Octodad: Dadliest Catch on Steam

Title: Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Format: Steam download

Release Date: January 30, 2014

Publisher: Young Horses

Developer: Young Horses

Original MSRP: $14.99

ESRB Rating: RP

                     Nothing Says “Romantic” Like an Octopus in a Suit

It’s February, and that means love is in the air. At least, it’s in the air until the 14^th. What better to celebrate this than with a game involving a loving suburban family and tentacles?

Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a 3^rd person puzzle game by Wild Horses, in which you are the father of a suburban family and have to deal with the day-to-day activities of any normal family, but as an octopus. The game opens up on Octodad’s wedding day. His bride to be is awaiting his presence on the altar, and our protagonist is nowhere to be found. Luckily, he is found by a member of the church’s staff who alerts Octodad that his Bride-to-be is growing worried, and completely overlooks the fact that he is staring at an octopus standing on his tentacles and getting ready. Here’s where the game takes off.

The game is intentionally tough. It trains you to think about how an octopus would walk on land if it could. In some sense, it’s quite similar to the classic Flash game: QWOP. However, instead of running on a track, you’re running away from a villainous sushi chef through the back room of the local grocery store.

 Story: When playing Octodad for the first time, subtitles are automatically turned on, as they are core to some of the jokes the writers add into the game. 

Several of the jokes and one-liners come from Octodad himself whenever he feels someone, or something, is trying to wreck the pleasant life he has set up. After his wedding day, we flash forward about five years and find that Octodad has two kids (they’re human) and a calm life. Only after doing some quick chores around the house do we discover that he’s being hunted by a mad French chef who is out for blood. The whole game, apart from two flashbacks, takes place over a day, leading to an interesting ending.

Gameplay: Your first objective in the game introduces you to the awkward, yet intuitive controls of Octodad. Regardless of whether or not you use a controller, the mechanics are practically the same: you’re shown that you will be moving in a 3D space through the game. The left mouse button controls your left leg, the right button controls the right leg, and the middle mouse button switches you from movement mode to selection mode. For a controller, movement is designated to the triggers and the “A” button (or “cross” for PlayStation controllers). The first level shows you everything you will need to know to beat the game within five minutes, and only holds your hand through the very beginning of the tutorial. I’m not a huge fan of tutorials in games; however I can make an exception here due to the control scheme being unique. 

Octodad is charming, but there are a few minor problems with it. First and foremost: there are moments where Octodad will glitch through a wall or two with no way to get out. There were a few points in the supermarket level where, as I’m attempting to grab a 2-liter of Mango Soda for my son, my legs would get caught in the walls I had been climbing on. Although that can be fixed by reloading the last save, it did happen enough to cause a mild amount of frustration. To compliment that, the checkpoints are fairly close together, which does make the issue of wall glitching easier to cope with. 

Apart from that, the game is quite short, especially for having 11 levels. All together, the game took about 5 hours. There are collectables that can be found in the levels, and there is achievement support for the game, but once I beat it, the only reason I would go back to it would to show a friend what the game is like. There are a few comical ties available like the Dragon Fire tie, the Yin and Yang tie and the Hen tie, but for me the appeal was not strong enough to get all 30 available.

Visuals: Like many PC games, the visuals can easily be altered. I played this on two different platforms: a normal laptop that didn’t have any real power behind it, and a high-end gaming laptop. On the high-end laptop, the game looks pretty good. All of the screenshots were taken from that laptop, and although the characters are a bit angled during a cut scene, it doesn’t take away from the game itself. However, in a strange way, it fits the game in a fantastic way. As for the standard laptop, there is some frame rate issues that caused the came to freeze (especially near the end of the game) when there were a lot of objects on screen that needed to be rendered. Even after toning down the graphics and the size of the window, the frame rate struggled. However, if you have a decent graphics card and a fairly strong processor, you should not have to worry.

Audio: Most of the music in this game is ambient noise, which is not a bad thing at all. For example, when exploring the later parts of the aquarium levels, there’s a serene, yet cautious feeling as you wander the halls, trying to find your family. The reason I say mostly is because after the first level, one of the catchiest theme songs in a video game starts to play. I found myself unconsciously humming the song throughout the day. It’s just that good. As for the voices of the characters, there are maybe one or two lines that I thought were read a little weird. However, it wasn’t nearly enough to derail the experience.

Multiplayer: There’s no online multiplayer for Octodad, however to really get the most out of this game, bring a friend over and watch them struggle to grasp the controls. There’s ample opportunity to chide your friend for not being able to climb up a set of escalators, with both of you enjoying yourselves along the way.

Octodad may not be the perfect game, but he may be the most perfect octopus-husband the gaming world has seen. With a charming narrative, clever controls, and a novel concept, Octodad is an interesting game that is definitely worth the price.

Final Score: 8.25/10

Next Week: Outlast on PS4/Steam

You can follow me on Twitter: @AdHocMan