Post-Slump Relaxation With Dave the Diver
The neat thing about having PS+ is that every so often,and you see a game pop up in the catalog that's been on your wish list/backlog/to-dos for an inordinate amount of time. You'd get there, eventually. And then you see it one month: poof, available to download or stream. This confluence has happened with a few games that I've since gone on to love – Overcooked, It Takes Two, Forspoken.
The problem with having unfettered access to a nearly endless catalog is that I'm very easily able to swap between games if, after any amount of time, I find it isn't a right fit. I don't really let things "sink in" like I used to. This means that depending on what I'm in the mood for (mindless action game, narrative horror, life sim), I can download a few, and that mood can unfortunately shift daily.
I think of my mother's infamous relationship with variety chocolate boxes. You know the kind: Russell Stover, Godiva, etc., that come with little different chocolates slotted into the plastic, heart-shaped honeycomb container. She calls them "spit and chews", a funny vernacular that I quite love, because of how, if she doesn't like any one chocolate after a single bite, she can throw that one away (or, as is my dad's preference, give them to him). She doesn't buy these boxes for herself; they're always gifts, so it's a low-stakes game that we sometimes go in on together.
These catalog-accessible games, for me, have become akin to "spit and chews." I've tried my hand at numerous titles that never stuck. The most recent being Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End and the Secret Key. It appeared to have everything I was looking for in a new game: bright, fantastic colors, a happy-go-lucky plot, interesting character design, light-hearted gameplay, system-based crafting, and cute little character interactions. It's something I've sought out from games within the Tales series, but the buzz around Atelier had never really made me willing to spend any money on the franchise. I didn't have the patience to sit down and learn the systems, and besides that, I didn't know where to start in the series, so when I finally went to download Ryza 3 one night, it was more of a shrugging "why not?"
And listen - I wish I could say that I'm easily able to turn off that little, nagging critic in my head whenever I sit down to play these games. I know that I'm not playing Red Dead Redemption 2, but because I write stories, that snide, chin-rubbing devil on my shoulder is hard to buck off. Contrived calls to danger, shallow character explorations, simplistic conversational design – I should know to expect these, and yet there are times when I can't turn off that strain of criticism. A very "me" problem, a very Victorian-esque, arm tossed across my forehead sort of problem, but one that's lately left me feeling empty.
Was I losing my spark? What was this slump I'd entered? Was I being, in SNL-style, a Debbie Downer (womp, womp)? I wanted a game that was fun, relaxing, system-focused, akin to quiet enjoyment, something with routine, depth, heart, art. I'd played Stardew Valley in search of that comfort (and that gentle "thunk" of chopping down trees truly is a catharsis of sound like few I've ever known), but the short in-game days meant I had to be economic in my time spent. Sometimes I forgot to watch the clock in my leisure, and so it resulted in me in panic-running back to my bed before 2 am. This only ramped up the latent life anxiety that, like a Kaiju, was persistently trying to ransack my little inner city, and which I was trying to keep underwater.
Enter, then – finally, blissfully – Dave the Diver.
Back to the Blue
In loading up the game, I remember thinking one thing about the opening titles screen: what a nice little tune. This thought would persist throughout my playthrough, with me keeping keenly attuned to the beguiling musical riffs of Jukio Kallio, Stephen Mo, and D'Anthoni Wooten (along with other talented musicians). It has a wonderful soundtrack.
Now, I was sick when I first booted up this game – feverish, a little snotty, less than aware of most of my surroundings. This game slid so perfectly into what little brain capacity I had left that I felt like each of the patrons who tried Bancho's sushi: hesitant at first, often a bit abrasive, and then, upon eating his offered dish, taken by storm, heart-eyed and crying, remembering warmer days.
Our newest addition to the family, our kitten Thalia, was curled up on the couch beside me while I played. I cannot conjure a cozier night than that, even if I was feeling 1000 leagues under the weather. I dove the first time and feel as if I have yet to really come up for air. I adore this little world of easy fishing and eerie but never dark dangers.
I've been playing Dave ever since. Because I'm still recovering (and if post-COVID has given me any alterations to how I treat illness, it's a new tendency for self-isolation), I found the perfect excuse to lounge around and rest up, while drinking an ungodly amount of ginger and turmeric tea, and plugging away at Dave the Diver. It endeared itself to me so quickly, so kindly, so easily, that I felt compelled almost immediately to write about it.
Dave's hook is simple: he's a diver, an easy-going man who's flying out to the Blue Hole to go in on a sushi restaurant with friend Cobra and renowned but subdued chef Bancho. The art is equally relaxed – a soft pixel style that carries far more depth than most pixel games I've played, which is fairly prescient of the game in its entirety. The cyclical gameplay loop is enticingly freeform and dynamic enough for wiggle room with its time management, while also being extremely routine. It is my ideal combination of organized day-to-day, with time-locked exploration-driven segments that you can, in essence, make as long or short as you want.
