Starting Dave The Diver | Cozy Gaming Blind First Playthrough | Worst Voice Actor Edition (It's Me)
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Dave the Diver is an adventure game by Mintrocket. Players control Dave, a hard-working diver, as he collects fish, solves quests, and manages a sushi restaurant. It has elements of management, action-adventure, and role-playing video games. It was released in June 2023 for macOS and Windows, with a Switch version released in October 2023.
The game follows Dave, a diver who is approached by his friend Cobra into starting up a sushi restaurant venture with the skilled chef Bancho. Setting up location at the Blue Hole, a spot said to contain fish from all over the world, Dave is tasked with fishing for ingredients during the day and helping Bancho with the restaurant at night. During his escapades, Dave comes across a race of sea people and learns that the frequent earthquakes occurring on the Blue Hole are happening because something is affecting the energy crystal that keeps the sea people alive.
Players primarily control Dave, a deep sea diver who is talked into managing a sushi restaurant and supplying it with the fish they need. He fishes at a spot called the Blue Hole whose geography and fauna change daily. Players can collect resources to upgrade or craft new items for Dave to use, such as diving gear and weapons to use in boss fights against giant underwater creatures. Dave's air supply is decreased faster as he becomes overburdened, and he becomes more susceptible to predators, such as sharks. Being defeated in combat causes Dave to drop all his cargo except one item as he is rescued.
Dave is asked by others to perform various favors, quests, for them involving exploration, research, or finding rare items. As players retrieve items lost at sea, they can use Dave's contacts in his cell phone to find buyers. Dave can go diving twice a day, once each during the morning and afternoon; later in the game's progression the ability to dive at night is unlocked. In the evening, he manages the sushi restaurant. Players can unlock recipes to cook, attract influential customers, renovate the restaurant by adding decorations, hire employees, and more. An in-game app called "Cooksta" keeps track of the restaurant's popularity and rating and can unlock further upgrades. In addition to the main gameplay modes, there are also a number of minigames unlocked through the course of the story, including a rhythm game and Tamagotchi style app. The graphical style uses pixel art.
Dave the Diver received "universal acclaim" based on 44 critic reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic.
Praising the game's complexity, yet calling it "utterly relaxing", PC Gamer's reviewer said it already made his shortlist for game of the year as of June 2023. Destructoid called the gameplay "engaging", and said the story was "silly, yet endearing". IGN labeled it as an editors' choice and said it is "wholesome, wonderfully complex, and delightfully hard to put down". Eurogamer said it was "wholesome, harmonious, and completely unwilling to settle", calling it one of the most generous games in years. Game Informer praised it for being able to handle being both an exploration experience and management sim and said it was a "unique and memorable vacation away from expectations". Polygon said its myriad minigames comes together unexpectedly well, anchored by well-made cutscenes. Cutscenes were further praised by players for its style and humour. VideoGamer.com said "there's always something to do" without it ever seeming like busy work, which they called "refreshingly different" from the games as a service model. GamesRadar+ called it "a smash-hit success story". Several major publications included it on their 'best games of 2023' rundowns, including ReadWrite, Game Rant, The Guardian and The Verge.