I Dig It HD submitted to iPad App Store

I Dig It is the game that made me fall in love with the iPhone as a gaming platform. I played it on Christmas Day, all day, and even babbled some words about it in my interview for this job at Pocket Gamer.

Something about the mix of subterranean exploration with a carrot-on-a-stick levelling system just rubbed me the right way.

And now its coming to iPad, in an HD version of the game's sequel, I Dig It Expeditions. You pilot a simple farmyard tractor that's been kitted out with a jet-pack and a giant drill, as you bore through rocks and dirt to find treasure. You then return to the surface, hand over your loot, and use the money made to upgrade your truck.

While the iPhone game has the super useful radar hidden away on a separate screen, the iPad's gigantic display means you're never away from the loot sensing map. It's tucked up in the corner. The iPad edition also features exclusive challenges, so gamers who maxed out Expeditions still have something new to play.

I Dig It HD uses the iPad's new document syncing feature -the functionality that lets you grab text files from Pages and scribblings from Sketchbook straight from iTunes. You can use this to share and play custom user made levels, using the iPad version's new stage creator.

I Dig It HD has been submitted to the App Store, meaning Apple will hopefully accept it and chuck it up for sale in the coming weeks. In the meantime, read our reviews of I Dig It Expeditions at Pocket Gamer.