[Review] Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator

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I did it! I can’t believe I started playing this game back in August and am only just finishing it now. This is why my brothers make fun of me. Haha. Anyway, I haven’t written a game review in a REALLY Long Time, but hopefully, this is an alright attempt. I’ve split up the review into sections: visuals and customizations, music, gameplay, characters, and overall impression/review.

In Dream Daddy, I am a single father who has just moved with my to-be college daughter to the other side of town. And, as we both explore the neighborhood, we learn that there are a lot of single hot dad neighbors. Our kids say we’re all cringe but we are all definitely hitting it up, getting our pun games on, and maybe planning a hookup or more

Visuals and Customization

I think everything looks great! In fact, if it weren’t for the beautiful art and sexy daddies, I probably wouldn’t have picked this up. Or perhaps not this soon and for that I am grateful. I love it when my eyes are blessed! I also like that the art looks amazing throughout the game, not just in terms of the characters, but the backgrounds as well. There are some really stunning scenes! I think my favorite is always the tree in the epilogue scene but there are some other great moments where I can’t help but admire the scenery and the colors

I also really like that there’s a variety with the dads. We have a nice range of looks and characters, but we’re also able to customize our own character in a way that I think allows much room for personal design. Am I a huge fan of all of these options? Not entirely. I mean, I love the range in skin tones, and I think that this game did such a great job on that front, but aside from this, I feel like the hair and clothing are a bit lacking in terms of my personal preferences

Like, I wish I had more options in terms of styling. What if I wanted to do a t-shirt with (idk) suit pants? Or joggers instead of jeans? I wish they could have been separated. But perhaps there was a look we were going for. I wonder what kind of dad I’ll be once I get older.

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I also mentioned hair but this can go both ways. Like the skin tones, I feel like the hairstyles really stood out to me because they weren’t all your typical straight-hair hairstyles (and if they were, they had character). I ended up choosing these short hairstyles that looked almost identical except one was short and one was longer because they were the only ones that really called to me. Also, I love the body hair option! Personally, I’m a no-hair daddy but I love that the hairy option was available too

Another thing I want to note is that my character always ALWAYS wore the same outfit. I get it, but I also wish maybe he would match the description he was supposed to embody whenever we did things. For example, there’s a tea party scene where I have the option to protest the use of “real clothes” and I think I end up wearing lounge clothes. Except that my mini-me on the left bottom of the screen will always wear a suit. This one isn’t really important but I would have liked to see something like that done

Rating: 4.5/5 (-0.5 for slightly limited customization)

Music

I won’t comment too much on this section because music is just not my thing. Clearly, there was a lot of thought put into the music aspect of the story, especially relating to Mat and we can see that in the music puns, the concerts that we go to, and, well, in many other places. I didn’t recognize any of them, which goes to show I’m not in the age range of these daddies. But aside from knowledge, I also feel like the streaming mode, uh, mode, was very creative

Specifically, during one of the dates with Mat that I redid in streaming mode, the PUP song is removed, and instead, there’s an acoustic song playing that sings about how the creators weren’t able to get permission (I think it was) for streamers to stream that song without getting some sort of strike on their accounts. Don’t quote me. I’m not really sure how that stuff works

But even aside from this, I think the music for the game, which is played in the background throughout the game is fun and catchy. Whenever I was with Amanda, I had fun humming along to her feels good no stress tune. Craig’s got a bit sexy when we got flirty. Robert’s was a bit edgy. It was all really fun and didn’t distract me from the game

Rating: 5/5

Gameplay

I think this is the first time I’ve played a dating sim and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it’s just like a visual novel. Except there’s some sort of romantic/dating aspect to it. I mainly interact with characters by speaking (and reading) and depending on the situation, I then have options I can choose from that will then determine how close I am to my potential daddies. If you get a Really Good response, you’ll see the sexy dicks and sweat coming off them bad boys

And at the end of each date, I would then get rated by the daddy in question. The dates seemed to range from (maybe) D to S, with S being the best score. I think my lowest was a D

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I thought this scoring system was really fun because it always pushed me to want to get a higher score. If I was particularly invested in a daddy but was disappointed because I got an A or a B, then it would urge me to replay the dates. But aside from this, the scores didn’t seem to add up to anything?

Another thing that I really liked was that there were moments on the dates where it wasn’t just “choose your answers”. I actually got to PLAY games. Some of my favorites were probably when I was on a date with Brian, who happened to be not my favorite daddy so I only found these games toward the end of my play. The nice thing about these games is that they also had an achievement attached to them! So I would sit around for hours replaying the games just so that I could get those achievements

Not all the games had an achievement attached to them but they did matter in terms of where the story moved

While most games seemed pretty self-explanatory, I was often (and still am) confused about how some games worked. For example, the running exercise with Craig. I went crazy clicking on my mouse for him, but I’m not entirely sure if that’s how the game worked or like…if I did well? Craig is just too nice for his own good

The one thing I didn’t like about the games is that there wasn’t a way to exit the game if you felt like starting over. You always had to see them through until the end, which made my attempt at getting the golf achievement very annoying for reasons not involving my incompetence.

