The Linux, Mac and Windows PC versions of Octodad: Dadliest Catch, the indie game about a cephalopod pretending to be a suburban dad, hit Steam, Humble and GOG.com on Jan. 30, developer Young Horses' president Phil Tibitoski tells Polygon.
The game will ship as a single purchase for all three platforms, though Tibitoski declined to say how much it will cost. The price, he said, will be announced in the lead-up to the launch.
The studio is aiming for a March release for the PlayStation 4 version of the game.
"We still need to work on trophies and some things like that a bit," Tibitoski said. "Though it's more about just giving us some more room to make sure we can get it done. We don't want to make any hasty announcements."
Tibitoski said once the computer version of the game ships and the PS4 version is out the door, they'll be looking at sales and fan reaction to decide whether to try and bring the game to the Wii U or Xbox One.
"We want to see where those first three or four months go," he said. "How Mac and PC sales are going and seeing how the PS4 does first."
For now, the team of eight former DePaul University students await the release of the game, and the reaction by fans, to determine the fate of their fledgling studio. And it's a pretty simple math problem. If the game sells enough copies, they'll be able to continue their work at Young Horses; if not ...
"We need to make a certain amount to keep going as Young Horses and if we don't we need to dissolve the studio or make other plans."
"We don't have any sources of income," Tibitoski said. "We all had other jobs until now, but we all quit those to finish this up and hedge our bets on Octodad. We need to make a certain amount to keep going as Young Horses and if we don't we need to dissolve the studio or make other plans."
Tibitoski declined to tell me what that number is, but said it is a very distinct line in the sand for the small studio.
That one version of the game is complete, that the game will soon be on sale, has yet to really sink in for many at the studio, Tibitoski said.
"It's pretty crazy," he said. "I don't think it has hit anyone yet. But we're hopeful. We've gotten a pretty good amount of press coverage and people really seem to dig the game."
With the news of a release date comes a bit more insight into the depths of the game as well. Up until now, Tibitoski said, players only had a sense of the wacky mechanics and premise of the game.
In Dadliest Catch, players take control of the limbs of the game's Octodad. The deliberately chaotic gameplay, and sticky, sucker-dotted limbs, turn the simplest of motions into humorous on-screen train wrecks. In one demo level, for instance, players need to dress Octodad for a wedding. Thanks to the insanity of the controls and those limbs, the efforts can't help but lead to laughter.
But there's more to the game than humorous setups. The trailer, released with today's news, encapsulates not just the humor of the game, but a surprising touch of drama as Octodad visits an aquarium with his family, only to disappear.
"Up until now people have only gotten to play the first two levels," Tibitoski said. "The builds were always old. It will be really nice to have the whole game out there in a the state we want and have people experience the game's story. We haven't shown a lot of that yet."
