History VideoGame / TheDig1995

* ICantUseTheseThingsTogether: {{Trope Namer|s}}.

* ActorAllusion: Boston Low: "Have you seen this boy?" Delivered absolutely perfectly by Robert Patrick, who played the T-1000 in [[Film/{{Terminator}} Terminator 2]].
* AlienGeometries: Judging from their architecture and machinery design, the Cocytans are very fond of the 5 Platonic solids, see SinisterGeometry below.

* PixelHunt: The programmers went out of their way to make the game pretty. They were decidedly lax on making it obvious which parts were objects that can be interacted with.

* HeyItsThatVoice: Low is [[{{Terminator}} Robert]] [[TheXFiles Patrick]], and Dr. Brink is Creator/SteveBlum.

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

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

* HeyItsThatVoice: Low is [[{{Terminator}} Robert]] [[TheXFiles Patrick]], and Dr. Brink is StevenBlum.

* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:Brink (though he only technically became a villain as he became further insane) before his revival]]

* [[spoiler: TimeTravel: How Brink and Maggie are eventually saved.]]

* 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...]]

* CallASmeerpARabbit: We have "rats", "turtles", "dogs", "birds", "bats", "spiders". Low even {{lampshade|Hanging}}s it by remarking how the bats on Cocytus have evolved to be just as disgusting as the bats on Earth.

** One of the earlier versions that never got released averted this ''hard''. 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.

There is a novelization, written by AlanDeanFoster, which was included in the box with some releases of the game. However, if you're getting the game these days, 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 {{Steam}}.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: The first time you hail Cora during the shuttle mission:
--> '''Cora:''' Yeah, yeah, Boston, I'm on you.
--> '''Cora and Boston''' (together): You ''wish''... in your ''dreams''. (''They laugh'')
** Helps establish that these two astronauts know each other ''very'' well, but not in that way.

* BlondGuysAreEvil: Brink, contrasting with the dark-haired Low.

[[quoteright:280:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/The_Dig_artwork_4692.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:285:This can't be good.]]

''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 other wackier adventure games by [=LucasArts=], this one had a much more serious tone, in addition to fitting in the "Hard" category of the MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

''The Dig'' is a ScienceFiction graphical AdventureGame developed by LucasArts, released in 1995 and based on an idea originally pitched by Creator/StevenSpielberg. Unlike other wackier adventure games by LucasArts, this one had a much more serious tone, in addition to fitting in the "Hard" category of the MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

There is a novelization, written by AlanDeanFoster, which was included in the box with some releases of the game. However, if you're getting the game these days, 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 {{Steam}}.

* DroneJam: "Robbins: never mind."

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

''The Dig'' is a ScienceFiction graphical AdventureGame developed by LucasArts, released in 1995 and based on an idea originally pitched by StevenSpielberg. Unlike other wackier adventure games by LucasArts, this one had a much more serious tone, in addition to fitting in the "Hard" category of the MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

There is a novelization, written by AlanDeanFoster, which was included in the box with some releases of the game. However, if you're getting the game these days, 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 {{Steam}}.

* ColonyDrop: The threat of this provides the initial CallToAdventure for the story. The novelization gives more information about it but leaves unanswered the question of whether the asteroid really would have hit Earth if nobody had come up to stop it. One assumes it simply moves on to the next likely planet; otherwise the Cocytans are [[InferredHolocaust implied genocidal mass murderers]] on a galactic scale.

* EldritchAbomination: The giant "spiders".

* HumansAreBastards: Played with. The Cocytans invite humans to come visit and study. Maggie warns the Cocytans that not all humans are as nice as them. The Cocytans just laugh it off, saying all young species are like that and if any human tries to pick a fight they can just squash them like bugs.

* NoBiochemicalBarriers: Averted with regards to food, as the humans debate and ultimately decide against trying to eat any of the plant or animal life they encounter. Fortunately (or not), starvation ends up being the least of their worries, although [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the game was originally supposed to have an additional survival mechanic where the player would have to keep searching for food to stay alive]]. The life crystals, on the other hand, are [[JustifiedTrope explicitly stated]] to work on almost any organic -- and some inorganic -- systems.

* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong

** One of the earlier versions that never got released averted this ''hard''. 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. [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel He broke through into the acid pool below, thrashed his way to the other side while]] ''[[HighOctaneNightmareFuel literally melting to death]]'', [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel 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.

* PixelHunt: The programmers went out of their way to make the game pretty. They were decidedly lax on making it obvious wich parts were objects.

* RecycledSet: Several of the cave locations reuse locations from the caves you wander in the darkness through in {{Loom}} down to the last ledge and stalagmite, just with a graphical update and in a different order.