoid.

* MultipleEndings: The game has a few extra scenes in the end depending on whether or not [[spoiler:you choose to revive Maggie with a life crystal]]... allegedly. However, the fact that the player does NOT have any life crystals to spare at the end is a pretty major plot point, and the game is coded to prevent you from yanking the two crystals that you DO have out of the machine after Maggie's death, so accessing this alternate ending would require a bit of extra effort, if not outright hacking.

* EarnYourBadEnding: The fact that the player does NOT have any life crystals to spare at the end is a pretty major plot point, and the game is coded to prevent you from yanking the two crystals that you DO have out of the machine after Maggie's death, so accessing this alternate ending would require not just a bit of extra effort, but possibly outright hacking.

%%* BeautifulVoid

%%* EldritchAbomination: The giant "spiders".

%%* FishOutOfWater: Guess who?

%%* GhostPlanet
%%* GoneHorriblyRight: What happened to the Cocytans.

%%* InformingTheFourthWall: Former {{Trope Namer}}s

%%* InsufferableGenius: Brink, even before [[spoiler:he goes crazy]].
%%* IntrepidReporter: Maggie Robbins.

%%* MiniGame: "The Eagle has landed!" Well, at least it justifies the PDA being a PDA, not just a portable videophone.
%%* MrExposition: [[spoiler:The Cocytan scientist.]]

%%* PlotlineDeath: [[spoiler:Brink (twice), later Maggie]].

%%* StarfishAliens: They're griffins. Space griffins.

%%* SufficientlyAdvancedAliens: The Cocytans, of course.

%%* WhoWantsToLiveForever

* BittersweetEnding: Depending on the choices you make. The best ending baits the player with this before flipping it over to HappilyEverAfter... allegedly. However, the fact that the player does NOT have any life crystals to spare is a pretty major plot point, and the game is coded to prevent you from yanking the two crystals that you DO have out of the machine after Maggie's death, so accessing this alternate ending would require a bit of extra effort, if not outright hacking.

The three astronauts who make the journey: TheStoic Commander Boston Low (Creator/RobertPatrick), OmnidisciplinaryScientist Dr. Ludger Brink and [[IntrepidReporter Investigative Journalist]] Maggie Robbins, find themselves on an alien planet, littered with the ruins of an ancient civilization, with no apparent way to get back home. They must find a way to survive both the hostile alien environment and their own interpersonal conflicts while searching for a clue to the fate of the planet's original inhabitants.

The three astronauts who make the journey: TheStoic Commander Boston Low, OmnidisciplinaryScientist Dr. Ludger Brink and [[IntrepidReporter Investigative Journalist]] Maggie Robbins, find themselves on an alien planet, littered with the ruins of an ancient civilization, with no apparent way to get back home. They must find a way to survive both the hostile alien environment and their own interpersonal conflicts while searching for a clue to the fate of the planet's original inhabitants.

* InformedAbility: Despite being repeatedly mentioned as a former soldier and thus the most physically proficient member of the team, Commander Low is once bested in a fight by [[spoiler:Brink, a scientist and who probably hasn't been in a fight since kindergarten.]] Later, Low evens the score.