Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator Review

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could be a dad and be able to woo dads? Well, holy crap! Your dream has come true in Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator.

Let’s be honest, I was pretty excited to play this visual novel. It’s rare to see a VN with a male protagonist romancing potential male partners. Try to find a VN on Steam like that and I bet you can’t really find one in the sea that is male protagonist with too many female partners to choose from. It’s even hard to find a VN with a female protagonist. So finding out about Dream Daddy was pretty neat.

The story of Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator is that you and high school senior daughter Amanda move to another part of Maple Bay, a cul-de-sac if you will, and in that different part of town… le gasp! Seven (?) single dads to date?!?! Yeah… That’s it. That’s the game, I guess. Were you expecting more? Yeah, I was too.

The gameplay is pretty much similar to every other VN I have played up to this point. The choices you make affect the rank and ending you get at the end of the date and route. The ranking system is basically a point based system. For every good choice you make, you get points. You’ll know when you make a good choice when you heard a ring and either hearts or eggplants (no idea why that vegetable) will fly out behind the dad you are wooing. At the end of each date, you’ll be ranked based on the points you received from each choice. The highest rank you can get is an S and I don’t know what the lowest rank you can receive is since my lowest rank has been a B. The ranks you get at the end of each date will indicate what ending you get. I did manage to a bad ending, I guess? I consider it more of a neutral ending since both the dad I wooed and I ended on good terms but all my dates ended in a B rank. The game doesn’t work like school… Your safe bet is to get S ranks on the first two dates and get a B on the last one since I did that with the first dad I dated and managed to get the good ending.

You are able to make and name your own dad aka Dadsona as the game calls it. Dad creation is what you think it is: choose hair style and color, skin tone, glasses or not, body size, the works. Not much to talk about as it is just standard character creation but you are probably going to spend a lot of time making your Dadsona a pretty cool guy.

As much as I like this game, so much more could have been done. Three dates is too short. The progression of the relationship with each dad felt rushed (especially in Brian’s route). I feel that five dates would have sufficed. That way it would feel like a natural progression from friends to the startings of a possible romantic relationship. Another thing I would have liked to have seen is more inclusion of the kids. Majority of the dads have children and what is the point of having wooable dads if you aren’t going to include the children in the dates? I would have loved to have been able to really get to know the kids and see how they react not only with their dads but with you as well. Okay, Brian’s daughter is always there but the other kids are hardly there, if not at all.

The game has its fair share of flaws in terms of bugs and grammar/spelling mistakes. Shall we talk about that piano game in the third Mat date? I don’t think anyone knows how to beat it. There is also the occasional random pop up of characters that for a split second appear when they are not supposed to show up at that moment and then correctly appear when they are supposed to. It’s not a big deal but it does catch me off guard. As an English major and a writing tutor, I do focus on the writing mistakes more than other people. It’s one of those things that if you’re going to make a VN, try to limit as to how many mistakes you have cause annoying people like me will screenshot them and use them in a video game review.

One more thing: the music. The music is good and I enjoyed it but there is no option to lower the music/audio levels. There is an options button on the title screen but it only has streamer safe mode for those who would like to stream/let’s play the game and not get hit with copyright strikes and there is the option to turn off the music but no audio levels for either voice acting, background noise, or music. There are times in the game where the background noise or music completely overtakes the limited voice acting. It’s kinda hard to hear Craig say “Bro” 50 times when the forest ambience is too loud. I thought nature was quiet and peaceful. So next update, can we please have volume levels for those things?

So do I recommend playing Dream Daddy? It’s a toss up. It’s really a game about feelings, not just wooing eligible dads but so much more could have been done. More dates and more interaction with the other kids would have helped a lot. And for $15? It’s kinda not worth it with how short it is especially with the fast forward button. It took me 11 hours to finish all the routes. It’s really up to you if you want the game right now or just wait for a sale.

Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
3.5-4 / 5

No Joseph… You’re not allowed to talk about the Margarita Zone. It’s forbidden. So screw you, I’ma hang out with Craig now.