Here’s a fun genre mixer from Korean indie team MINTROCKET. This dev likes things in capitals as DAVE THE DIVER is that way… plus, it has SUSHI!

With its cool pixel art and chillaxed soundtrack, here you get a casual adventure game with spearfishing and running a sushi restaurant. It’s Jiro Dreams of Sushi meets indie games and it’s a most glorious combination.

Living the Sushi Dream in DAVE THE DIVER

This SOB launched early access on Steam in October 2022, so it’s not finished yet. But very bloody good enough even in it’s current form! And similar to the likes of Stardew Valley, but with more water.

In DAVE THE DIVER you take control of Dave. He’s a diver.

There’s a mix of stuff going on here as the game is quite casual to play, but features adventuring, exploration, and RPG elements. Oh yeah, you get to run a sushi restaurant (in case you missed our massive, overexcited review headline).

As Dave, you meet some of his mates and open the sushi restaurant—headed by the chef Boncho. During the day, you explore the ocean, catch fish, unearth secrets, and all that jazz.

At night, you serve customers in the sushi restaurant. This includes pouring cups of green tea (more tricky than you think), serving food, clearing stuff up etc. It’s bloody hectic going! But good fun, too.

In fact, there’s so much crammed into this game it’s tricky to cover all the cute attention to detail and obvious love the devs have put into it.

DAVE THE DIVER is a chillaxed time of it, the game advances in quite natural fashion and you’re never placed under huge amounts of pressure. That gives the title an easy charm—you can pick up, play, and learn the ropes in no time.

The game is chilled out, cute, funny, charming, and it somehow throws in enough going on to ensure it never gets repetitive. Which is surprising and pleased us a great deal.

You just want to keep exploring the depths, developing out your sushi restaurant, and solving all sorts of side-quests.

All developments roll out at a superbly well judged rate, as the game operates on a day-by-day basis. It all lands perfectly, keeping your interest up.

It’s fair to see we love the thing. Big time. And this isn’t even the finished product yet, so there’s plenty more to expect when it officially launches sometime soon in 2023. It’s surely going to be one of the best games of the year.

DAVE THE DIVER’S Chillaxed Soundtrack

The soundtrack to DAVE THE DIVER was put together by a selection of musicians, ranging from Finnish composer Jukio Kallio to American D’Anthoni Wooten.

Again, it’s one of the things we love about indie games. They bring together talent all across the world to create gorgeous, uplifting experiences.

And the soundtrack here is a consistent delight, revelling in chillout electronic music (kind of similar to the outstanding SPACEPLAN, but more relaxed).

In-game, on the phone Dave has, you can actually access the soundtrack on an app and listen to it whilst on your little boat.

And that’s one of the 100s of small bits of detail that make the game such a continuous delight to play.