Dave the Diver

I sat down to try Dave the Diver for twenty minutes so I could write a quick blurb. That was a mistake. It is now the game I have logged the most hours in this year, and I still could not tell you everything it contains.

On paper it is simple: you dive into a beautiful, shifting reef, catch fish with a harpoon and a net, and at night you serve those fish as sushi in a little restaurant, managing staff and recipes and customers. That alone would be a full game.

But then it just keeps going. There is a farm. There is a photography side quest. There is a whole other civilisation down there. Every time you think you have found the edges of it, the game hands you a new toy with a grin.

Its defining feature is generosity, the sense that it will never run out of new things to show you.

The trade-off

It does too much, and it knows it. A few of the minigames overstay their welcome, and the night shift can get repetitive if you are grinding a specific dish. But the sheer density is the point. There is always one more thing, and one more thing is a dangerous phrase in this house.

If you liked the quiet focus of Stray, this is the loud maximalist opposite, and if you want the same "just one more" pull in a tiny package, jump to Balatro.