Dream Daddy: A Perfect Representative for Indies
That’s Sadly Underrated.
Hello everyone, In honor of the holiday of love, I want to dig into a Game I had forgotten about until today but have the fondest memory of.
Dream Daddy: A Dating Simulator is a visual novel Released & Developed by Game Grumps, originally released on July 20th,2017, to PCs and App stores on July 2nd, 2019.
Without further ado, let’s get into The Story, Visuals, and Gameplay.
(Reminiscing on an old photo with our daughter Amanda, Photo taken by Nia🫧)
The Story
So before we can get into the story, there is a free and paid version; it applies to how many texts you can send in a day. The paid version is $14.99, so you can send unlimited text messages.
So far into playing the free version, I haven’t had any noticeable limitations, but it’s something to keep in mind.
Now we can finally get into the story.
We are a widowed, single father moving to a new city after the death of our spouse.
Our Daughter Amanda wakes us up for the day we have planned ahead.
After waking you up, she encourages you to get up and ready, and this when we customize our ‘Daddy’.
(Loading screen photo of all dateable dads, Photo taken by Nia🫧)
After customization, we get the rest of the background of what’s going on through our conversation with Amanda.
While the opening feels a little forced and more for us, the players, than the characters, it gets the job of setting the story up done.
The strong dynamic between us makes this story even more worth indulging in.
Where the game truly shines is when it opens up and you start meeting the Dads.
Each have their own personalities, and the Dads are so well written it’s hard to even decide who to choose.
(Meeting our first Daddy, Photo taken by Nia🫧)
Visuals
Now, you guys are probably tired of me blathering on about how beautiful games are, but I’m telling you that I haven’t played any games that were graphical misses yet, anyway.
However, with this game, you can notice and appreciate the beauty.
See, with any graphically intense game, especially as of late; it’s hard to notice the visual differences.
But in Dream Daddy’s case, it’s obvious every frame we see is painstakingly hand-drawn, and it’s so gorgeous.
I wish more games took this approach of letting gameplay take a back seat so its art and story could shine like in this game, but it carries risks and passion that many companies sadly don’t have.
The only knock I can give the game visually is now our player character looks in conversation is more pixelated than the environment and characters, but this is so minor and hardly noticeable.
(Car ride with Amanda to our new home, Photo taken by Nia🫧)
Gameplay
In terms of Gameplay, it's pretty simple.
We click through sections of the story as it progresses, either through conversations or actions.
Some sections will allow you to choose what you say or your story path, like what your spouse's gender is or whether Amanda was adopted or not.
Through these sections and making the right choices, you can woo one of the Daddies into being your spouse.
This game is the perfect example of enjoying the journey, not the destination, although the destination is also essential.
Lastly, I only encountered one, but there are mini-games such as the Kids Accomplishment Pokémon battle between us and Craig, which was hilarious and a definite highlight when I played.
(Kids Accomplishment Pokémon Battle, Photo taken by Nia🫧)
Conclusion
This game is interactive reading, so I thought it’d be perfect for my fellow writers and readers here.
I hope you guys pick up the game yourself.
It’s pretty short and is great for replays to see the results of other decisions you didn’t make.
Thank you guys so much for reading.
Support me ;). And as always, I’ll catch you guys in the next one.
