Dave the Diver Screams Diner Dash, and I Can’t Stop Playing

Warning: The following article on why Dave the Diver is like Diner Dash contains spoilers for both titles.

Somewhere in the weeds of my pubescent years, Diner Dash became my Flappy Bird.

As the waitress Flo, I seated color-coded customers, took orders, served food, and bussed tables like nobody’s business. The loop was simple, yet the dopamine hits I’d get when a customer left satisfied kept me addicted. So addicted that whenever I got the chance, I’d boot up Diner Dash on one of my middle school’s (ancient) PCs during computer class to sneak in a level or two. 

For many like myself, Diner Dash was burned into our memory, earning the reputation of that game everyone remembered playing in the 2000s before mobile gaming boomed. But despite all its success, the franchise has been through several revamps and held by different owners. The original Diner Dash is mostly a mere fever dream that gamers miss playing.

I’ve been craving a revolutionized take on this series for years. Luckily, Dave the Diver is really scratching that itch well. Instantly, I was swooning over its restaurant-by-night gameplay. And while Diner Dash doesn’t have the mechanical breath of Dave the Diver, the motion of rushing to customers with a hot plate before they impatiently leave screamed my childhood.

Again, I waited for orders from the chef, raced out to a deluge of guests, and scooped dishes. Nostalgia had me by the throat; I couldn’t stop playing Dave the Diver.

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My nights were spent seeing the fruits of my labor at sea and growing the restaurant, keeping me obsessed. But as much as the lure of Diner Dash gameplay chained me to Dave the Diver, I was pleasantly stunned by how the adventure RPG takes the old formula to new and bizarre heights.

When not diving into the ever-changing Blue Hole and collecting ingredients, you’re whipping up meal plans and advertisements to hire workers. Unlike Diner Dash, which primarily focuses on surviving an onslaught of customers, Dave the Diver adds a sense of ownership over your expenses and likability with customers. 

I had a business to run and an image to protect instead of being a lone server fishing for score points. This gravity of possession doesn’t dawn on you until you get involved in the social app Cooksta in the diving RPG. A healthy internet popularity is a must to attract newer customers, and funnily enough, people love to snap their food and share it with others. 

Excellent customer service, a well-thought-out menu, and astute management of where your money is going will contribute to winning awards to show off on Cooksta. That earns your seaside restaurant prestige, leading to even more customer photo bombs of your meals.

Whereas Diner Dash was about bottling the simplicity of serving into an engrossing loop, Dave the Diver keeps that straightforward hook but implements more things to bite into.

Customers aren’t just happy you served them – some have zany reactions, with cutscenes of them exploding with delight. Your resident chef, Bancho, isn’t just a faceless man; he’s an expert with a deep backstory and has these epic cut-ins of him cooking a banger meal.

I’ve stayed with Dave the Diver longer than I thought I would. Sure, I’d get some joy out of reliving my childhood by serving up customers again, but honestly, the responsibility and excitement of having an integral role in a restaurant kept me going. Its repetitive nature comes with slices of gratification throughout, serving as a gamified recreation of what it means to manage an actual food establishment and care for its reputation. 

Flo shouldered that burden as a server with big dreams, but in Dave the Diver, that burden is yours. The RPG’s commitment to giving you the reigns and expanding what you can do led me to spend many hours playing it, and I haven’t stopped yet.