Story-based 2D indie platformer Dad Quest is making a thematically-accurate move by going on sale at 60% off for a week in time for Father’s Day on June 17. Publisher Excalibur Games said in a press release that “there’s not many games that felt like they were made to be played on Father’s Day, but Dad Quest is one.”
Dad Quest is a little odd, to say the least. It’s set in a universe where children are “indestructible weapons,” and you assume the role of a Dad who strives to raise their child by teaching them a selection of new skills, arming them with a variety of toys that add damage modifiers deadly to enemies that you encounter. You can meet other dads, vanquish enemies, pay off debts, and enter sanctioned arena fights to engage in deadly combat, in what Excalibur Games call the “Dadventure of a lifetime.”
Developer Sundae Month has been releasing a series of deep-dive blog posts on reasons to play Dad Quest. There are a total of seven, and four have been released so far. The one I found most interesting is their perspective on the inherent comedy in Dad Quest‘s comedy; the developer had originally intended to grab Adult Swim with the absurd content of the game, content that they wanted to showcase the humor of without boiling it down to a shallow, over-the-top experience. ”
In the blog post, they said: “We were aiming to hook them with the premise and then subvert the expectation of their viewers with a very mellow, whimsical, PG-rated comedy game rather than the bloody, overwhelming humor that the channel was known for when we first started … We feel like most people expect a game called Dad Quest that’s about throwing your Child as a projectile weapon to be this offensive, over-the-top joke game and we really wanted to challenge that by taking the ridiculous premise and building a game without most of those expected things.”
The Father’s Day discount is on now, so you can pick up Dad Quest on Steam for only $5.19. It’s in Early Access at the moment, with two of three chapters released. Once the third chapter is available and a few tweaks have been made, the full game will be released and available to Early Access players as a free update.
