A hundred mini-games in a trench coat pretending to be a job sim, Dave the Diver is a vibrant, constantly inventive delight.

The minimalistic core loop of the game - catch fish by day, sell sushi by night - doesn't stay that much "core" for longer than an hour, as you're constantly introduced to fun little new mechanics or full on mini-games. This process is exuberant, the mechanics that would make up a whole game will often appear just for one scene, where you need to crack them on short notice. A lot of these mini-games are delightful pixel-art homages to other games, and most of them work great as little sushi-like bites rather than whole meals.

By the late game, the flow of new mechanics slows down a bit, and that leaves you to realize that there's just not much depth to the core experience of Dave the Diver. The business sim is barebones, the fishing is repetitive across all biomes, there are way too many dishes you can serve which adds zero to the experience as they are just tiny pixel art icons.

But that doesn't really matter, as the game clearly goes for width, rather than depth. You get to do so many fun things in Dave the Diver that you can ignore that the job sim is not crunchy enough. And you can almost fill that giant hole that Subnautica left in your heart.