Gamescom: Octodad is Still Completely Nuts

Octodad is inarguably one of the best premises for a video game ever conceived: don't let anybody find out that you're an octopus. Trying to live a normal life as a human with eight woobly tentacles in place of limbs comes with considerable challenges, but it is imperative that nobody realises. You must be a secret octopus. It's sublimely surreal.

The thing that makes Octodad a hugely entertaining game as well as a hugely entertaining idea is the controls, which are just unmanageable enough to be hilarious instead of frustrating. Controlling individual tentacles with the analogue sticks, you can approximate walking, opening doors and other day-to-day human functions, but only in a chaotically slapstick way.

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Don't let anybody find out that you are actually an octopus.

The brief Octodad demo centres on a crucial moment in any human (or octopus') life: a wedding day. Beginning with a hunt for the key to get you out of the church dressing gown, it gradually introduces you to the finger-bending control principles before challenging you to find a bow-tie and top hat and put it on, which is itself an awful lot more difficult and entertaining than expected. You must then wobble down the aisle without knocking anything over with a stray tentacle and thereby causing the waiting congregation to suspect that you might, in fact, be an octopus.

For me, Octodad is still the highlight in the PlayStation 4's eclectic and vibrant line-up of independent games. Even five years ago you just didn't find this kind of thing on consoles. Sony President Andrew House said this week that the aim for the PlayStation 4 was to create an environment where the entire spectrum of games can flourish, from the tiny to the titanic. Octodad is a great early example of a strategy that's working.

After eight years Keza MacDonald is still not bored of writing about video games, which is just as well, as her skills at demon-slaying and pretend guitar are pretty much non-transferable. You can follow her on IGN and Twitter.

Source : ign[dot]com