Help Hal dig through the yard to find a wide variety of surprises.
On each level find the fossil hidden in the yard and uncover it.
Dig around looking for power ups which boost your remaining time or help you quickly uncover the level.
Find Hal’s missing dog toys.
Overall
Design
Difficulty
Replay
Play Nature Cat Hal’s Big Dig Game Online
Children and parents can play this fun dog digging & finding game by clicking o the picture below.
Alternatively kids and adults can play this archeology exploration video game for free as a web application here.
Nature Cat Hal’s Big Dig Game for Kids Game Play Instructions
How to Play
Help Hal dig up the back yard to find toys and dinosaur fossils.
Starting the Game
Click on the yellow and white play button in the lower right corner of the game’s welcome screen.
The fossils and toys you uncovered are automatically stored in the dog house.
Game Controls
Desktop
Use your mouse left click button to dig.
Touchscreen devices
Tap the screen with your finger to use it like a mouse.
The game includes a pause button in the upper left corner.
Your remaining time meter is shown across the top of the screen.
Game Play
As you advance through the game levels get more complex along two axis: level size and digging depth.
The first level starts off as a 5 by 4 grid with 20 total squares. Each square on the first level is dirt you can click through on a single click.
In later levels the puzzle dimension grows much larger and you go from dirt (1 click) to grass (2 clicks) to small rocks (3 clicks) to big rocks (4 clicks) to uncover squares.
Time
Time is the enemy in this game.
If you have an almost full time meter it can make sense to dig where you know the fossil is not to look for toys and other upgrades.
If you are running low on time then as soon as you find the fossil keep digging it until you dig it up.
Your time meter carries over from level to level.
Each time you start the next level you have the remaining time from the prior level and are given a small extra time boost.
Upgrades
pick axe allows you to dig through all layers of a square in a single click
shovel allows you to quickly remove a grid of up to 3 by 3 cells with a single click
gopher digs a row
clock give you more time
yellow tornado removes some of the upper layers of rocks and grass from various squares on the playing field
magnifying glass highlights cells in the area where the fossil is located
When you have pick axes or shovels left over at the end of the level you do not carry them forward to the next level.
If multiple upgrades were found at the same time (e.g. via a gopher or a tornado) you can see which one is currently active by whichever one is at the left edge of the item list in the upper right corner
Toys & Bones
As soon as you completely uncover the fossil in the level the level ends.
There are 11 different fossils you can find.
3 of the fossils are a 1×1 dig, but but most fossils are at least a 2×2 grid in size, though some may be long and skinny. You do not collect the fossil & end the level until the fossil is completely uncovered.
The same fossil can be different sizes on different levels. When you get up to around level 20 in some cases the Woolly Mammoth Skull is actually bigger than the digging area and you have to uncover most the dig area to beat the level.
If you have a lot of time remaining you may want to dig around other squares to look for toys hidden in the level.
There are a total of 12 different toys hidden across the levels.
Once you find a toy you keep it in your collection.
Not every level has a toy hidden in it.
Digging Strategy
If time is scarce try to quickly dig through a variety of the dirt cells which only require a single click to dig through.
Quite often if these are scattered throughout the level they will reveal at least a portion of the bone, or help you uncover a power up which helps you quickly clear other cells.
If you get a shovel try to dig in the middle of an area with many covered squares so you remove many squares at once.
If you get a pick axe try to dig on squares with rocks on them so you break through multiple layers with a single click.
If you have lots of time remaining and few covered squares remaining you may want to dig the other squares before digging the final fossil square to see if there are any toys hidden in the level.
As you advance through to higher levels trying to complete each level as quickly as possible becomes more important because the level size grows larger.
Dog House
The dog house shows which fossils and toys you have collected.
3 of the fossils are a singe-piece fossils. The remaining fossils consist of multiple pieces which you can put together in the dog house. When you find a fossil in the game a red bone will show inside the dog house. You can then click into that fossil page and arrange the bones where they belong.
Target Audience
The game is suited for children of all ages and for fans of the PBS series Nature Cat.
The game has no adult content.
Like This Game? Review This Dig & Find Video Game for Young Girls & Boys
Nature Cat: Hal’s Big Dig Fossil Finder Dog Digging Game
Free Online Nature Cat Hal’s Big Dig Game for Children & Adults Screenshots
Mobile Friendly Cross Browser Support
This game is rendered in mobile-friendly HTML5, so it offers cross-device gameplay. You can play it on mobile devices like Apple iPhones, Google Android powered cell phones from manufactures like Samsung, tablets like the iPad or Kindle Fire, laptops, and Windows-powered desktop computers. All game files are stored locally in your web browser cache. This game works in Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and other modern web browsers.
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