Octodad: Dadliest Catch

I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I think I’m the only writer out there that truly “gets” Octodad. A lot of people think it’s a quirky indie adventure game based around unworkable play control and a wacky hijinks story of an octopus trying to blend in undetected in a relatively normal society.

But it’s not.

No, my friends. Octodad is really about the grim realities of living with Parkinson’s disease.

Hear me out on this.

In Octodad, even the most mundane tasks are an exercise in frustration. Let’s say you want to, oh, open a door. In real life, you reach out and turn the door knob. It takes a second, if that. In Octodad, you have to slowly move your jittery tentacle into position, which can take a shocking amount of patience-trying effort. Then you have to click the door knob. Then you have to actually pass through the door without accidentally closing it again, or tying yourself in a knot around the hinges of the door. There were times where it took me several minutes to walk through the threshold of a passage. I wish I could say this only happened once. But it happened again and again. The whole time shaking like I had just slammed twenty pots of coffee.

I trash every wedding at a church I go to as well. Not because I have trouble moving though, just for the lulz.

Whimsical adventure game? No. A dark look into the demoralizing reality those unfortunate among us have to face on a daily basis.

And then there’s the family. The ones that never notice he’s an “octopus.” I’m sure they completely failed to realize that their father trashed the entire kitchen just trying to get a cup of coffee. Or tramples all the flowers trying to pull a couple of weeds out of a garden. Or utterly destroys an entire grocery store trying to grab a soda. No, this isn’t a family in denial. This is a family who doesn’t want Daddy to feel different. Because, if they get him down, it might destroy him emotionally. Not something you want to do when already he’s being destroyed physically.

No?

Okay, how about alcoholism?

Yea, I’ll just move on.

Not a single movement or action in Octodad isn’t a pain in the ass to pull off. Those watching me play on Indie Gamer Chick TV thought it was hilarious. Meanwhile, I went through so many different emotions that I’m sure I created a new, Octodad-based form of bipolar disorder. Sometimes I was swearing like a sailor, so angry that nobody in the room with me would have been surprised if my head suddenly exploded. Other times I came close to burying my head in my hands and crying over how utterly useless I was at moving around or interacting with anything. I’ve never been a fan of any game that’s challenge is based on how God-damn difficult it is to control, but Octodad takes that to a whole new level. Using both sticks, the triggers, and the X button to both walk and interact with objects never felt intuitive for me. Some people are better able to get the hang of it (hell, there are speed-runners that finish the whole fucking thing in twenty minutes, the freaks), but for me, it just always felt broken.

Speaking of broken, I heard from many fans of the game that the PS4 version is noted for being unstable. I noticed this a few times myself. In one section at an aquarium, you have to lead your daughter through a maze of jellyfish exhibits using only a lantern. Once you get past this, the girl is supposed to notice one of the scientists her father is scared of and ask for the lantern back, allowing you to walk up the stairs. Well, when I played, that part never happened. Even though we walked all across that area, she never hit the specific spot on the floor that promoted the next part of the story to continue. I walked around, trying to activate it, but it wouldn’t happen. My viewers who had completed the game were confused. I was angry. I restarted from my previous load and it failed to happen again. The second time had the added bonus of the daughter pinning my character up against the wall where I was unable to wiggle myself free. This did activate a prompt, though not one in the game. The prompt was in me, and it activated “lose my shit” mode. Controller thrown, console turned off, and Octodad could choke on its own suckers and die.

Actual screencap from the spot that glitched out on me. I had to turn off Octodad and turn it back on to get the girl to do what she was supposed to do. Most of my viewers insisted the PC version was nowhere near as frustrating as the PS4 version. But, I paid for the PS4 version, so that didn’t really help me all that much. They really need to fix this port.

When stuff like this wasn’t happening, it wasn’t rare for me to somehow get an arm tied up in an object, or get stuck between two objects, or wrapped around something and unable to untangle myself. By default, the game sets you to be transparent. I found this to be hugely unsatisfactory. It made figuring out the position of your arms difficult to determine. Without transparency, you’ll have your character obscure the view (especially since the controls necessitate the game being based on fixed-camera angles) and struggle to see stuff you’re reaching for. There’s just no comfortable way to play it, but I feel transparency is the harder way to go. The main “challenge” is actually supposed to be going about the day without making anyone suspect you’re really an octopus in disguise. A lot of this involves not causing any property damage (ha) or doing stealthy stuff (HA!).  I usually play whatever indie I’m reviewing on whatever the default difficulty is, but I gave up on that shit here and set it to easy mode, which disables the ability to get caught. Shameful? Unquestionably. But, as my neighbors who have seen me skinny dipping in my pool will attest to, I have NO shame.

BUT, I did want to see how it ended. I’ll admit, I liked the story and the characters. Especially Octodad. He clearly loves his new wife and children and wants to be a good father. Well, except when I play as him. I tried to murder my family with an axe during the tutorial, but it wouldn’t let me. Anyway, it’s a strange juxtaposition, as the octopus is posing as a human, but he’s also very sincere and sympathetic. I actually think they missed out on having more dramatic, heartfelt moments. The daddy is very expressive and able to jerk a few tears out of you when need be, but Dadliest’s Catch is primarily focused on humor. It does humor very well, and there are multiple laugh-out loud moments. I wish I could say the torturous gameplay was worth playing to see it all, but it’s not. Not even close.

Ironically, this is also what my room looked like after an hour with Octodad.

Viewers will note that I had to have someone else play a flashback sequence on a ship. Unfortunately, I had a seizure while playing Octodad, which was my fault, and not the fault of developers Young Horses. As someone who lives with epilepsy, I always assume a risk when I play games, and sometimes that risk becomes reality. But it’s a good thing I did. A golfing buddy of mine named Jerrod volunteered to finish the section for me. After handing me back the controller, he said “you’ve really spent a couple of hours with this? Wow,  you’re way more patient than anyone gives you credit for.” I’m not really. There were multiple times where I almost quit. And despite getting a few belly laughs from the dialog or the background humor, I never once, even for a split second, enjoyed any aspect of actually playing Octodad: The Dadliest Catch. It is a game, after all. I can get humor from any source, including other games. I play games to enjoy an interactive experience. Octodad fights the concept of enjoyment every step of the way. I’m pretty surprised that it’s as popular as it is. Well, not really I suppose. It’s an indie game with an absurd concept, self-depreciating humor, funded through Kickstarter, and anyone who complains about the controls is just being a crybaby. It was practically preordained to get glowing reviews before it even released. I tip my hat to the developer for actually making me tear up a bit for the big family hug at the end. But this was one of my least favorite experiences playing a game in 2014. Octodad has one big heart but no legs to stand on. Which is ironic because it really should have three hearts and eight legs to stand on.

Octodad: The Dadliest Catch was developed by Young Horses

$14.99 tried to auto-correct “tentacles” when I misspelled it to “testicles” in the making of this review. I hope like hell that doesn’t give them an idea for the sequel.