Picking Up Steam: Octodad: Dadliest Catch (PC)

Mowing the lawn. Mopping the floor. Buying groceries. These chores would be a bore for a simple human, but for one octopus, his fate rests on being able to do them properly. After all, if he can’t convincingly do something as simple as drink his morning coffee, his somehow effective ruse of disguising as a human could unravel and everyone would see he’s just a cephalopod that’s managed to weave himself into a business suit. Octodad: Dadliest Catch ends up being a game all about keeping the act up so he can continue to enjoy life outside the water, the game mixing comedy with some deliberately frustrating controls to further explore its ridiculous premise.

While Octodad is able to stand upright like a human thanks to a smart arrangement of his tentacles, even things as small as walking can be a bit of a task. Octodad’s strides often lead to him flopping around and his limbs are probably going to be responsible for many knocked over objects as he tries to navigate human spaces, but he seems to exist in a world that is at least mostly tolerant of a clumsy and ungainly fellow. However, knocking over crucial items or outright hitting other people will start to make people suspicious that the man who only speaks in burbling noises might not be the typical suburban father he claims to be. In most levels, there is a meter that tracks how close you are to being figured out, and while a failure unfortunately doesn’t lead to some dramatic reveal of the truth, it also won’t set you back too far. Octodad: Dadliest Catch is about eventually finagling your way into completing the tasks complicated by your octopus anatomy, and when you complete one that meter will even be set back a bit so you aren’t moving onto the next objective with too high a suspicion level.

The main means you have of controlling Octodad is activating a limb and then trying to move it around like it is a tentacle. Once you’ve held the proper button to pick your arm or either leg, you then exclusively control that part and need to worm it around to do whatever you desire of it. The limp noodles you call your tentacles can at least grab necessary objects with a single button press once they’re near enough, but trying to move them into the proper places can lead to them winding around objects or the rest of your body might flop into odd positions. Thankfully, the most vital action for success, walking, is something that does have a perceptible rhythm to it so that simple locomotion is only an issue in early levels, but Octodad: Dadliest Catch is constantly concocting new trials for the octopus to overcome to continue living a peaceful human existence.

Early on, you do tend to contend with simple household tasks turned tricky thanks to your body type. Pushing a lawn mower is much harder when your body isn’t solid enough to muster up the force, and since you’re not exactly moving in precise ways, it’s not too hard to send the mower careening into your wife’s flower garden. When you go grocery shopping though, Octodad starts to perhaps think certain actions are necessary to keep up the charade despite not being something you see humans up to. An important food item can be at the tallest point of a huge display, the player needing to help Octodad climb it without causing chaos. Maneuvering Octodad into tight or unusual spaces to complete tasks like getting a frozen pizza out of a broken freezer start to make your tasks more creative and demanding, but importantly, Octodad doesn’t lose its delightful silliness. In fact, comedy is perhaps the game’s strongest weapon, especially since this is a game where you might otherwise have gotten upset at your character behaving in unusual or unexpected ways due to his strange and sometimes difficult movement.

Octodad is a married man and a father, and the game realizes this is very absurd and is happy to play into that time and time again. Your wife works as an investigative reporter for a living but fails to notice the obvious secret right under her nose. However, she also does seem to realize something is up with her husband, Scarlet getting so close at times to connecting the dots only for Octodad to burble out something that sounds like a excuse. At the same time, Octodad: Dadliest Catch knows to leave certain questions unanswered to make the lack of them a joke in itself. As often as Octodad is facing a situation a human can easily overcome with ease we also see him thrown into ridiculous unbelievable scenarios that are just as ripe for silly situations. Two extra levels outside the game’s plot exist almost solely for this, one being a restaurant date where Octodad also works as a waiter on the side leading to a great deal of hilarious situations where you’ll likely end up spreading chaos with your sloppy serving and handling of food and yet still pull things off in a sitcom style balancing act. There are times where you get so wrapped up in a mess or are asked to perform such a strange task you can’t help but laugh, but perhaps the oddest thing about this game where an octopus tries to pass himself as human being is that you actually really want the ruse to last forever.

Octodad is just as prone to grumbling and grousing as any guy, but he is legitimately a good father and husband. This is on particular show during the game’s best section, the aquarium, where he spends a day out with the family. While other sections better show his love for Scarlet, the aquarium gives him some one-on-one time with his son Tommy and daughter Stacy. He clearly enjoys his time with this family he somehow managed to put together and they care for him, Octodad a loving and playful father who does put his family first even when it jeopardizes his ongoing ruse. The aquarium is also a particularly great jump in quality in terms of what you the player will be contending with as well. Whereas before you sometimes encountered a somewhat silly disruption to normal tasks on top of them being made goofy by Octodad’s wobbly body, the aquarium gives you more structured activities that are proper games on their own. You can find yourself essentially a soccer goalie in an otter themed amusement in the aquarium’s play place, you can find yourself on a floor where tiles light up and you need to stomp on them in time, and there are various arcade games in one section like air hockey and whack-a-mole where you can try and finagle your tentacles to aid you or get a little sneaky with them if you feel like cheating.

