I consider myself pretty well-versed in video games. I’ve reviewed more games on DDNet alone than most people play in a lifetime, after all. I’m also a massive fan of retro games and spend a big chunk of my time playing stuff from the year 2000 and before. So every so often when I discover something for the first time that is also old, I get a real rush. I had just that experience with Heiankyo Alien (known as “Digger” in the West, for those few people who know it), an ancient game that has instantly become a favourite.
I discovered the game by pure luck. While in Japan recently I dropped into Super Potato in Akihabara, as I tend to do every trip to the homeland. Yes, I know it’s expensive, collectors, but I also don’t care because they have a big range of Game Boy games in stock and it was also the first retro game I shopped at during my very first trip to Japan, and that was so many years ago that it itself is a nostalgic experience for me now.
Anyhow, I digress. The point is that I was at the store, and there I saw a tiny little red box, for a game I had never heard of before: Heiankyo Alien. It was modestly priced, and flipping the box around I saw that it was some kind of Pac-Man-style maze game. So I bought it on the spot. I love Pac-Man.
As it turns out that’s exactly the kind of game that Heiankyo Alien is. You run around a maze trying to defeat enemies. The difference is that rather than eating power pellets and then chasing ghosts around, here you’re digging holes, waiting for aliens to get trapped in them, and then burying them.
There’s a different rhythm to this than in Pac-Man. Firstly, you need to move strategically and dig the holes in good locations so they both protect you from attacks on the flank while catching the enemies as quickly as possible. You also need to press the “A” button a few times to dig a hole and then the “B” button a few more times to bury a caught enemy. This leaves you vulnerable for a while. While Pac-Man is arcade-fast, Heiankyo Alien is more tactical, and it’s an excellent formula that also directly inspired side-scrolling games like Space Panic and Lode Runner.
It came first, before even Pac-Man (Heiankyo Alien was released in 1979, Pac-Man in 1980). The genesis of it was an effort to “search for the next Space Invaders” after that game became a popular culture phenomenon. So as you can tell, it was right there at the genesis of the popularisation of video games. It was its own commercial hit, being one of the best-selling arcade games at the time.
The Game Boy release that I have is actually a port and a remake – it was released in 1990, and the cartridge has both the original game and an update with new sprites and smoother gameplay. Unfortunately, by then the star of Heiankyo Alien was fading hard and the critics, who were once very positive on the game, suddenly found that it was “boring.” By then, action games meant action, and the more tactical dynamics of Heiankyo Alien were falling out of favour.
That was the end of the series, too, until 2017 rolled around and someone had the bright idea to try and resurrect it from the ashes. That was Heiankyo Alien 3671, and the best way to describe it is “inspired by Pac-Man Championship Edition,” so we’ve come full circle on that account. It shares a similar neo vibe and building gameplay, just that, again, you aren’t eating dots but rather running around and digging holes as enemies move increasingly quickly. It’s a great spin on the formula, but this just goes to show you how far Heiankyo Alien has fallen from public awareness: This game has just 26 user reviews on Steam since its release. That’s not a typo. Twenty-six. When I saw that I didn’t feel so bad that I only discovered the game for the first time myself a couple of weeks ago.
The games industry does a truly terrible job of preserving the classics and guiding people to experience them. There’s a small pool of retro games that remain popular, thanks to the IP belonging to the large publishers that can continue to re-release them into the mainstream, with PR and marketing behind them. Pac-Man gets the money to keep the pizza-hero alive. Heiankyo Alien can barely get any coverage, even when the respective games are of a similar quality, aesthetic, and style.
So, there you go. Here’s an all-new retro game for you to discover. Heiankyo Alien 3671 has the original arcade title in it, too, so if you are like me missed this total classic and foundational game, then do yourself a favour and fill in a gap in your knowledge of the true classics.
