I Am Busy Digging A Hole

Alright. I Am Busy Digging A Hole is done and dusted. This is an A Game About Digging A Hole-like. One of a few to release lately following the success of said game. And interestingly enough, some of 'I AM Busy Digging A Hole' is ripped straight from the OG. From the sales computer to the upgrade screen, and even the backyard, albeit with some small differences with regards to the backyard and the upgrade room. It seems obvious that both games were made using the same asset packs. Anyway, it's more or less the same game. In some ways more, in some ways less.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3522088665

I actually like this digging sandbox a bit more. The space available to dig is a bit more focused and a result, it just kind of makes more sense. And the yard itself has a bit more of a lived-in feel, inasmuch as it has things you might expect from a home built by actual humans rather than evil moles. Such as a (non-interactable) swimming pool. And patio furniture.

The digging itself, which is the core of this new genre of games, is less than. At least during what I'd call the first stage. Actually, let's dive into the stages first. There are two. Basically, you need to complete the game once, after which, you are challenged to do better, and the second stage (playthrough) begins. In practice however, you just do the same thing, but the digging world takes on a more horror-esque vibe. It's not horror, but the names of the stones go from, say 'Diamonds', to 'Abyssal Stones'. Normal stones become 'Void Stones'. That sort of thing. And the actual lighting is muted a bit. Which gives you a bit of a different look for what is otherwise the exact same experience played a second time.

Okay. Back to the digging. In the first stage, digging is subpar and feels laborious. You can upgrade your shovel, energy, backpack, and jetpack same as with 'AGADAH'. But you can upgrade each only four times, and the shovel in particular never really gets a fun jump in digging power. Easily two thirds of your total playtime if you finish this game will be spent in the first stage, slowly digging your way to the bottom of your digging space, after which you will slowly spend the rest of your time trying to find whatever secret might be found down there. The pacing here is not good. I would imagine it will literally sap the will to continue from a lot of players. Especially when coupled with the relatively low power for your shovel and small backpack space even when fully upgraded, which requires that you abandon digging on the regular in order to sell everything and top off your energy.

The second stage however picks up the pace and gives you actual proper upgrades for your gear. And while the cost of each is greater, so too is the value of the stones you dig up. The second stage was a lot more fun than the first stage. You can't Hoover soil like you could in "AGADAH', but the digging is still super-fast when the shovel is full upgraded in stage two, and your energy bank has enough juice to where you can actually make decent progress between recharge intervals. Your backpack when fully upgraded holds enough stones to also reduce your necessary trips back to the surface.

You do also have dynamite and lanterns, which is to be expected. What wasn't expected though is that dynamite is completely useless in this game. There is only one reason to have it, actually. As you dig far enough down, there will be times when it looks like you have dug into water. I don't know if that is intended or is a visual glitch, but you can still keep digging under it. However, it prevents you from seeing under it. The only way to remove this visual impediment is by dropping dynamite on it. And that is the singular use for dynamite in this game. Lanterns OTOH, while not essential due to the game's ambient lighting, do make seeing things much easier still.

Another oversight is that, while topping off your energy is supposed to cost between one and four bucks depending on how energy you are refilling, in practice, it always costs one dollar. That's probably a coding error.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3521658962

You do have one other goal while digging, which is to unearth cute little dragons who, once revealed, will hang out in your yard (and in one instance, inside your home) and just outside your fence as well. They have minor animations and are generally a fun little addition. While they have no actual impact on the game, they do make for a more pleasant experience in general. And you can also find some decorative plates that maybe give you a clue as to what waits for you deep underground.

