Diver Dave sees you head beneath the waves to hunt a variety of fish and sea creatures, turning them into delicious sushi as you battle to run a late-night restaurant. While that’s a ton to juggle on your own, the game has just begun to surprise you with its in-depth mini-games (sea skates?!), diverse characters, and wild storyline.
The game’s developer spoke with game director Jaeho Hwang about how the combination of 2D pixel and 3D art helped give the game a sense of depth, how the surprising mini-games and story elements help make the game feel more real and connect players to the main character, and the clever way the team The developers captured the feeling of a vast, vast ocean by adding randomness to the underwater segments.
You mentioned it Diver Dave was inspired by a real restaurant where fish was caught in the morning and cooked in the evening. What thoughts went into turning that inspiration into gameplay? How did the initial concept come together from this inspiration?
Originally, I had a rough idea for a sushi bar management game that would use fish caught from the ocean, which basically consisted of managing an automated sushi bar and scavenging for resources in the ocean like in dungeons that run stores. However, while playing the prototype, I realized that it wasn’t very convincing because I couldn’t focus on any task. At that moment, I came across that sushi bar where the owner catches fish in the morning and cooks it in the evening. I thought it could make players focus on every aspect and give the feeling of “cooking dinner for customers”. So we split the day and night phases, and that really made a difference.
The game uses a mixture of pixel art with 3D graphics in some places (such as the background in the underwater segments). What drew you to adding 3D art to a mostly pixel-based game? What purpose did this visual choice serve, both mechanically and artistically?
I made a game called this before evil factory is a 2D pixel action game with all the boss battles. U Factory of evil, there was a harpoon trick to hit the boss fisherman and drag him into the spikes. I thought it was a lot of fun and eventually I wanted to make this mechanic into a game.
After establishing the core mechanics, our second solution was the game scene. Sure, I love platformers, but I wanted our main character to roam freely and use a harpoon to grab floating objects. We tested space, sky and underwater and finally decided to go with “underwater mode” because shooting real fish was more exciting.
However, it wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing, creating an underwater environment with only flat 2D pixels. So we started blending 3D objects in the background. It felt much deeper and looked unique, so we loved it. However, as the game progressed, we gradually began to create not only background objects, but also marine life, which was the most difficult task for us, having 2D Dave fight 3D sharks.
You introduce many mechanics, mini-games, and plot tangents throughout the game. How do you carefully introduce the player to these things so they don’t feel overwhelmed?
I invested a lot of time in testing the game myself. If the term works here: “testing” which means “testing your own product”. Sometimes it’s hard to play a game you’re currently developing, especially before launch, but it’s the best way to look at the project objectively. I test the dev build myself and write down any details that I think players might find difficult, inconvenient, or just plain boring. I really try to be in someone else’s shoes and see the game from different angles, like becoming a Tycoon fan one day and becoming Subnautics fan another day, etc.
If every other mechanic appears in the wrong place and at the wrong time, it can disrupt the core flow that players already enjoy. We made these kinds of game design mistakes early on, but were able to fix them during early access thanks to passionate community members.
What was the problem with the players having so many things they could do? Why do you think it was worth giving them so many challenging, different and often unexpected activities?
We have tried to ensure that these mechanisms do not interfere with the interaction of players with the progress of the game. These activities should help them enjoy the cycle more and not distract them too much.
I think a VIP visit is a good example. They don’t break what the players are doing, which is fishing and serving at night, but they force players to search for certain ingredients to treat these VIPs. Once users are successful, they get new mechanics unlocked so they can play the original gameplay loop with additional options, such as pouring beer after serving sushi.
With so many wildly different things for players to do or take part in, how do you make the main and side gameplay feel like they form a connected world?
I believe it’s because we shaped everything around the main character, Dave. It may seem like you have to do these various actions randomly, but since they are mostly performed by Dave, to whom you are already emotionally attached, players understand that Dave is dealing with unexpected daily situations, how we drive, eat, cook, and repair our bathroom, all on the same day in real life.
