Hands-on with Chillingo's Diggin' Dogs for iOS

As the continued failure of the fabled 'next Angry Birds' to materialise demonstrates, it’s hard to make a simple, addictive title that will appeal to both casual and traditional gamers.

Following our hands-on with Chillingo's quirky forthcoming arcade game Diggin’ Dogs we think it has the potential to be a hit, though we’re not sure if there are enough levels to keep more experienced gamers satisfied.

Diggin’ Dogs is about three adorable canines sniffing out treasure by digging deep into the earth, avoiding gas clouds, poisonous mushrooms, and other hazards.

You use your finger to create a path and tilt controls to shake the posse left or right. It's reminiscent of the cult classic I Dig It in both premise and feel.

Items fall into three categories: Coins, power-ups, and treasures. Coins give you points. Power-ups, like magnets, make it easier to grab items or survive enemy attacks. Treasures are the real goal here, unlocking new levels and giving you points.

The levels are surprisingly short – the first one took us about 20 seconds to beat. As we've already seen in casual titles like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, however, brevity isn't necessarily a bad quality in a casual game.

To keep more committed gamers interested there are coins to collect and times to beat.

Chillingo claims there will be 60 levels across five worlds in the finished game, but if they're all anything like as short as ones we played you'll burn through those in no time. Hopefully they get considerably longer and more involved.

We're looking forward to finding out when Diggin’ Dogs hits iPhone in January.