ARCADE GAME SERIES: DIG DUG
21 Achievements
2-3h
Rambler
Dig 1000 spaces! (1 space is the same size as 1 character)
1.5%
How to unlock the Rambler achievement in ARCADE GAME SERIES: DIG DUG - Definitive Guide
The game grid's spaces is 14 columns wide and 15 rows deep. This means that, on a full grid with no tunnels, you'd get a maximum of 210 spaces per level. Obviously there are tunnels.
You will need to be a pretty good player at this, so I recommend trying to get down to two enemies on each level quickly, and then trying to dig as much of the play area out as possible. This is a very hard achievement, but can be done!
Other advice is if you try and leave the small 'passages' that the enemies spawn in at the start of the game unbroken (i.e. you don't go into them), if the enemies start coming towards you through the walls, you can get them to re-appear in the caverns, trapping them for a few seconds as you dig through more blocks before they start to go through the dirt again.
Another idea is that every second column or row, you do long straight passages, so that they will always be a good tunnel away from you and can't really phase through directly towards you, their 'ghost phasing' will always get them to reappear and stop them from phasing again for a few seconds.
Another tip is that if you only have one enemy following you, and there's another enemy in the round, just keep pumping the enemy following you up to its maximum size before popping, then digging a few more spaces. This will get you much needed extra squares towards your count! When you have both enemies following you, just pump one up a few pumps, turn away quickly to break the grip of the harpoon, then turn back to hit the other enemy with your harpoon, and make him pop as the first enemy deflates. When the second enemy is dead, hit the first again, and kill him, OR, if he starts to evacuate immediately, go and dig any remaining squares you can whilst he evacuates.
Remember, you can set your lives to 5 in the settings before you start the game.
For anyone wondering, I tried to clear as much as possible of each round, and the achievement popped for me in Round 7.
This must be done in one game, it is not cumulative! As far as actual play suggestions (rather than just how to manipulate your saves), I would start by killing all but 2 Pookas. While digging you do NOT want to clear the board in a methodical pattern. That will connect a lot of tunnels together. What works a lot better is to try to avoid connecting tunnels whenever possible, going back and forth and staying within an uncleared section. This will really mess with the enemies pathing. Of course there will be times you have to bust through your walls in order to escape, and this will unavoidably connect your tunnels. You can also slow the enemies down if they are chasing you down by quickly turning around and pumping them up. You can do up to 3 pumps if you have time, and the more, the longer it will stop them for. This will even work if both enemies are following you, although you will spend most of your time pumping and will not have much time to dig. When running away, you will also make better speed in a tunnel that has already been dug and the best speed of all on the surface.
Play the game until you feel like you've made a good amount of progress towards the achievement. Then save and quit and follow the directions below to get a reusable checkpoint. Then keep playing from your checkpoint and try to get a little further and make a new checkpoint. If you mess up, or aren't doing as well as you would like, restore your previous checkpoint and try again. N.B. Your achievement will not actually pop until you go back online.
Personally I cleared each level completely, then saved my progress. It's a personal choice of how much risk vs hassle you want to put up with. You can save your progress after every level. You can even save it every level. You don't need to restart each time you die, you could allow yourself one death every level if you like.
NB: Going offline is optional, it provides a little bit of extra insurance against a fast sync as well as against operator error. You can just delete your local copy of the save whenever you want to restore your checkpoint. There is a very small chance it will synchronize your save while you are playing. Also if you are online you will have the ability to delete your save from the cloud as well (which you definitely do not want to do).
To “back up” a new checkpoint.
1) Go online if you are offline.
2) Save and quit.
3) Quit the game (hit xbox button, then menu/hamburger button and select quit)
4) Wait a while for it to synch up to the cloud (I would give it 10 to 15 minutes).
5) Load the game.
6) Go offline (OPTIONAL- If you are sharing your content via swapping home xboxes, you should still be able to play for a certain amount of time even offline, as long as you launch it first. Since the levels in the arcade collection are all pretty short, you should either be at the point where you are ready to go online again in just a few minutes.)
7) Continue to play
To restore your checkpoint
1) Xbox button then menu/hamburger and select manage game.
2) Go to the saved data for your gamertag and hit A, then select “DELETE FROM CONSOLE”. DO NOT SELECT “DELETE EVERYWHERE”.
3) Go online again (OPTIONAL).
4) Load the game and after the launch screens it will sync your save from the cloud.
5) Once it does this, go offline again, and give it another shot.
To go offline
1) Settings
2) All Settings
3) Network
4) Network settings
5) Go offline
To go online
1) Open sidebar
2) Go to settings section
3) Select connect to xbox live
4) Go online
EDIT: It unlocked! I guess there was a delay. Thank you so much! Positive vote from me!
This can be exploited by saving the game and backing your data up to the cloud storage (It's in settings in application save data).
Do a level or two, digging as many spaces as possible, then save and quit.
Upload your data and continue with the game.
Save your lives at the start for the later levels. You don't want to die a lot on the easy levels.
If you die you can just quit and download your game progress from the cloud, similar to how you uploaded your progress.
This trophy should be earned in tandem with killing 100 enemies.
Note: You can increase your lives to 5 in settings to make this easier
This trophy is not cumulative, which means you must do it in one playthrough. Use the tips from the Dig trophy to your advantage, though this time you need to hang on to your lives as much as possible. Make use of the Cloud/USB save method/exploit to make this easier (detailed at the beginning of this guide) this way after you clear a lot of the map, the vast majority of it at any rate, then backup your save. You can then resume from that point if it all goes wrong. The map is 14x15 in size so it's possible to dig 210 blocks if you totally clear a level. Just try to clear as much as possible especially in the early easier levels, use the cloud save method if needed and you should pop this trophy by level 6-8. Be sure to alter the game settings so that you start with 5 lives as this will make this trophy easier. You will receive 10 points for every square cleared so you can get a rough idea of your progress towards this trophy by monitoring your points. This is difficult as you will receive points for killing enemies adding to your score so it's 10 points for every square and you need 100 squares cleared for the trophy, which makes 10,000 points. Thanks to Tiberius for the points tip.
1. For each full-fledged dug-out block they give 10 points, for thin residual jumpers no points are given, and hence two important consequences, which are written in paragraphs 2-3.
2. Your statistics for dug up blocks will be points, i.e. 1,000 blocks × for 10 points and we get 10,000, it is with this number of points that the trophy should fall out, but remember that killed enemies and vegetables also give points - we subtract them in our minds.
3. We dig full-fledged land for which we give 10 points, do not dig “residual” jumpers.
4. Tactics, we dig the first level almost 100%, the second by 90%, the third and fourth by 80% with a penny, the fifth up to 70%, and on round 6, dig as much as you can, if you did everything as I recommended, It is in the 6th round - at about 25,000 - that the trophy will drop. I advise you to follow exactly my tactics, the enemies will become more impudent with each round and you will practically not be able to dig normally after the 6th round.
5. Everything that I wrote must be done against the background of regular “save and exit” and copying the save, otherwise everything can end quickly and disastrously.