On the surface, Dave the Diver is a game that seems like a simple diving simulator filled with fish to catch and things to gather from the ocean floor. This deception works so well that players randomly stumbling upon the game might not think twice about letting Dave the Diver swim on by. But the game offers much more than just a pixilated diving experience, and actually dips its toes into a few other varieties of genres that make the game as a whole that much more enjoyable. From fishing and farming to running a business with employees, developer Mintrocket has created a single-player experience that’s fun to dive into from beginning to end, with many surprises and a cast of zany characters to be found throughout. It may sound fishy, but Dave the Diver may very well be a sleeper hit and protagonist Dave is one of the most wholesome leads to hit the gaming world in a long time.
Even after opening a sushi restaurant on the edge of The Blue Hole, Dave the Diver never hints at what it has in store for players. The main story and gameplay loop start off simple enough: dive twice a day for fish to sell at Dave's sushi restaurant. It's a simple and neat premise that slowly but surely evolves into something a little more complex, adding systems on top of systems that work so well together players might not even realize they’re playing a basic life simulator. From fish farming to on-land farming to underwater farming, each gameplay system feeds into the next without any distracting hiccups.
The main story isn’t groundbreaking or new, but it has a tantalizing aspect to it that many players will find intriguing enough to keep diving into until it ends. Although it might seem like the game lacks depth because of its 2D design, Dave the Diver never feels too restrictive. Even some cutscenes shift the camera into a sort of 2.5D view, while some fishes can gracefully turn all the way around, showing that the oceanic creatures aren't just pretty from the side.
Most in-game days see Dave’s morning start on the diving boat, with the only choices being to dive into the blue water or drive the boat to the restaurant to perform administrative duties. This is the start of a pretty simple but addictive gameplay loop that involves morning, afternoon, and evening times, giving players the choice of what they want to do during each. Traveling to the sushi restaurant allows players to change staff members around, look through ingredient lists to see what is needed for specific dishes, and choose the menu for that night’s customers. Knowing what specific ingredients or fish are needed to craft specific meals can lead to higher profits that then drive the entire progression system of the game. Running the restaurant at night is more challenging in the early stages, as Dave is forced to run back and forth doing all the tasks himself, but this becomes more manageable when he is able to hire and train extra help.
If Dave needs to dive deeper to find a specific item, a specific fish, or for a specific mission, then improving his wetsuit for deeper dives will cost money. Expanding the various farming fields will also cost a lot. The same goes for upgrades for all his weapons, various diving apparatuses, etc., but money is also needed to upgrade the restaurant’s look and train employees. Progressing further into the game will see even more uses for users’ cash flow, like having to buy various seeds or chickens, and players may eventually find themselves thinking they need to dive for only the biggest and most profitable fish. But Dave the Diver allows players to upgrade dishes using caught fish to sell at a higher cost. It’s a nice way to allow users to catch what they want to catch without the game funneling players into only hunting one or two specific fish on every dive.
Along with diving for materials in the constantly shifting underwater areas, the various farming aspects of the game feel good at first but will begin to feel more and more tedious as time goes on. None of them are very complicated, instead relying on very basic requirements for keeping fields nice and tidy but still forcing users to return to them to keep things running smoothly. This works both for and against the game, as it offers players another way to get items they may need but also requires them to be constantly returning each day to perform various upkeep tasks to ensure a plentiful harvest.
The game also likes to throw a variety of unique missions at regular intervals, so the times between main story missions never feel like a waste. These can vary from searching for specific fish and boss fights, to finding ingredients for food challenges at the sushi restaurant, and more. Some are forgettable after completing them, but others are unique in the way they’re presented.There are a few exceptions, but the majority of the missions are so entertaining that it feels right at home with the craziness throughout the rest of the game.