With all that in mind, I'm going to offer some advice to new players. You want to approach the game as follows:

1: Focus on fully upgrading everything. That is your first priority.
2: Focus on building up your bank after upgrading your gear. You want to have about 12k stashed before you really make a push to get to the bottom of your digging space. 10k will be used immediately when you get to stage two, to fully upgrade your shovel the rest of the way and make the remainder of your time in-game much more user friendly. The other 2k will simply be used to top off your energy and buy more lanterns to use when you're at the bottom during stage one.
3: Once you've accomplished the above, make a push to get to the bottom of your sandbox and begin searching around for something unique to that area. Don't worry about going back up to the surface. Just dig until you run out of energy. The game will send you back to the surface automatically at that point. Top off your energy and head on back down. Rinse and repeat as often as necessary.
4. When you begin stage two, immediately use that 10k I mentioned to fully upgrade your shovel. The rest of the game will be paced properly once you do so.
5. Once you have fully upgraded everything in stage two, you will only need enough cash to top off energy and buy lanterns. You can pretty much stop make selling runs to the surface again once that happens. So, you will maybe need 2k for that. I doubt you'll even use it all.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3522159478

Although this game uses the hints of horror to create maybe a splash of tension, it is in no way horror or even horror adjacent, unlike its predecessor. It's a fake out here. And while I'd say the pacing in general is poor in this game, it does redeem itself during the second stage. All in all, I had a fun time with the game, and for the one dollar I spent on it during the 2025 Summer Sale, it was certainly a good experience. I'm on the fence regarding the $4.99 retail though. You probably could wait for another sale IMO. Still, I'd say it's worth a look.

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It's a rip off of digging a hole , but worse...

Warning: Asset Flip!
I Am Busy Digging A Hole is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated a few Unity asset store assets, dumped them all in a blender, and submitted it to Valve as if they're real game developers.

Two notable criteria for what makes an asset flip instead of legitimate use of stock assets are whether those assets comprise the majority of the game, and whether the "developer" properly credited the people who created most of the assets in the game. This game fails both of those tests. The "developers" here didn't credit any of the artists and real, actual game developers who created the assets here, so this is plagiarism, as well as cash grab shovelware.

In this case, the asset flipper took a bunch of assets and made an unabashed ripoff of someone else's game (which, also, at least partially, is an asset flip itself).

It has no value or merit as a real game.

I Am Busy Digging A Hole is an unabashed, lazy ripoff of A Game About Digging A Hole (Copyright DoubleBee, 2025). Many lazy "amateur" developers don't pay attention to their obligations under copyright law, and often steal the ideas of actual, real game developers without credit, such as the "developer" here has done. At this stage no legal action has been taken by DoubleBee against the "developer" here, but it's never off the table, as previous copyright law cases have shown.

"A Game About Digging A Hole" is a simple tycoon game (doesn't look like it but it is), where you dig in your backyard and sell all the things you find, and use the money to buy better digging tools. You can see that considerably better game here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3244220/A_Game_About_Digging_A_Hole/

And this is an asset flipped ripoff of that game. It's disgusting, isn't it?

Putting aside the unethical intellectual bankruptcy of stealing someone else's game concept for profit, this is also breaking that unwritten law of stealing other people's game ideas... you should at least try to do better than the game you're ripping off. I Am Busy Digging A Hole is considerably worse than A Game About Digging A Hole.

Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

The game features low-polygon "retro" assets with cartoony, mobile app style shader effects, making this look like a barely functional mobile app from 15 years ago. This visual style is a method that lazy devs often use when they have a lack of interest/capability to create highly detailed, high poly models and instead use shader effects to disguise that shortcoming under the name of "art", or "We made it look bad on purpose", which really isn't something gamers should have to put up with. It's unclear why the developers weren't willing to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets and high resolution textures for the game. It's far below the state of the art visuals gamers expect as a result of their decisions.

The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 7 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 130,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.

This kind of asset flipping isn't harmless. It makes it harder for gamers to find genuinely made games from ethical developers. It makes it harder for genuine indie developers, who put hard work into trying to make real games, to find an audience for their products. It gives indie developers a bad name.

So, should you buy this asset flip? Is this better than any of the 130,000+ genuinely made games on Steam? Of course not!

I Am Busy Digging A Hole has the laughable, eye-watering price of around $5 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.

For comparison, the $5 asking price for this game could get you games like "Rainbow 6 Siege", "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" or "Outlast". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

Profile Features Limited!
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.