Parenting is hard. You have to care for this tiny being that has little to no sense of self-preservation and has many demands. So imagine how hard it’d be to care for an actively masochistic baby? For those attending PAX East this weekend, the booth for Who’s Your Daddy? may have caught your eye. One, for the title alone, and two, for the image of a desperate dad trying to capture a tyrannical tot.
In the two-player game, one player takes over the role of the dad, trying to keep his young child out of harm’s way. Easier said than done. The second player plays as the baby, and their goal is to actively lead this child into harms way. The house is filled with various hazards, such as batteries, breakable plates, and a giant container of bleach. The child player has to gravitate towards these objects while the dad player has to keep them away.
If this game sounds morbid, that’s because it absolutely is. Yet during my play through, the cartoonish characters and environment kept it feeling lighthearted and zany, like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I played as the dad, while my friend took up the baby mantle. Despite him mounting the family dog and riding it onto a trampoline, springing him onto the dining table with all its sharp cutlery, I managed to get him back on the floor where he belonged. Taking a preemptive approach, I made sure to cover all of the outlets and remove the aforementioned batteries and giant container of bleach. When the timer ran out, the baby was still safe and sound, so the victory went to me.
Other players who tried the demo weren’t so lucky. Or rather, the parent players weren’t, with the baby players causing their intentional doom. Joe, the lead developer, explained that the inspiration for the game came from some Tweets he made telling the fictional story of a dad trying to watch his danger-prone child. After the Tweets took off, him and his team, Evil Tortilla Games, released Who’s Your Daddy for Steam in 2015. Now, they’re remastering the game for a release on December 23, 2020, marking the five year anniversary of the original release.
For those who already have the game, the remake may be automatically downloaded. And for rest who want to get a taste of the joys, or tribulations, of parenting, the game will release for $4.99 on Steam, iOS, Android, and Xbox.
