let's take a hot look at dream daddy

ok i know i said i'd look at some superhero movies and i will in a bit, but i found this stuff in my google docs so i figured i might as well post it since i spent so much time on it. besides, it's not like there isn't anything to learn from dream daddy. it's a dating sim, so technically it is still in the same boat as aspen.

so let me make this all lowercase to match the rest of this blog and get this show on the road



dream daddy: a dad dating simulator was the first game published by game grumps. probably a wise choice to make your first game one of the most simple types of games possible to code, but it's a shame that coding wise you fucked it up on release. thanks for fixing it, but holy shit was this game a mess when it first came out. i can't blame them, they were rushed for release. it's their first game, they didn't realize how much work was going into the finishing touches.

needing more time is understandable, however it's safe to bet more than a few people are gonna get more than a little angry when your friends start streaming it and doing let's plays of it giving people the impression it's done enough to show in the public eye. but that's not important right now, i'm not here to talk about the fucking disaster the release is. i'm here to talk about the game. and the game is. good. i like it. there are a lot of things i like about it, but you bet your ass i'm gonna look at dream daddy pretty fuckin critically in order to learn what i can from it.

i'll talk about bugs, minigames, the visuals, sounds, characters, user interface, and the endings. since i was just talking about them needing more time for release because of bugs i'll start with talking about those bugs.


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

some of them were fixed since i wrote this, but playing it again there are still a few present. and honestly, it was kinda sad to me that they needed all this time to fix all these bugs only for the game to come out with so many bugs still in it. sprites having the flat out wrong expression when you load a save, glasses coming on and off, and the infamous 'walk mary home' glitch to name a few. it's obviously because they were afraid of getting even more backlash than they were already receiving, but... i'm still mad about it. not gonna blame the developers, but i'm still a little bitter about it.

the syntax in sentences i know isn't necessarily a bug, but it does make it distracting and hard to read. it's different if it's not really adhering to grammar rules (which is a good tool to ensure dialogue feels more like dialogue and less like something out of my old english teacher's basement) but in the case of dream daddy it's more an issue with missing punctuation and incorrectly capitalized sentences. some people will be more bothered by this than others, but i personally had a huge issue reading with this glaring issue in my face.


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

it was also extremely odd to me that i had bugs popping up more with the visual novel bulk of the game and not so much with the mini game portions of the game. or at least if there were any bugs in the minigames i personally just... didn't have them or notice them during my own playthroughs. you wanna know why this is weird to me? i'm an absolute fucking idiot, and even i can figure out how to make characters enter and leave the screen at the appropriate times.

in this case though, i'm just gonna assume that it has something to do with the fact that they were using unity and not something that was made for making visual novels like ren'py. i thought it was weird when i first opened it up to see the whole 'made with unity' logo, but once i realized how animated the ui was i totally understood. ren'py is a little bit of a pain in the ass if you wanna have things like the text box background move the way it does in dream daddy. but i'll get more into the ways the ui does and doesn't work later.


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

but i will talk about how good looking this game is overall, hot damn does this game have a great sense of cohesion in its backgrounds and sprites. everything fits. it fits good together, even for characters like damien that might seem out of place just look perfect. i love the way the sprites look and the way they're animated, with little things like blinking, winking, and sprites sort of 'hopping' around it really helps flesh out these characters making them feel super alive. backgrounds are equally satisfying, being full of content but never feeling overbearing.

every screenshot just feels... complete, like maple bay is a real place. there are a couple of places that seem odd, but with context they fit like a glove so it's not really worth complaining about. the score also matches beautifully, going with the whole small town vibe this setting is going for. i just... i love the way this game looks. it's mm it's good for my eyes.


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

speaking of good for my eyes, might as well talk about the eye candy. all the dads that are down to fuck. this cast is kinda big, and i found it to be intimidating, but the game handles it well. at the beginning in terms of meeting them, the game pretty much gives you two options: meet like two people and meet everyone else at the barbecue later or meet who you feel like and meet everyone else at the barbecue later. if you're especially frisky you can meet everyone before you go to the barbecue, but it's never mandatory. you can even sneak in some early points with some of the guys if you want. the cast size is handled surprisingly well, and while it's somewhat tropey at first glance there is enough deviance in their personalities and backstories to not really let this get in the way.

there's joseph, the sweet, friendly neighbor that does everything he can to make the main character feel welcome while oddly being the only not single dad in a game about dating single dads. craig, the best friend type. honestly, not really my personal cup of tea but i know a lot of people will probably like him. mat, the awkward music lover that shares social anxiety with the protagonist outside of talking about music. brian, the soft, perhaps most... typical dad being extremely proud of his daughter to the point you seem threatened by his very presence. hugo, the intellectual wine and cheese connosieur that's just as concerned about your daughter's future as you are or ought to be. damien, the best character. and robert, the emotionally distant alcoholic. if you meet him at the bar at the beginning the bartender even goes so far as to say that your player character is the first person in a long time he's talked that much to.


