Dave the Diver is a chaotic, impressive management sim dream

Dave the Diver shouldn’t work. This game has a Jenga style tower-like structure of tasks and mechanics that never collapses. Every new character, cutscene and minigame seems to threaten the entire premise but never does.

Mintrocket, the developer, has instead designed a fun game, where having a good time is paramount, however absurd it may seem. The core of the game is to have fun. Dave the DiverIt is a mixture of both fishing and management games. Dave is the protagonist and you spearfish during the day in order to collect ingredients that will be used at the sushi restaurant later at night. This loop will probably be enough to hook most management simulations.

You can also read: Dave the Diver, that’s just the foundation. In a few days, you’ll be contacted by a student who will send you on an expedition to gather local wildlife. Then an underwater archaeologist shows up with a new project. And then the otaku arms dealer shows up, followed by a boatful of militant Greenpeace activists, the Pokémon-like collectible card connoisseur, a farmer, and some pirates. It’s hard to describe what happens without sounding like a toddler “and then!”-ing their way through a bedtime story.

I’m getting ahead of myself — it’s hard not to when talking about this game. Dave dives twice a day in the morning, then again in the afternoon. He runs a sushi restaurant in the evening, where his catch is turned into delicious food.

Mintrocket image via Polygon

Daytime, I explore a constantly changing underwater world with many different species of fish. The fish get hardier and more likely to attack me (which doesn’t necessarily You can’t hurt by contacting us. As I dive down to my right, it drains more oxygen from me. The sushi I can make from the easiest-to-catch fish doesn’t earn me much, so I have to dive deeper to make real money. I can use that money to upgrade my gear — a bigger oxygen tank, a better harpoon gun, more storage for the fish I catch. Sometimes I must use my speargun to kill fish with multiple shots.

Meanwhile, I’ve got to remember to collect a lost package for my business partner with a shady past, find special ingredients for the upcoming Jellyfish Festival, collect parts to craft a net gun, help the grad student with a research project, and save a dolphin from pirates.

Mintrocket image via Polygon

Once my tasks are done and I’ve got a full haul of fish, I head back to the sushi restaurant, where I’m in charge of everything from the decor to grinding wasabi to setting the menu. Managing the menu means finding the tastiest recipes we can make based on what I’ve recently caught. And I have to do it without preparing too much — which will see it go to waste — or running out. In other words, I’m finding the Goldilocks solution.

During service, I’m running back and forth pouring tea, delivering orders from one end of the bar to the other, and bussing plates. I have to do it quickly, or the customers get angry and leave bad reviews on the restaurant’s in-game not-Instagram account. Once you have enough good reviews, the option to hire waiters and chefs is unlocked.

On his next dive, Dave finds a civilisation of merpeople.

When you write it down it seems chaotic and unfocused. But it’s not. Instead, it’s a delicately balanced tower of interconnected silliness. It’s 20 minutes into a game of Jenga where there’s only one block on the bottom and holes throughout, but the tower just refuses to fall.

A glue which holds firmly Dave the Diver together? Cutscenes are vibrant. In a 30-second anime-inspired vignette with flashing cherry blossoms and blades, the taciturn cook comes up wth a new dish. The food critic mimics the scene of an anime film by trying a speciality dish. Ratatouille Through a Pixelated Lens Even when they repeat, it’s hard to skip these energetic vignettes. They’re lovingly crafted when they could be throwaway snippets. These raise the stakes from a simple upgrade into a crescendo worthy of boss battles.

It’s that constant, self-aware, tongue-in-cheek, escalating absurdity that keeps me engaged. Over the course of a few in-game days, I go from fishing to decorating to crafting a sniper rifle to kill the giant squid that stole the arms dealer’s new anime figurine.

Dave the Diver It’s not a particularly difficult task, and with a little bit of grinding I can overcome any obstacles. Running orders in the sushi restaurant is only intense until I hire a server who’s twice as fast as Dave. The only time I’m able to avoid being attacked by sharks, is when I upgrade my weapon. But I’m not really a better spearfisher than I was at the beginning of the game — improving my mechanical skills isn’t the point.

Mintrocket image via Polygon

What Makes Dave the Diver What makes this game so good is the anticipation of what’s next. It could be a case of padding if a game just added mechanics or plot devices without establishing a plan. But Dave’s kitchen sink approach somehow feels like a perfectly logical, if absurd, escalation — like a Tim Robinson sketch in game form. It’s a teetering pile of mechanics and minigames that never gets around to collapsing because the balancing act is just too much fun.

Dave the Diver Released on Steam 28th June. Mintrocket provided a code for a prerelease version of the game. Vox Media is affiliated with other companies. Vox Media earns commissions from affiliate products, although this doesn’t influence the editorial content. Find out more about affiliate links. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.