Sushi Bar is a place that everyone can visit and just like in real life, you meet unexpected VIPs or very tough customers with their own stories. So this leads to our unique side missions and sometimes mini-games. Since our setting is very open, I believe that the players are also open to all new potential situations and different situations that occur in the game.
What inspired you to keep the underwater area constantly changing? What do you feel added to the experience Diver Dave?
When you dive underwater in real life, you will notice that it is always different depending on the weather, the current and the location of the fish. We wanted to create such an environment—places that would always feel fresh.
Also, since our team isn’t big enough to create an entire open ocean, we decided to create a more “closed but changeable environment”.
There are so many different types of marine life Diver Dave. What research, both of marine life and sushi recipes, went into creating them for the game?
We watched a lot of documentaries about underwater creatures and read a lot of books related to them. Also, some of our members are really into scuba diving, so they gave the team some really cool ideas. For example, the current that suddenly pulls Dave along, and the manta photography missions.
How did you choose the recipes that the player can cook in the game?
The chef, Bancho, believes that each fish has its own unique taste, but we only eat a very limited amount of fish. So we made sushi out of all fish, tropical fish and even monstrous deep sea creatures.
In real life, you will only see pieces of fish made of red or white meat, but in Diver Dave, we tried to preserve the iconic parts of each fish. For example, fish sushi has a part that looks like a lantern. I think that’s what makes sushi Diver Dave
unique and why people like it.
Underwater segments can be beautiful and relaxing, as well as tense, dangerous and terrifying. What ideas went into creating an experience that can go from serene to terrifying?
Good question. Underwater is always a very mysterious, but very beautiful place. In such a game ABZU, you can enjoy beautiful underwater scenery and find a mysterious underwater civilization. U SubnauticsYou need to carefully manage resources and air, looting new materials to craft in dark and scary deep sea caves.
We wanted to give both feelings Diver Dave. You can enjoy the scenery and take pictures of turtles, but if you want to loot some resources to serve customers, you have to take a risk to do it.
Dive Diver it seems to be all about the complexities and diverse flavors of sushi, taking elements that seem like they might be at odds with each other (scary and peaceful exploration, 2D and 3D art, so many different mechanics and mini-games) and turning them into something wonderful. How did the nature and variety of sushi affect the game itself?
So, like the land itself, we have underwater elements and land elements that are closely intertwined with each other. It may sound strange at first, but once you try it, you’ll know it tastes great.
It was not an easy task to mix things together and end up looking smooth, but I think thanks to the continued dedication of my team, we managed to pull it off like a real sushi chef.
Hitting the fish with some of your weapons can require a very precise aim. What made you want the players to be careful with their shots?
In the real world, firing a harpoon or speargun is slower than it should be on land. However, if we create such a gun or harpoon mechanic, then it will save you from shooting. Therefore, we decided that the weapon would shoot fast enough, but require a certain level of accuracy. Since you can’t move fast enough to miss one shot underwater, you have to be more careful with your distance and angle. I think that makes the fight in Dive Diver quite unique.
What thoughts went into choosing what side activities would you include? When you were choosing the activity, what ideas went into creating these fun mini-games?
One of our goals and keys to our game design was to keep players engaged by expanding the gameplay cycle with new activities to compensate for a certain level of inevitable repetition of the core gameplay cycle that Diver Dave mine For example, hunting for random fish for customer service can be enjoyable, but introducing new objectives would improve the experience. To add more excitement and encourage short-term goals, we offer VIP missions or party missions that require players to collect “specific ingredients” within a limited time period. Of course, the “fun elements” are critical to the game design decision, and we referenced many real-world examples to inspire our ideas. The Storm Shark Party was inspired by Discovery Channel’s Shark Week and the movie Sharknado. A mini-game in which the player uses a gas cutter was inspired by real-life underwater gas cutting. I think the fact that you can have extra experience with these real-world actions, slightly in-game, is one of the reasons why players love Dive Diver.