Dave the Diver is an ingenious game about underwater exploration and working in a sushi restaurant. We plan on having a review out in the next few weeks, but before then, Matt and I had a quick chat about what makes this game so charming and special.
Chris: Matt! It’s lovely to chat to you. We’ve both been playing this game called Dave the Diver over the last few weeks. I get the impression you’ve made a lot more progress than me, but we both seem to be won over by it.
Dave the DiverPublisher: MintrocketDeveloper: MintrocketPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on PC.
It’s one of those games that’s always evolving, but at the moment – I’m a few hours in – it’s really a game of two parts. During the day you go diving for fish and at night you help serve the fish in a sushi restaurant. So it’s two different kinds of games, the first being this roguelike where you explore this ever-changing lagoon and the second being almost a rhythm-action affair where you try to get the right order to the right customer as quickly as possible. That’s very bare bones, but that’s where I’m at. Tell me: what do you make of it so far?
Matt: Hello! I think that is both an entirely accurate and hilariously inadequate description of Dave the Diver; you’re absolutely right that those two parts are the foundation of a very wonderful experience, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been so consistently amazed and delighted by a game’s utter refusal to stick to the script. I think I’m probably a good few hours ahead of you by now, and already Dave the Diver’s careened into the realm of farming sim, briefly gone full-on visual novel, and even shoved an honest-to-goodness rhythm-action musical number in there for good measure. It really is a constantly surprising little gem, but I think its real trick, the thing that stops the whole thing from disintegrating in an explosion of whimsy, is that the diving bit is .
Chris: It’s so good isn’t it? From the woosh when you arrive underwater to that sense of panic when things go wrong. For me, I’m always panicked that I’m not doing enough. These diving sections give you such a lot of different things to focus on. They’re little procedural dungeons, really? And you head in and you’ve generally got a shopping list of things to do: quest items to collect, fish to catch for the restaurant. But then there are weapons crates which might net you a better gun, things you can sell for cash, all kinds of resources. There are so many systems to think about but they all make sense: you need to upgrade gear to dive deeper, and you need to upgrade your oxygen, which basically doubles as health underwater. And you need to upgrade what you can carry. I’ve been in a couple of situations where I had a great haul of stuff, but I was carrying too much to get to the surface. Have you managed to get to a point where you feel like you’re in control down there?