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

did you pick up on it? did you see the trend in all that? i understand, it's kind of hard to tell just by reading all of that, but something i feel the game does beautifully is set up potential for chemistry. all the characters have a near immediate connection to you. none of the romance seems forced or awkward all thanks to these little things, it all develops naturally. i love it, it gives me an actual reason to go on someone other than my original target's route other than to be a completionist and get a certain ending.

it leaves me questions that i want answered. i want to see why mat has such a clear love for music, but he doesn't go out and play it himself. i wanna know why damien had such a strong passion for the victorian era. what's robert doing hunting for cryptids in the middle of the night? what's with that sick tattoo, and why does he get so mad when i ask him about it? why is mary such a thot? why does joseph talk so much about loving his wife on his dadbook profile while never wearing his wedding ring in public?


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

i really appreciate how this game gives you incentive to go through all the routes through its writing alone instead of just being a matter of "damn, that route was really short. i guess i might as well try another one." at least from my experience, i feel like this is something that makes dream daddy unique from other dating sims. this was something they absolutely needed to do considering not only their audience being atypical from what you'd expect from the genre but the way the game is formatted.

other dating sims don't have to worry too much about the routes connecting with one another because... that's just how the audience is. you're either going to have people that play once or twice, going for one specific character trying to get their best ending, or completionists: people that try to get every ending, look through to find every easter egg, or try their damnedest to escape from the margarita zone.


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

with dream daddy, you can't do this. you need to rely heavily on replayability when you can finish a route in 2 to 4 hours. most dating sims let you pick some choices for a little while and according to those choices you end up on someone's route or fucking dead. this route can take you all day to complete, or if you'd rather ration your time it takes you about a week or two. in dream daddy, you can just... fucking hit brian up seeing if he wants to play golf or something i don't fucking know.

but i oddly kind of like this. i already apprecaite the fact that i don't have to pick choices at the beginning crossing my fingers that i end up on the right route, the fact that i can shop around and play the field is great. the three date system works out pretty well. you can go on two dates with everyone before having to commit to an ending. it might not seem like a lot, but it's the perfect amount to get to know these characters while still enticing you to see how it's gonna end. it's another way to make this huge seven character cast seem a lot less overwhelming. everyone's routes are super short. not everyone is going to appreciate this, but i feel like it just fits with the overall feel of the game. a short, casual experience in a small, quiet town.

talking to the different dads and getting to know them feels and works great. it's a simple thing, but i do really like how you get immediate feedback as to whether or not you made the right choice. i don't have to make wild guesses based on the dialogue, you get an audio-visual cue with a noise and hearts popping out it's so small but so satisfying. there is a lot of quality in terms of the writing, the dialogue feels like shit people would actually fucking say. it can get pretty ridiculous at times, but it's not like this is a completely serious game. it doesn't seem like an out of place level of insane, and all of the really out there pieces of dialogue are in short controlled bursts. it really is a shame this great writing couldn't be reflected in the interface.


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

i'm going to come clean with you now that we've gotten well-acquainted with each other at this point... i haven't really played what i feel is an immense amount of dating sims. (about five or eight?) not that i haven't played a decent amount, it's just that i can count how many visual novels i've played on my hands and feet and more than half of them aren't really dating sims. about a quarter of them aren't even strictly a visual novel. (zero escape: virtue's last reward, huniepop, and dangan ronpa to name a few) but that doesn't really matter. the overall genre is visual novel and dating sim is a subgenre, if that makes sense.


the blind griffin - asphodel quartet

there are a good amount of things i expect to find in the interface of every dating sim that focuses i wanna say 80-100% of its playtime on the dialogue and dating sim parts. easy access to past dialogue, quicksaving, quick loading, skipping previously read dialogue, and an options menu. it's not really a matter of "if this isn't in the game, it's not a real dating sim" it's more a matter of "if this isn't in the game, the developers must've really wanted to make things hard for the player".


hatoful boyfriend - hato moa

you can easily just say that this is a nitpick and that my expectations are high, considering hatoful boyfriend is an extremely successful dating sim that doesn't really have some of these things but hatoful boyfriend is also an older dating sim. it was made seven years ago, and while it's a great staple in the genre i also feel like it's important to acknowledge that it's flawed and learn from its mistakes. coincidentally, hatoful boyfriend was also made in unity. this might be another flaw of the engine, making these things flat out inconvenient to put in the game but it doesn't mean i can't complain about it... okay... let's look back at the dream daddy ui and see what they have from my checklist.


