Dave the Diver’s director on the breakout indie hit of 2023

Whereas 2023 has produced a bumper crop of fantastic video games thus far, one specific title rocketed to success seemingly out of nowhere: Dave the Diver, the charming fishing/life sim-RPG hybrid from Mintrocket. The sport launched on Steam from early entry on June 28 and have become one of many top-selling titles inside per week. Inside a month, it’d bought over a million models. Most lately, Nintendo revealed throughout its September Direct that it’s launching on the Change in October.

GamesBeat spoke with Dave the Diver’s director, Jaeho Hwang, concerning the sport’s growth and the way its creators have responded to its meteoric rise in recognition. In keeping with Hwang, the staff responded to their viral success by ensuring the sport was nearly as good as potential: “We started the early entry in October final yr, and through that point, we made quite a few enhancements due to open communication with the neighborhood. After launch, seeing an astonishing variety of customers like our sport made us notice how essential and significant these enhancements had been.”

Provided that the Steam web page at the moment has a ranking of “Overwhelmingly Constructive” with over 50,000 critiques (on the time of writing), it’s protected to say that gamers appreciated Mintrocket’s efforts. Hwang says, “We averted many potential issues and had the prospect to arrange plenty of good content material. Now we’re engaged on new content material that we hope everybody who has given us a lot help can get pleasure from.”

Coronary heart and appeal: Dave the Diver’s success

Hwang informed GamesBeat he wasn’t initially positive that the sport could be as interesting because it was, given its distinctive strategy to gameplay: “Personally, I had some considerations that the slower and extra deliberate tempo of Dave the Diver won’t enchantment to some streamers, however through the demo and early entry interval, I used to be pleasantly shocked to see so many streamers taking part in the sport voluntarily.”

These streamers, says Hwang, turned a part of the post-release viral success: “We maintained good relationships with many streamers, and we ended up even making a few of them into NPCs within the sport. Due to streamers who live-streamed our sport even earlier than the complete launch and people who live-streamed after, this enthusiastic help has made our sport go viral.”

Dave the Diver’s core gameplay is a mishmash of oceanic exploration RPG and restaurant administration sim. Balancing the 2 points was a course of that concerned suggestions from early entry customers, whereas additionally discovering area to inform the sport’s story. Hwang notes that customers notably like hero Dave, who experiences his personal development over the course of the sport.

Hwang says he’s all the time beloved retro-pixel video games, and that he needed to make a sport with such an artwork fashion set within the ocean. “The ocean we envisioned was a mysterious dungeon full of distinctive creatures. Once I watch deep-sea documentaries, there are moments when the data of the sheer existence of those actual creatures within the deep sea provides me goosebumps greater than any made-up fantasy creature ever might. The imaginative and prescient of a sport that would seize these creatures, however in an arcade gameplay fashion, is how Dave the Diver started.”

In the meanwhile, Mintrocket is at the moment rolling out fixes and high quality of life updates for Dave the Diver. Hwang lately informed Dualshockers that the staff plans to roll out extra content material to beef up the second half of the sport, to bolster an in any other case story-focused part. “There are extra tales from our distinctive characters to inform.”