Dave the Diver has cemented its place in the management simulation genre as one of the best to release in the last few years just from the base game alone.
The team at Mintrocket continued to feed the beast with new content since launch and we’re getting a great gift for Dave the Diver‘s third birthday with a brand new DLC: In the Jungle.
Dave the Diver In The Jungle
Release date: June 18
Reviewed platform: PC
Released Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, PS4, Xbox One
Developer: MINTROCKET
Publisher: MINTROCKET
During Summer Game Fest, we were given a treat for the DLC trailer: Live action flair courtesy of the creators of Sharknado.
The new content takes Dave and his crew to a nearby island to investigate some ancient dinosaurs washing up tied to the mysterious Blue Hole.
I will not be recapping the story in this review, but I believe the new content does a fantastic job of continuing the story from the base game. So if you’re looking for a strong narrative, then check that box off.
Developers estimate the DLC can take between 7 to 15 hours to complete and I would agree with that assessment!
Editor’s note: This review contains spoilers to the story via references in text and through screenshots. For those who do not wish to read on, I have rated the DLC a 5/5 stars! Those who are curious, please continue!
The strong narrative is carried in the DLC the same way as in the base game: Through a strong gameplay loop between foraging/collecting ingredients during the day and running the restaurant at night. We also still get thrown into some unexpected cutscenes and hilarious mini-games that drive that underlying story wonderfully.
Below, I’ll outline some of the new mechanics added to the game, quality of life mechanics that are a great help in the game along with my QOL improvement wishlist, and finally a number of tips to help players who are ready to dive into In the Jungle themselves!
Base game mechanics that make a triumphant return
- Goofy ass mini games. Emphasis on goofy, but some of the best that I have had the pleasure of playing.
- Whether its knocking coconuts out of trees, pulling weeds, chasing off macques, filling in on the drums for an important ceremony, escaping a corrupted digital world (??? sometimes they feel like a fever dream in the best way), and more.
- Some of the best crafting/upgrading/quest cutscenes of all-time return! I cannot overstate how much every character shines purely because of these cutscenes.
- You still run your shop, just with fresh fish instead of salt water!
- You have added offerings like skewers that can earn you more money per order. You get to pick what they are made of so you can maximize your profits.
- Coconut drinks and mango shakes are the starters, skewers to add-on, entrees made by Bancho, of course! You will work in an isometric view that gives you more access to the whole restaurant that will grow as you improve your reputation.
- You also have a lovely cast of employees who come to work for you over a number of wild situations. Some NPCs are even crossovers with franchises like Two Point Museum, Wuthering Waves, and references to others like Terraria.
- You’ve still got your big bad battles underwater — just this time they’re fresh fish.
New and improved mechanics
- The daytime operates in real-time changing the pace of the game, but I found that I was never short for time.
- There are activities that will pass time during the day like entering the Setah Jungle and diving, but there is no time limit set against you once you are in it similar to how time passes when you are in the Blue Hole in the base game.
- Your four weapons is now condensed into one: The Jungle Gun. You can access all the gun types and upgrade them individually to suit your preferred fight style!
- Classic life sim things
- Chopping trees and mining rocks not in the water, relationships/gifting, fishing (on land!), hunting, catching bugs, catching lizards, home decorating and more!
- Catching bugs the classic way with a net is included, but also Mintrocket somehow added creature collecting with Battle Beetles. You will catch various beetle species by battling them with your own collection of beefed up beetles through a rock-paper-scissors type minigame!
- There is a deeper view of farming compared to the base game where the plants you grow can produce mutated fruit. And it’s a good thing! Twin = double production, fruiting = seeds, giant versions, and there are also rare colors with purple dragon fruit and red pineapples that sell for more when used for things like skewers.
- You can purchase fertilizer that increases changes for giant or mutated fruit, and you use items from your inventory to create fertilizer. So hoarders have a use for them if they aren’t simply sold.
- You cannot dive during the night in the DLC, but you can find night-exclusive fish via land fishing, along with nighttime-only forageables and bugs. You’ll need to catch them to complete your collections.
- Turn-based combat and battling your way through the Setah Jungle and temple in addition to the real-time action fights underwater that we experienced in the base game. In the jungle, you’ll manage your team and their equipment, upgrading stats, and more.
Quality of Life highlights
I love to make notes for QOL mechanics that are usually small and simple, but can really have an overall positive impact on how I play the game!
Here are some QOL mechanics that stuck out to me:
- You get quest marker indicators when in sell an crafting menus so there is no accidental selling/crafting. You also can pin point villager favorite gifts in your inventory easily with a heart marker while gifting. You can also directly ask NPCs what their favorite items are (and learn some things about them in the process).
- Additionally, we get a warning when giving gifts that won’t help NPC affinity! Which is minor but nice for not wasting items.
- When you are near an insect that is new for your collection, your phone vibrates and you are given a visual cue that looks like your phone is ringing! For those who have trouble remembering which bugs you’ve caught and want to complete the collection: this one is for you!
- You can recharge some incredibly useful items that are used underwater using crystals that can really help with the more difficult bosses! Don’t forget to upgrade with Dr. Bacon to lock-in some of those insanely useful items before you dive into the lake.
Tips
- Friendship upgrades will really help your experience!
- Free daily gifts from NPCs once you get their friendship high enough — and the quality of the gifts increases as you max out your friendship! You can also get 20% off smithing/tool upgrade costs, Rimbo gives you scooters (and they upgrade with his friendship!) to help traverse the map since Dave is trying his best.
- Some items that you get as gifts from villagers that you add into your home are interactive! You can do yoga and play video games for fun. The mortar and pestle that you get from Lathi is honestly the most useful because you can craft Jungle health items and Battle Beetle health from your home!
- When it comes to foraging, they make it obvious when there is an item you can collect with a sparkly visual cue. Some foraging is slow like tree shaking and ore collection, but upgrading your axe and pick to gold means that weak ore nodes/tree types will fully harvest in one or two hits.
- You can shake banana trees for two more leaves after you collect the fruit.
- Chests and ore deposits will respawn each day throughout the Setah Jungle and in the Temple, similar to how all foragables respawn each day! So you can farm not just the raw materials, but also the crafted medicinal items that are great to have in abundance.
- You can attack enemies in the Setah Jungle once before the battle encounter begins — eventually you will be able to kill enemies to farm ingredients, materials, and quest items without having to engage in the full battle sequence! There are also no time penalties for resting at bonfires in the Setah Jungle so do so to your heart’s content.
- When duck hunting with Marone, the best time to reload is when he pops his lil cute head out of the grass midway through the hunt. You get 10 birds per hunting spot and the spot near the swamp offered me the best birds. From least to most profitable: Sparrows, quails, ducks, pheasants. I only encountered pheasants in the swamp.
- Since you have just 9 plots in your jungle farm you just need to be mindful if you’d like to grow all the varieties of fruit (pineapple, honeydew, and watermelon are the other options!).
- When farming fruit, dragon fruit trees don’t die and will continually harvest! (Or I have not encountered its max production.) Pineapple will harvest just a few times, watermelon and honeydew are single harvest.