Dave the Diver wouldn’t be nearly as good as it is without the cast of characters that help make it so incredibly entertaining. It all starts with Dave, a rotund protagonist with very skinny legs in a wetsuit. Accompanied by his kind heart, he meets a plethora of zany oddballs that throughout the game give him both a hard time for various reasons but also praise him for his good attitude and hard work. The catalog of memorable characters is too long to list here, but early on Dave is introduced to two eccentric characters he’ll spend a lot of time with, the slightly obsessed with-cooking head-chef Bancho, and avid anime and K-pop fan the weapons master Duff. These two immediately become memorable not only for their eccentricities but also for how easily they fit into a world focused on Dave and his diving. Some users might be a bit put off by their over-the-top portrayals of their specific character tropes, but the game goes so overboard with them that a lot of players will likely laugh with delight at the absurdity of it.
It isn’t just these two main characters that are funny in their exaggerated characteristics, though. Indeed, the whole cast embraces the absurd in a way that a lot of games don't desire or feel the need to. Even characters that don’t speak or interact with Dave much, namely the hirable employees for the restaurant, can vary wildly different in their designs. Players can choose to hire a ninja girl or a muscular weightlifter, or even a raptor-headed server if they want. There are more normal-looking employees as well, but the enjoyment of seeing these crazy characters serving customers makes them almost more desirable. Some of them also have very good stats, making them more prudent as hires before their looks are taken into account.
The wacky character designs even extend to some of the fishes found in The Blue Hole. Most are standard-looking tropical fish, brightly colored in various sizes that more or less reflect their real-world counterparts, including large and small predatory fishes looking to take a bite out of Dave. But others are much more remarkably bizarre and some new ones will be released with the game's official 1.0 version launch, so early-access players will also be discovering them for the first time. Unfortunately, some of these are rare to find while on a regular dive, as the majority of the odd-looking sea creatures can only be found during specific missions, such as a giant hermit crab that wears a huge dump truck on its back. Some of them are also only available to discover for a limited time, which means players may not see them at all during their play-through, as both time constraints and being defeated while diving means players are forcibly returned to the surface as time passes. It can be a bit annoying to lose out on these rare finds, as users are only able to keep three missions in their notification bar at any time. There may be instances when time runs out on missions without the player even realizing it’s happening until it’s too late.
While most enemies found in the sea can b easily avoided, there are a few sharks that can cause trouble for players by beginning their attack animations from just outside the game’s viewable area. These mostly don’t happen until later in the game, when players have gotten somewhat accustomed to the dangers of the deep, but it can be a frustrating experience when users fail a mission from an attack they never see coming. On a positive note, Dave the Diver doesn’t feel the need to punish players for losing fights inside mission-specific areas.
The game deserves special praise for its musical tastes, blending a variety of different tones and songs that add to and bolster an already-enjoyable experience. From hip-hop tracks mixed with Asian influences to the haunting melodies playing when diving into the deepest and coldest waters, each song fills their specific area almost perfectly. Some tunes are more catchy than others, and it would have been nice to be able to choose which music plays in each area. Regardless, most players will likely enjoy them enough to not turn them off until well into the later stages of the game. There is some original music within as well that was surprising in how catchy it was, and those artists deserve praise for their effort in making their beats and lyrics so memorable.
Every moment in Dave the Diver feels unique the first time through. The constant changing of side-missions, the cutscenes when upgrading weapons or fish dishes, and the eccentric cast of characters, all blend together so well into a game that, when viewed just from the surface, might seem shallow. But players willing to dive into the meat of the game will find even more enjoyment than they bargained for, especially with its official 1.0 release. It’s a single-player adventure with heart, good music (‘Hot Pepper Tuna’ will likely end up on a lot of people's personal playlists), and a cast of characters that feel right at home around The Blue Hole. Its eccentricities make it memorable, and Dave might be the kindest and most fun adventuring protagonist players encounter in the world of video games this year.
Dave the Diver
Dave the Diver is a casual, singleplayer adventure RPG featuring deep-sea exploration and fishing during the day and sushi restaurant management at night.
Dave the Diver is available now for PC. Game Rant was provided a PC code for this review.