In the run up to Christmas, Pocket Gamer has teamed up with the developers behind some of this year's best games to give you ten award-winning iOS games for free. Come back every day for the next two weeks to get your games.

The third game in our ten days of freebies is The Electric Toy Company's Gold Award-winning retro-digger Doug dug. Download it for free on iPhone and iPad here.

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The detriment of fantasy fiction's dwarves are that they're all greedy miners. They dig into the soils for gold and gems, to later be killed by a cave-in due to all their eager rummaging.

That, right there, is the central conceit of the compelling dirt-digger Doug dug. (You win no points for guessing that it's inspired by Namco's 1982 arcade game Dig Dug.)

It's all about balancing out risk assessment with your own greed.

As you dig down into the trembling caverns, you'll see sparkling minerals ripe for mining, which is everything you're after.

The recurrent problem is that reaching each treasure involves risking all of the rocks above you falling. Each square of soil removed increases the chances of Doug being squashed.

Dig it

You need to consider if it's worth scraping away the loose soil, or digging down deeper for a safer fortune.

At times, you'll have no choice, as the walls and floors suddenly give way and Doug plummets. So fragile is the earth around you to tremors - it's dangerous play.

Later, the game has you using these landslides to your advantage. When being chased by bats or ancient mummies, you'll need to use falling rocks to squash them.

At review, we said that "Doug dug is the game Dig Dug was always meant to be."

Find out if you agree (you will) by downloading Doug dug for free right now.

Remember to check back tomorrow to find out what's behind the next door of our free game advent calendar.

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