![]() It’s also filled with a little bit of referential humour which is very lightly done. The visuals are pleasingly chunky and brightly coloured, with the kind of round-eyed, big-faced character models you might expect from a budget Dreamworks or Pixar-type film. I like the touch of Octodad’s burbling and bubbling not getting even vaguely translated sometimes it’s played for laughs like a “blub of avoidance” or a “pleasantly surprised burble”, and sometimes it’s literally just a “blub burble blow”. That charm is evident in other areas as well. Once you grit your teeth and get over the movement frustration you kind of realise that the game isn’t terribly hard, which is gratifying because often games like these can be awful and unforgiving. Technically the gameplay has a fail state of attracting too much notice from bystanders and breaking your cover, but it’s quite a light sense of challenge, and it never felt like I was that close to failure. That said, Octodad is charming and quirky, and sometimes that shines through and keeps me invested. I absolutely found it was a game that I could only play in brief bursts lest I got too pissed off. You may remember games like QWOP in which moving was the challenge, and in the grand tradition of those games, Octodad’s main mechanic is frustration, It’s difficult to say whether or not I like this the movement being very tricky doesn’t feel accessible, and I have little patience for games where basic movement is the main gameplay challenge. This is significantly harder than it sounds as his limbs move semi-independently, and aiming them is very tricky. You use the shoulder triggers on your controller to control Octodad’s legs and the bumpers to control his arms. The gameplay, as perhaps you might expect, is built around the challenge of controlling an octopus trying to fit into human society. In general the comedy in the narrative is underplayed, and it does like to use a decent dramatic streak to give some feeling of direction to the levels instead, a lot of the game’s comedy is physical and comes from the gameplay. The entire joke of the game – that nobody knows Octodad is an octopus – is quietly funny and I think I prefer that to it trying to be laugh-out-loud funny. You might be unsurprised to learn that with a conceit like this, it’s a game which very much leans into humour and absurdity. In the midst of it all there’s a sweet story as Octodad tries to be a loving father and husband while he tries to protect his identity. The evil chef Fujimoto is desperate to capture our hapless protagonist and turn him into sushi and so he plagues Octodad as he attempts to go about his day – and what a day! It starts so innocuously, with our cephalopod hero completing chores and gathering groceries, but eventually he is coerced into a family trip to an aquarium, which understandably terrifies our hero. In fact, such is his mastery of disguise (or perhaps a testament to the sheer blinding stupidity of humanity) he even manages to fall in love, get married and become a doting father to two young children.Īt least one human knows Octodad’s secret however. He’s not just living among them though, but as one donning a dapper three-piece suit and with a couple of tentacles in place of a mustache, Octodad walks (or more accurately, slides, slithers, and wobbles) through the human world and, as the song goes, nobody suspects a thing. He’s an octopus who, for some reason, chooses to live among humans. Released Jan 2014 | Developed / Published: Young Horses Octodad: Dadliest Catch (Android, iOS, PC, PS4 (reviewed), PS Vita, Switch, Xbox One, Wii U) Look, some days you’ve just got to play a really mad indie game about octopodes and fatherhood, right?
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