Octodad: Dadliest Catch: Review

In the not very distant 2010, the first appeared Octodad -modest student development for one of the indie festivals. Since then, developers have managed to gather a small guard of fans, announce the sequel and quietly hold the campaign on Kickstarter. Users offered a modest $ 24,000 dollars, and this was more than enough.

Emmigently about Octodad: Dadliest Catch They spoke only when her demo got to the presentation Sony during E3. The sequel promised to be not just amateur pampering, but a full -fledged commercial project: with a plot campaign, a set of actors, bonuses and secret levels. Only one question remained relevant: whether such a strange thing as an “octopap” can look organically on an increased scale?

Eight troubles – one gamepad

Anyone who saw gameplay rollers becomes clear that some kind of catch is lurking in the gameplay. Even the simplest actions are given an invertebrate octopus with great difficulty: it is difficult for him to put on a tie, it’s hard to keep posture, it’s very difficult to walk and it is even more difficult to jump. For the user, this pours into a monstrous control system, for which all this was started. The authors called it «the strongest and weakest side of the game».

Only one of the three available limbs is allowed to control at one point in time. This is either the tentacle that Mollusk considers the “hand”, or one of the two “legs”. The first is controlled more or less decent: there are two independent planes-«up-down» and «left-right». They clamped the right mouse button – led the «grip» forward, released – adjusted the height. The gamepad is somewhat more understandable – there two sticks are responsible for two axes.

Step worse. By pressing Space, control switches to walking mode. The mouse keys are responsible for the «legs» movement – the longer you hold the button, the higher they lift up. So we walk: squeeze, run forward, let go, repeat for the other half. Here the controller is almost no different, except that the lower pair of limbs is activated by holding trigger.

Both management methods can be combined by passing Octodad In a cooperative with a friend. For two, four tentacles are already standing out instead of three – both “hands” of the character are involved. Everything is randomly shared between users who are forced to learn to interact. But it is worth players to get used to and cope with the first intermediate task, how everything is mixed, and the learning process begins again.

It is obvious that mastering the local layout is even more difficult than trying to describe it. The first half an hour even walking in a straight line seems completely impossible, and there can be no question of performing some missions for speed or accuracy. But the player is not provided to the player: the octopap hides his true nature with all his might, so nothing suspicious cannot

be done in the presence of people. Any destroyed item adds penalties, and exceeding a certain limit leads to a loss. Although this is not a very serious restriction: it is hardly possible to fall on such deconing more than once more than once.

But this does not mean that everything around is easy. The levels are built so that you have to constantly be in suspense: they are forced to pass between the fragile columns at the wedding, then take the milk container from the farthest shelf. Each episode is planned so as to turn into a uniform mockery, and this creates a million funny situations.

Hands in the legs

It seems that the game should quickly get bored – as soon as you get up with management. But no: the locations are planned very correctly and subtly, so never for the campaign you have to do the same. First, trivial tasks are offered like cutting lawns or weeding the garden. Further – more. It is necessary to throw basketballs, dance on a luminous floor and climb on a huge playground. Some episodes turn into a full-fledged stealth explosion, and sometimes there is a place for a simple puzzle. Of course, there is no talk of any boredom here.

The funny duration does not give a grunt: in the worst case, the passage will drag on for 4 hours. Therefore, it is worth immediately thinking about collecting all ties hidden at the levels and check each corner in search of optional jokes and surprises. And do not forget to see Steam’s “Achivments”: for once they set really interesting additional tasks.

If you “run” the campaign, then you just don’t have time to enjoy the process. You can replenish this using Steam Workshop. It is available directly from the main menu and is arranged in the most convenient way: the desired cards are downloaded for the fractions of seconds and are immediately added to the list of available. Already now you can find several interesting and difficult tasks there.

In such a fleeting game, a more than a full -fledged plot fit, which can easily compete with large animated blockbusters. In the center of events «Big Journey» Oktopapa to the local oceanarium. The head of the family, of course, is dissatisfied, but his wife needs to write a sightseeing article in the journal, so there is no choice left. It’s funny to say, but there is a place for family squabbles, small deceptions, flashbacks and unexpected turns.

The story of each character is lined up during your location of tete-a-a. Those present are chatting non -stop, so even in the queue you can accidentally learn from the old woman how terribly she wants to look at a living octopus. The game has tons of completely charming humor and subtle cultural references. The walls on the walls offer to buy Stanley Pair O ’Bowls, and on stained glass windows in the church you can see Ktulhu. In addition, the authors often allow themselves to laugh at the movie stamps, which so carefully reproduce.

The plot part here is probably one of the most witty and entertaining recently. She can’t compare with a rather chouceful original: the script is overgrown with details and has become at least like a script. You manage to get used to the heroes and imbued with sympathy, and in the end there is a pleasant feeling of completeness of history.

Despite the fact that Octodad It is unfortunately unfortunate, you need to pay tribute to the developers: it seems impossible to squeeze out more from this concept. They developed a funny idea to the scale of the animated film, found an absurd management of a thousand applications and provided all the conditions for creating an endless number of user modifications. Octodad – This is funny, interesting and reigree. The game is really full of rare charm – at least everyone should look at it.

Pros: Funny management;non -standard concept;brilliantly sustained style;diversity;rich editor and convenient support for user levels.
Cons: inconvenient management;Too few octopapes!