To the delight of many (and confusion of select rock-dwellers), a teaser for Octodad: Dadliest Catch was unveiled early last week. The sequel to the surprise indie hit of 2010, Dadliest Catch looks to build on everything that made the original so memorable; they really put all that Kickstarter money to good use.

I managed to talk to Young Horses president Philip Tibitoski about the trailer, and while he was, for the most part, mum about the project, he still managed to let a few tidbits slip about Dadliest Catch.

The most immediate thing I noticed about the teaser was the implementation of full, 3D animation; it's bookended by scenes fully animated in 3D. Fans of the original Octodad will recall that one of the more endearing elements of the first game were the "cutscenes": hand-drawn, hand-colored 2D comic scenes that were inserted in various parts of the game to advance the wacky plot. The scenes were crude, rough, and pretty glaring in the face of a fully 3D game, but they were effective and bolstered the charm and humor of an already funny game.

While the charm and humor will be back, it unfortunately looks like the 2D scenes won't. "Almost all of the cutscenes will be fully animated in 3D," stated Tibitoski. "I'm not sure if we'll be completely ditching the 2D quirky scenes yet, but that's the way it's looking." That's a bit of a shame, but there's always a silver lining, and in this case, it's a promising one. "Everything you saw in the trailer is done in engine," explained Tibitoski. Considering how polished and improved the graphics and animation in the teaser looked compared to the original, that's great to hear, and may potentially make Dadliest Catch one of the prettier, more vibrant 3D indie games to come out next year.

As for the plot? The original had a down-to-earth, simplistic story, but it nevertheless utilized some interesting things, not to mention DAT SUSHI CHEF. Would Dadliest Catch follow in its footsteps? That's right where Tibitoski shot me down, replying, "I can't say much about the story, but I will tell you that the Chef is back." Hey, as long as I know that the delectably stereotypical sushi chef is back, I'm content.

With improved graphics and seemingly more varied gameplay, Octodad: Dadliest Catch quickly looks like it's becoming an improvement over the original in every single way. Considering the first was freeware, Dadliest Catch should most certainly look better, but I couldn't have imagined it would look this promising. You better believe we're keeping a close eye on this one, all the way up to its highly anticipated release on PC sometime in 2013.