Game 15 of 2023 - Dave the Diver

 Dave the Diver

Developer: Mintrocket
Publisher: Mintrocket
Platform: PC
Genre: RPG, Sim, Casual

Difficulty: Easy, mostly
Hours: ~22

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 9/10

Picture this:

You're exploring the glacial depths of the Blue Hole where no man has gone, when you come across an ancient geothermal vent. 

That's when you see Dunkleosteus!

This ancient, armored fish lived during the Devonian period, thought to be extinct for like 300 million years, but here it is, right in front of you!

What do you do?

I'll tell you what you do; you bring your trusty rifle to bear, shoot the shit out of this living fossil, and make sushi from the corpse.

Bancho makes goddamn incredible sushi from anything you put in front of him.

Dave the Diver is awesome. It's a mostly lighthearted adventure where you dive into the depths of the Blue Hole during the day, and help your bud Bancho run his sushi restaurant at night. Bancho relies on you to bring him fresh ingredients from the Blue Hole, including, Vampire Squid, sharks, octopus, and sea urchin. You can also find stuff like mayonnaise and sesame oil during your dives.

Bancho often hosts cooking contests and VIP customers. Gather rare ingredients to impress!

The environment is beautiful and the aquatic denizens are colorful and varied. Dave always has his trusty harpoon while exploring, so he can gather tasty looking fish and defend himself from the Blue Hole's more aggressive denizens. You also get a rifle early in the game, and while it's powerful, ammo is limited. Don't worry, you can find more while diving.

No killing this guy, I'm afraid.

There's a few other distractions, like farming, phone minigames, and raising fish, but you'll spend most of your time diving for cool stuff and serving customers at Bancho's. You run yourself ragged waiting on the patrons, but luckily you can hire help as Bancho's makes more money.

I considered giving Dave the Diver a perfect score, but I had to dock for a particularly frustrating boss fight: the Helicoprion. You control two characters during the battle, but the camera doesn't seem to want to focus on either of them and Helicoprion hits like a friggin' Mac truck. Argh.

Otherwise, it's great and highly recommended!