I found the groove of the game as if by instinct. It also, in a bittersweet way, reminded me of an old home, as a few things have been doing lately. In the wide sweep of blue water you dive into, the distinctly laid-back lifestyle that focuses on growing community and friendship, I found myself remembering my nearly decade-long home in a big city in the middle of the Pacific. I spent many of my days snorkeling the reefs on 'Oahu and the Big Island, pointing excitedly at sea turtles, watching schools of silver fish shoot past, and looking down at urchins nestled in the rocks and coral.
The ocean was never really my natural habitat. I imagined that I was a city girl, coffee-shop keen and adventure-averse. But I came to this side of the saltwater from the east coast, a very different ocean, and didn't realize until I found myself landlocked how much the ocean had shaped my life.
She was a friend; now, she's very far away. Dave the Diver helped me rekindle that little friendship, those saltwater days and ocean breeze summers. Dave himself is a fantastic protagonist. Easy-going, funny, adorable, and just reluctant-but-too-good-of-a-guy enough that he always accepts the various requests brought his way from all manner of humans, animals, and Sea People.
He is surrounded by strangers that soon become friends – the infectiously curious Dr. Bacon, the prim and organized Yoshie, the smiling and money-driven Cobra, and, most importantly, the lone-star chef Bancho. The restaurant you help run is called Bancho Sushi, after all, and he is the certified mastermind behind its creations. Dave is a newcomer to these waters, and while he learns to become a part of the community – working hard and undertaking tasks for topsiders and ocean dwellers alike – I learned a little bit about taking life less seriously.
Dive, Serve, Explore
The initial gameplay loop is like a brain massage: you catch fish with a speargun (or real gun, if you don't mind a lower grade of fish) that has that same satisfying feeling as chopping down trees in Stardew. You can then serve these catches at the sushi restaurant at night. The day itself is broken down into three sections: morning, afternoon, and night. You can dive in the morning and the afternoon (and eventually the night), which means if you try to pick on something bigger than you – a mako shark, for example – and fail in the morning, you can try again in the afternoon to take it easier and fish for some restaurant stock. Because if you "game over" in Dave the Diver, you don't die, but you do have to be rescued, and so you lose your entire diving haul, save one item you select.
These twice-daily attempts allow you to slow roll to higher levels, which in this game are simply unlockable zones based on updated gear. You update gear such as your air tank capacity (to allow more diving time) or your dive suit (to increase the depth to which you can dive). You get to choose your priority here, too, as money is a finite resource that initially requires you to be pretty frugal. This is because it's used for everything, including hiring and training new staff at the restaurant, which is a necessity that becomes apparent pretty quickly.
...this is where I think Dave succeeds the most in its general accessibility – there have been almost no instances of prohibitively difficult content.
The quick-burst stress of the restaurant at night – where you function as busser, food runner, and back-of-house wasabi grater – is actually a great reprieve from your relatively low-stakes daily dives. It's some of the tightest balancing in the game, as you have a stamina bar for Dave and must constantly keep an eye on a refillable gauge for the cooks that, when empty, prevents the kitchen from putting out anything. This is all done while pouring drinks (which takes time), delivering food, and bussing portions of the bar. Eventually, as you hire staff, you can train them to take care of pouring drinks or cleaning, so there's less that you must personally handle. Many hands definitely make light work.
A game like Dave the Diver could easily feel repetitive, but it really shines by adding enough diversification to game mechanics that nothing ever feels too stale. Your fishing spot, the Blue Hole, changes geography every dive, and while eventually you'll learn the maps as they cycle, this light rogue-like element helps keep things fresh. There are days you'll encounter tuna, and others you'll encounter different varieties of sharks or jellyfish that will be needed for various special guest-requested dishes or that can be used during event days. These event days are typically in celebration of something (tuna, shark, cucumber), and if you feature food with those items, you can turn a great profit.
It helps that you typically have pretty ample time to prepare for events and special guests, and as you move through the game and gain more and more help through the acquisition of a fish farm and a vegetable/rice farm, you can juggle these priorities with a little more ease. Your to-do list is long but never overwhelming, and even if you fail a timed, special event, there's never much of a repercussion outside of a gentle talking-to by the quest-giver, though it always holds a "next time!" charm.
The game is also full of minigames. Each of these adds a neat little element of change but is never mechanically clumsy enough to be frustrating, which can be a tricky thing to accomplish. This is where I think Dave succeeds the most in its general accessibility – there have been almost no instances of prohibitively difficult content. It soft locks you out of doing certain things with enough grace that the odds never feel insurmountable, because you can always come back and try again, or restart at a point sooner than the beginning. And when you get unexpectedly brought into a new, brief minigame – like wiping condensation off your camera lens or soldering metal together – the controls are pretty intuitive.
