D.A.D.S. (Destitute Agoraphobic Dad Simulator) by chunkybrewster

You're retired, your home is your world, your wife is on vacation and everything outside scares you because of the things you see on the Wolf News channel. Can you make it three days without suffering from horrible crippling depression?
DOWNLOAD: https://broken-shotgun.itch.io/dads
Ratings
| Overall | 401th | 3.333⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 548th | 2.857⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 302th | 3.273⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 167th | 3.818⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 247th | 3.864⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 51th | 3.909⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 225th | 3.545⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 37🗨️ |
I liked the art style (especially the character looked great!) and back story, the dialogues were funny, there was just not a lot of stuff to do.
As a minor side-note, having to click on the phone to put in the number was a bit counter intuitive with everything else being with the keyboard. But hey, it's a 72hour game jam, so I'll take it!
As a person who suffered with depression and who know people who suffered with panic (though far away from what the character suffers, lol) I can easily relate to that experience. The point of not having much stuff to do is really the whole point of being depressed - and the challenge to last the whole three days is the player's own challenge to go through the mud of "what the hell can I do to make that clock go faster?". I don't know if that was intended, but if it was, then you nailed it - this is what "game as art" is all about, making the player feel, transmit a built experience. :)
(little spoilers ahead if anyone hasn't played this)
I liked the writing but I felt that the game was really against the dad for some reason but is never actually said(I don't know if that is great or bad) and the way It shames hims has a good dose of dark humor that I apreciate, as well the dark context that surrounds this game.
I really liked the pixel art and the music worked on this, but the sfx made me feel that there was something more going on for some reason and I don't know if that was intended or not. This entry is a little tricky to comment so I'm sorry if this comment is not being helpful. Good job.
I'm pretty sure the wife is the Skeleton and that he's just reliving the same three days over and over again. Just saying....
That was fun ! I'm not sure to understand the final goal but the theme is perfectly well respected :) !
That, and with barely anything to do as well, sure helped in the (probably intentional?) feeling of paranoia of the game.
Overall, an interesting entry! Would love to see this get expanded upon :D
I'm wondering... who's the skeleton in that locked room... his poor wife? :joy:
A small detail or two. The character should not be movable when changing floors. If you press arrow while using stairs it made character not exit stairs in the right place. In general floor transition could be made to take a little time to reflect age of protagonist. With all the texts, I think also it would have been nice to be able to use `E` as alternative way to click through them too.
Fun and well made game!