This $5 Steam game about digging a hole has consumed my life

Over the weekend, I went out to a bar for a friend’s surprise birthday party. When I greeted him, he told me that the event had interrupted his other plans for the evening: digging a hole. He went on to tell me about a new $5 Steam game called A Game About Digging a Hole, in which players dig a hole. I could not tell if he was joking or if this was a real thing that existed. I laughed it off and went on with the night.

Days later, I was so focused on my Steam Deck screen that I missed my subway stop and showed up late to a movie screening.

A Game About Digging a Hole is one of those games whose appeal is nearly impossible to describe. It’s in the same niche tent as Powerwash Simulator, taking a mundane premise and turning it into something hypnotic. I don’t even know if it’s something I should be formally recommending, as it’s best discovered by accident and bought on a curious whim. Just pretend I’m relaying everything I’m about to write to you in the back corner of a bar between drinks.

If you can read the game’s title, you have most of the premise down. Some fast story setup tells me that my character has bought a new house for dirt cheap, and it came with a bonus: There’s treasure buried in the backyard. With a battery-powered trowel in hand, I begin digging into a small patch of grass outside. My holes are shallow at first, only deep enough to uncover stones. I can take those rocks to my computer and sell them, netting me cash that can be used to upgrade my gear. I can get a bigger shovel, increase my inventory, get a bigger battery, and eventually pick up a jetpack. Cash can also be spent to top off my battery (which explodes when it hits zero) and health, as well as buy TNT and lamps — useful tools once I get deeper.

What quickly emerges is a deconstruction of Steamworld Dig, where I need to keep digging for rare rocks, selling them, and incrementally growing my toolset. It’s almost like an idle clicker game in progression structure, but with a shovel instead of a mouse. Within an hour, I’ve dug an enormous, messy hole in the backyard and begun finding more valuable materials like silver to sell.

Whether inadvertent or intentional, developer Cyberwave finds surprising depth in minimalism. Digging becomes a complicated engineering puzzle that requires strong spatial awareness. Before I get my jetpack, I need to dig carefully so as to make sure I can climb out of the hole if I get too deep. I start making stair step footholds to achieve that, though I need to maintain it while I expand the hole. As I get deeper, I begin forming tunnels in the dirt as opposed to simply digging straight down. That’s dangerous, as it sends me through dark spaces that are easy to get lost in. I’m almost creating my own liminal space akin to The Backrooms — a maze of claustrophobic dirt paths that would trigger someone’s trypophobia. It’s not a horror game by any stretch, but you can trick yourself into seeing it as one.

More than anything, though, A Game About Digging a Hole simply taps into a simple joy. There is something primal about sitting in a sandbox as a kid and feeling compelled to dig. I don’t know what makes it such an engrossing act. Maybe it’s just the possibility that I’ll discover something down there, a possibility instilled in me from years of marveling over dinosaur bones as a kid. My humble mission here makes me feel like I’m on an excavation mission, with the promise of a big discovery dangled in front of me.

Is there really something worth find under all that dirt? I wouldn’t dare spoil that for you. Pick up a shovel and find out for yourself.

A Game About Digging a Hole is available now on PC.