BEST DESIGN 2023
Fraser Brown: There should be too much going on in Dave the Diver. You’ve got a restaurant to manage, fish to collect, mysteries to uncover, big ol’ sharks trying to eat you, and some roguelike elements that would normally stress me out – but this scuba adventure is, miraculously, never anything less than effortless and elegant. It has the chill vibes of a summer holiday spent on a boat, all sunny skies and Hawaiian shirts, and despite my long list of tasks, I never feel burdened or busy. Pure joy.
Robin Valentine: Really there’s not much Dave the Diver does that hasn’t been done before. You’ve farmed and fished and waited tables in videogames before, and it doesn’t really iterate on any of those basic ideas to any wildly innovative degree. What makes it so special is the way it just keeps piling in all of those ideas, constantly expanding the experience so that any time you’re starting to feel like you’ve seen everything it’s got to offer, it reveals yet another layer. It turns that moment of discovery – of realising a game is more than you thought it was – into the core joy of the game. And it manages it without getting bogged down in tutorialising or overwhelming you with tasks. It’s a very cosy game, but also a really elegantly designed one.
THE CUTSCENES ARE HILARIOUS AND BEAUTIFULLY ANIMATED
Chris Livingston: I’ve never played a game and tho