I wrote a piece some time ago that talks about how worldbuilding in games isn't simply about lore. Games can craft a narrative around their essence, and you can explore that essence through the gameplay's implementation. Where in other games I rolled my eyes at dialogue or story beats that don't go over well with me, Dave the Diver's eclectic cast of characters feel charmingly brief in their needs and wants. They're given just enough depth and just enough screentime. The art is instrumental in lifting this portion of the game, because the personality of these little sprites is made bold and big and dynamic.
And they do have greater depth – Bancho's background is that an assertion of his experimental tastes once landed him in hot water with a celebrity, which results in a short fall from grace he must reconcile with his new restaurant. It's not even that he changes, necessarily, but that he finds a place where he can better execute his sometimes-misunderstood culinary visions. Then there's Duff – who might function, somewhat, as a stereotypical vision of unkept anime fan to the uninitiated – who serves as your weapons specialist, and who is obsessed with an anime about girls who pilot mechs. This results in an oddly adorable dream sequence in which Duff attends a concert led by the main characters of the show, and you're able to play through a short rhythm mini game with a catchy song.
As I said before, Dave the Diver's ability to cycle through these various games is really quite charming, because there are segments like this where you get to play as other characters. You can cook as Bancho (which lovingly reminds me of my youthful obsession with Cooking Mama) and explore a cave and run from pirates as Dr. Bacon. These are largely narrative relevant, and as rich as the cast is, the various stories you can involve yourself in feel storybook-like and important. When you unlock the Sea People village, the game allows you another respite, and you get to meet an additional subset of interesting characters (a pompous guard who ends up being pretty cool, a haughty princess, a quiet blacksmith, an insatiable gambler).
Dave is a rare protagonist who not only works as a vehicle for gameplay but also endears himself to us as a character in the world in which he lives.
All of this is really under the surface of Dave the Diver, which starts with a simple premise of supplying a restaurant and builds to replicating the act of "growing your village" by helping everyone you come across. But there are villains in this game too – an environmentalist group, actually, which sounds anathema to the game's obviously sustainable fishing practices, but you soon find out they're funded by a big fishing operation that specializes in, of all the awful things, dolphin meat. Its leader, John Watson, is a Combat Carl type, presumably ex-military, outfitted with mech suits and all manner of high-power weaponry. In what's probably the darkest sequence in the game I've encountered so far, Dave has to navigate their hideout in a short and enjoyable stealth section, and you see the skinned and cut carcasses lining the walls in the background.
Dave himself is never overly perturbed by the nuisance of having John Watson target him and instead tends to view danger as a mild annoyance to his mission. There is a horror-coded sequence in which you're chased by a massive, zombie-like, immortal Sea People king, but this only adds to the "kitchen sink" nature of the game, in that it successfully manages to juggle these various genre-specific gameplay sequences. You can even take pictures! There are camera spots all over the Blue Hole, and you orchestrate some of their setups to sell the snapshots to a magazine photographer.
Catch and Release
For fans of the life and farm sim genres, Dave the Diver is a relentlessly calming, charming, and optimistic option. Developer Mintrocket has done a wonderful job of crafting this cozy and interesting little world. Fully recovered from my early sickness, I've still found myself pulled to the easy repetition, wanting to help the people of the island and those below it. Dave is a rare protagonist who not only works as a vehicle for gameplay but also endears himself to us as a character in the world in which he lives. Cooksta, the in-game foody Instagram equivalent, features occasional posts that show the crew together, drinking beer and having a grand old time.
There really is so much to praise about this game's approach, its art, and its lovely little touches and character moments. From the quick, animated sequences that feature Bancho "enhancing" his dishes in a very samurai-inspired way, to the little scenes of Dave deservedly relaxing whenever you elect to time-skip, the game's heart is ever-resoundingly amplified by its art design.
Various crossover packs have been included as both DLC and general updates. You get to dive alongside real-life songstress mxmtoon and play cards against various Sea People in the Balatro-sanctioned "Jimbo's Game." The crossover with fellow fishing game Dredge – which I might eventually pick up (thanks, Dave the Diver, for sparking my fishing game interest) – features you diving during red fog events to capture fish for "hooded strangers", who will show up at the restaurant and only eat the aberrant fish species you catch that particular night. There's also a Godzilla feature where you catch him snoozing and recovering in a rock cave, and – although I haven't gotten there yet – presumably have to fight him. All of this is woven pretty seamlessly into the game's regular story cadence.
If you have a PS+ subscription (Extra or Premium) you can snag the game as included in the catalog. Otherwise, it's available on Steam and Nintendo for a palatable $19.99 and an even more digestible $12.99 on the PS Store. It's probably going to be a staple on my winter playlist, serving as a little beacon on cold days of deep and warmer seas.