Speaking of achievements, there were some dark routes I didn’t expect. And by “dark” I mean I wasn’t sure if I should be laughing or sad when I met with my online deaths

Another aspect I wanted to mention was the interaction with the daddies. I really liked that I had this dadbook app where I could send the daddies messages, see their profiles, and see what date I was at with them. It made everything very clean and I think that’s the part I didn’t like and I think I mentioned it in a progress post. I’m not a huge fan of how you finish the game when you finish three dates with your daddy of choice. And from what I noticed, dating two daddies at once didn’t really have an impact on the “third wheel” daddy

I guess I wish there had been more conflict or the option of continuing the story even after one relationship failed

For example, let’s say I slept with Robert the first night I moved and then that decision came to bite me when I tried to date Joseph and he went “you SINNER” and then of course I’d have to throw him into the sea while yelling “LOOK WHO’S TALKING”. Haha. Yeah, maybe he’s not a good example. Maybe Mat sits me down instead and is like “hey man, I saw you being flirty with Craig, are you really serious about us because I’m here for the feels”. You know, things like that

Rating: 4/5 (-1 for it being too linear/simple)

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Characters

I already mentioned that I really like the range of characters so I’m just going to use this section to be self-indulgent and talk about my impressions of the daddies. And rate them because why not?!

1. Damien: Oh my daddy! I never thought this would happen but Damien actually stole the spotlight. I cry about him in this post. He is just the CUTEST of daddies and while I love me a sexy man, I ADORE and NEED a cute one. Damien is perfect. I want to go on more dates and get married. Why is this not an option?!
2. Robert: Oh my! I didn’t think this would happen. Never. Not even if the world ended, but Robert really surprised me. He’s definitely not what I look for in a partner but I had so much fun hanging out with him and the vulnerability!! It hurts my heart how much I badmouthed him. I mean, he was a dick but like, clearly I wasn’t trying hard enough either. I’m glad I got the good ending for this one!

3. Craig: ICYMI, this is my sexy daddy. I cried over him for like half the game and somehow he’s been dropped to third place. I had fun hanging out with him but it looks like we’re only ever going to be bros. Sadly. At least it was fun while it lasted (romantically)! Still debating if maybe he should be moved to #4 or (DUN DUN DUUUUUN) #5…!
4. Hugo: This was another unexpected one! Clearly, my approach to dating is not great because Hugo was not in my initial lead. But daddy got some moves and I am here for all the FRISK, tell me where you want me and do what you will!! Similar to Damien, Hugo is also really cute but in a nerdy way. As a fellow nerd, I approve
5. Joseph: How is it that I can love a daddy and simultaneously see red whenever I so much as hear his name?! After being played by this *takes a deep breath* daddy, I have no idea why he’s not like #7. Or maybe I do. Maybe I have no self-respect. He’s hot ok?! But also…Margarita Zone. That was wack like OMFG I want to replay it (I’ll talk about this tomorrow)
6. Mat: I’m sorry Mat! I think we need to try going on a few more dates but as of right now, he’s towards the end. It was just really awkward between us and IDK, like, I didn’t feel a connection with him? At all?
7. Brian: I decided to rate Brian #7 because he’s not my type but also, our only spark was built on non-romantic and non-sexually driven competitiveness?! Rivals-to-lovers is one of my favorite tropes but I just wasn’t feeling it at all. I’m sure he’s perfect for someone else

Rating: 4/5 (no real impact, I liked the variety, I just didn’t like all the daddies)

Overall

Overall, I would say I enjoyed this game. I really had a lot of fun drooling over how sexy all the daddies were and I enjoyed how all of our kids were an active part of our lives. I was dealing with the fact Amanda was going off to uni, Craig was always hanging out with his girls, Brian was always bragging about his girl, Robert had parenting hangups, and so forth. I think the date ideas were very fun and really touched on many aspects of both characters’ lives. I wasn’t just learning about the daddy I was dating, but sometimes I learned information about my own character I didn’t know. The visuals were stunning and the games had me entertained for quite a while (damn that mini-golf achievement for being so tough! lol)

That said, I think it’s a bit hard to rate high for replayability (except what does that even mean?! Oh! Post idea?). I think that if you’re really invested in things like date scores or getting achievements, it’s an easy sell, but if you’re new to good and bad ending games like me it can be a harder sell. I did the Joseph dates a few times to see if we had a “happy ending” but never got one, which made me think that maybe not all the characters have a good and bad end. Except that some do and I didn’t realize until I started to research what those hidden achievements were about.

As of now, I don’t really have anything to compare it to so I will say it’s an average play. I had fun. It was a very good-feels game, which is a nice change of pace for me

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Have you played this game? What did you think? I’d say it’s worth the price, especially if you’re getting it on sale! Also, I have one more post about this game and then I’ll move on to the next one~

Related posts:

• 7 New Titles in My Steam Library
• [Chapter One] Dream Daddy: Welcome to the Neighborhood
• [Craig Dates] Dream Daddy: Keg-Stand Champion
• Dating [Dream Daddy] Mat Was Tough, Let’s Keep Trying!
• [Dream Daddy] Joseph Dates Not That Bad?
• [Dream Daddy] I Found My Hubby!
• [Dream Daddy] Escape From Margarita Zone – I want more?!

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