Though DIG VR is heavily focused on excavation, this upcoming sim has a fun and entertaining arcade side that’s worth exploring on your Quest, and we gave it a go once again.
Announced back in April, DIG VR from Just Add Water and Wired Productions appears to be a power-digging version of PowerWash Simulator VR. You start with a mini digger and various attachments before unlocking more to excavate different parts of Digglington. Following the previous trailer for the UploadVR Summer Showcase, we had our second test drive of it on the Quest 3.
I tried out DIG VR previously at GDC 2024, playing the tutorial and the first area of the campaign. The presentation is clearly polished, and I also tested the thumbstick controls: pressing in the left and right sticks at the same time switches between vehicle and arm movement. It’s a good alternative, but I prefer the physical feel of full-motion control.
Otherwise, the tutorial section was similar to the previous demo, as expected, and didn’t change much from the previous impressions. See below for more details. It also detailed the motion control scheme, in-game music options, difficulty settings, and core gameplay.
DIG VR is like a power-digging PowerWash simulator
DIG VR is like a PowerWash Simulator for excavation, and it’s coming to Quest soon.
My latest preview focuses on things we haven’t been able to explore before, such as the Sandbox mode, which allows you to explore the game’s additional tools. The play space is not very large, so it takes a little time to move around. It’s not a problem, since DIG VR is not an experience that requires a huge area, but it would be nice if we could generate objects.
Just Add Water’s mini-games take original approaches to familiar activities and work surprisingly well. Bowling, for example, is based on a silly yet entertaining premise in which you attach a bowling ball to a string and swing it back and forth to hit various pins at the end of the lane. It’s a fresh and fun take on a familiar sport, but I struggled at first to judge the motion control movements required to give the ball momentum.
The other two mini-games are similarly silly. In “Billy’s Ball Pit,” you scoop blue balls out of the pit before the time is up, and the more you grab smaller balls, the more points you’ll earn. Catching the smaller balls is a bit fiddly, but rewarding when you succeed. Picking up red balls incurs a penalty, so it requires some skill.
My favorite is “High-Noon Hook A Duck,” set in a western-themed town. You have to catch 20 ducks using a magnet, but only ducks wearing cowboy hats count, and you have to drop them into a barrel without using the excavator bucket. It’s pretty funny to see the excavator used for a carnival game, the ducks aren’t too hard to catch, and there’s an online leaderboard, so I expect it will be pretty competitive when it launches.
Finally, I also tried out the “Lost Treasures” mode, which is basically a treasure hunt. The digger’s bucket acts like a detector, beeping louder and more frequently as he gets closer to a buried treasure chest. The problem is that some of the chests contain trash, so there’s no guarantee you’ll actually find treasure. It’s a fun idea that neatly plays on DIG VR’s carnival game approach to side content.
Besides the core campaign, DIG VR’s mini-games show that the game doesn’t take itself too seriously, in a good way. It’s a fun game that strikes a balance between light simulators like PowerWash Simulator VR and those looking for arcade fun. An exact release date is not available yet, but for now, Just Add Water seems to be on to a winning formula.
DIG VR will be coming to the Meta Quest platform this year.
