OctoDad: Dadliest Catch: Wrangling Tentacles on PS Vita

OctoDad: Dadliest Catch PS Vita, a physics comedy game by Young Horses, ported by Sickhead Games

Title: Octodad: Dadliest Catch
Release Date: 2015
Developer: Young Horses
Publisher: Young Horses
Platforms: PlayStation Vita
Engine: Irrlicht Engine

Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a physics-based adventure from Young Horses where you play an octopus masquerading as a human father, stumbling through everyday tasks while keeping his true nature hidden. It’s a comedy game that lives or dies on the physics simulation feeling genuinely unpredictable at all times.

Irrlicht wasn’t built with the Vita in mind, and Octodad’s physics model was complex. The game’s core mechanic depends on real-time interactive physics driven directly by player input, so there was no room to simplify the simulation without losing the joke. On PC or PS4 that workload was manageable, but the Vita gave us a constrained 4-core ARM Cortex-A9 and 512MB of RAM shared between CPU and GPU. Most of the development time went into the physics and rendering optimizations needed to hold a consistent frame rate. The port also supported a distinctive local co-op mode in which two players split control of the same physics body, one driving the legs and the other the arms.

Sickhead shipped the PlayStation Vita port in May 2015.


Sickhead Games is the leading game porting studio, bringing Unity, Unreal, Godot, and custom engine titles to console and handheld including PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS. From codebase assessment to post-launch support, we're trusted by solo indies and major publishers alike, including Humble Games, Sony Interactive, Nintendo, Annapurna, Good Games, ConcernedApe, MegaCrit, 17-Bit, Maddy Makes Games, Zachtronics, Keen Software House, Thomas Happ, Pocketwatch Games, EXOK, Young Horses, Taito, Jaleco, and Microsoft. We've shipped over 100 releases, among them Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire, Axiom Verge, Space Engineers, and Celeste. We specialize in bringing retro masterpieces, indie darlings, and PC classics to modern audiences like Grandia, Enclave, and Jaleco Sports titles.