Even before you’ve completely moved away from household chores turned into physics problems, you’ll also receive the occasional burst of action thanks to the disruption of an angry chef. Seemingly the only man who naturally sees through Octodad’s disguise, the chef aims to out the octopus and chop him into sushi. These sections are often short enough that they don’t require too much dexterity with Octodad to successfully survive, although the game can have fun with what constitutes a threat to an octopus who can barely walk properly on land. While at first a gag, the chef also ends up roped into Octodad’s unusual backstory as well, leading to the game earning more of an emotional investment as you don’t want to see this cephalopod’s family collapse if his secret should get out.

Admittedly, for all the laughs and unusual situations the movement in Octodad: Dadliest Catch brings, it also has a few moments of frustration that aren’t intentionally part of the challenge. While usually Octodad can eventually clear even the most taxing movement trials once you’ve got a hang for how his limbs work, there are times where your limb can outright get caught on something in a way the game doesn’t intend. It’s one thing to accidentally wrap your leg around a grocery cart and need to untangle it, it’s another when a door shuts on your hand and it ends up lodged in the door itself rather than the doorframe. You might get your tentacle stuck in places it shouldn’t be and without much recourse, and while there is a way to go completely limp that can sometimes pop you out eventually, reloading your last checkpoint can sometimes set you back even further than a failure would have. Seemingly the game has been tidied up since its initial release, not just to add the earlier mentioned extra missions but to clean the game up when it comes to some of those frustrating parts. Sneaking past canny marine biologists for example has been simplified so there are fewer slip ups that come from rough game design rather than intentional difficulty in controlling the main character.

While you might get your tentacle jammed in a bad spot at times, Octodad: Dadliest Catch does reward curiosity, both for exploring every nook and cranny of its small levels and for thinking of clever interactions. Special neckties are hidden in most every chapter of the story, the player sometimes finding them by figuring out a way to climb to an odd spot while at other times it might be using objects in amusing ways. While levels often have quite a few objects you can mess around with purely for the amusement of seeing Octodad either make a mess or try to get something to work, the adventure becomes even more interesting when you know the game is looking to reward out of the box thinking and your growing skill at moving your octopus parts around. You can even play the game cooperatively with another player where you both try to control Octodad at the same time, your actions even harder to coordinate with another deliberate complication but you also have someone you can laugh with as you stumble into organic ridiculousness just as often as the deliberate jokes and oddities that make up this lighthearted adventure.

THE VERDICT: An octopus trying to pass himself off as a human is a ridiculous idea, but Octodad: Dadliest Catch has a lot of heart on top of fully embracing the silliness. The gameplay knows how far to take the joke about him struggling with simple tasks but also weaves in activities that are enjoyable beyond their comedic value. While your difficulty in controlling Octodad is crucial to the gameplay, Octodad: Dadliest Catch also tries to avoid having too many true frustrations, our floppy protagonist’s unusual movement leading to great deal of laughs alongside writing that mixes corny jokes with some sweet moments starring this odd family Octodad truly cares for.

And so, I give Octodad: Dadliest Catch for PC…

A GREAT rating. The aquarium really feels like a turning point for the Octodad concept. As funny as it is to see him struggle at the homestead trying to grill burgers, the aquarium elevates things as we start getting more direct examination of Octodad’s relationship with his family. You get to participate in more involved activities that don’t push the movement to the point of breaking, and when the finale comes, you do find yourself wishing the game could go on longer to see how it could continue to mix the more mundane trials with the ones that would be proper entertainment even with more traditional controls available. An editor mode tries to keep the fun going by handing the player the keys, but the extra stages are where the game shows there is a lot more room to explore the concept. With a few elements that begin to tinker with how you control things as Octodad even showing up as you near the end, the game doesn’t feel like it used up all its creativity, but Octodad: Dadliest Catch also leaves a lot of room for the player to discover their own humorous situations. It knows not to be too strict, allowing the player to indulge in some deliberate chaos at times, but it also tightens things up when it comes time to do a task so there’s still a challenge to overcome. Octodad: Dadliest Catch isn’t just about being funny, but outside of a few rare optional parts, it also isn’t trying to be an incredibly hard game. You’ll get the octopus to the goal eventually and likely see some delightful silliness along the way either because of your own curiosity or the game having a good sense for when to crank up the absurdity or hold back. The comedy that arises from the odd physics knows it shouldn’t only rely on the player to create kooky scenarios and just hope that will be fun, many of the game’s own jokes just as hilarious as whatever you concoct through your own actions.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch has a catchy theme song, colorful cartoon look, and writing that makes you laugh at yet feel for its very unusual hero. Even as you grow accustomed to how to move your tentacles, the game keeps up by getting more imaginative in what you need to do without ever straining the controls too much. It even feels a little harsh to call it a “frustrating game” despite that often being the best moniker for games where the controls being difficult to wrangle is part of the challenge, but that’s because Octodad: Dadliest Catch does so much to make you love its gangly lead and the antics that occur because of his lack of coordination.