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

nope. no options menu. (didn't end up taking a picture, but the options menu is a joke. you can turn the music on or off or turn it on streaming mode where it disables copyrighted music. can't even change the volume. tsk tsk. for shame.)

there is skipping, and while the visual of a vhs fast-forwarding is a fantastic stylistic choice (matching with the bits and pieces of 80s graphic design aesthetic peeking out of the theme of this ui as well as tying in dad stuff with the memory of looking at old home videos), i don't feel like there's a lot of practicality to the way skipping works. i get this... sinking feeling that i accidentally skip dialogue i've never read before. and i look back and oh hey shit i'm right.

if i just played joseph's route and i'm playing it again because i'm trying to get a certain ending, i'm not gonna wanna re-read everything. but if my hand slips and i make a choice i didn't make last time, i wanna see what's different. i wanna see what people have to say. so i'm not gonna throw a bone in terms of the way skipping works in this game.


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

saving is there, and the closest thing you have to quicksaving is the autosave function that works pretty well in its own right actually. unfortunately, i like to save a lot in dating sims. pretty much for every single dialogue choice or maybe just to look back at my favorite bits of dialogue. i say this is unfortunate because it is almost impossible to differentiate what all of these save files even mean. it is so easy to get lost in your own save files. this shit is extremely important if your visual novel is kinda long, and since this game is pretty short i get it, but... i dunno. i personally feel like it's still pretty important. especially since dream daddy has a variety of different endings.


long live the queen - hanako games

like, let's take a look at long live the queen for a second. a visual novel/management sim that takes strong inspiration from princess maker. this is a story-driven game with huge replay value with loads of different endings, different ways to die, and different achievements that can be achieved based on your stats.

look at all these fucking stats.


long live the queen - hanako games

okay, i'm sorry for getting off track for a minute i just really wanted to emphasize how much variety there is in this game. anyways, due to my short attention span i'm afraid i can't play this entire game at once. in order to know exactly what i was focusing on in terms of achievements or events i wanted to occur, i name my save appropriately before shutting down steam and contemplating to myself why i decided buying something most people called the 'dark souls' of management simulators was a good idea.


long live the queen - hanako games

when my poor monetary crisis is over, i pick it back up. thanks to what i named my file i don't have to scroll back too much to remember what was going on before i opened the game again. i remember what victory or death i was looking for, so i don't feel completely lost when i start this game up again. (i know the save file names aren't extremely coherent or helpful, but the point is: i can name my saves and if i don't feel like being a fuckin idiot i can help my future self.)

you can't do that with dream daddy. you just have to hope you can remember based on the background in your thumbnail along with the description the game gives you. but even that i could ignore if i could fucking look at past dialogue. i've been told it was backspace, but that only ever worked for my for questions. even if it did for the rest of the game, it doesn't make me forgive how ridiculous of a decision that is. i'm just so used to scrolling my mousewheel or even clicking on the 'history' button in the quick menu would've satisfied me.


dream daddy: a dad dating simulator - game grumps

in order to remember what question i was asked before i heard that tip, i had to save my game, load it, wait for my piece of shit computer to figure out where i left that tub of lactose-free ice cream, and then let it play the same dialogue that was given out to me about 20 minutes ago by now because i actually did feel like going to the store and seeing if they had any lactose-free ice cream for me to sink my mitts into. what can i say, i'm impatient and i can only wait so long for my computer's heart attacks to put me to sleep.

long story short, this ui looks amazing, but it is not practical for many basic necessities most visual novels have. which really makes it hard to look back at old dates to see if there's any more hints for that stupid cult ending ok i'll stop talking about it.

as someone that wants to make graphic design their full-time job one day, i can definitely understand how this happened. it's a problem i've been having a lot too, putting form way too high over function. evidently, there was some thought into entangling function with form shown in the way the text boxes widen and shrink based on how much dialogue there actually is to put in the box. giving every main character a unique name box overs a bit of enhancement so i can follow which character is talking. i also really appreciate how the style of the textbox's background completely changes if it's your character's thoughts. it's another little thing that really helps carry the narrative. but i require more.

hey, since i'm really tired from roasting the ui i'll talk about the endings and maybe touch a little bit on the protagonist in a different post on a different day. i hope this made sense, it was more just me talking. would it be better to make shit like this a podcast or something? i dunno. i feel like there would be a lot of pauses and nonsense. let me know what you think. or don't, i'm not your fucking dad... heh.

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