The Rise of the Dad Game | Semi-Ramblomatic

This week on Semi-Ramblomatic, Yahtzee's talking all about the "dad game".

[danielmikula]

And then you have the Yakuza/ Like a Dragon series, where you don't so much play as a dad so much as a middle aged man who acts as a largely absent adult figure while faffing about.

The uncle game.

[noxteryn]

You're basically describing the Odyssey.

Odysseus is a dad who goes through many stages, including the Hero Dad (in the Trojan War), the Sad Dad (during his journey back home), and the Hairy Dad (when he is finally home). Meanwhile, his son Telemachus is trying to get out from under Odysseus' shadow, to become a hero in his own right.

[copperbadge]

They're starting to look interesting to me, and that's what really scares me.

[justinjacobs]

Having unloaded pallets at a grocery store at 2am for four years, moving shipping containers onto and off of my ship in Star Citizen with a robot folklift is actually pretty zen and being able to decide which contracts i take and where they go is a level of control I could never dream of having in real life shipping.

[steampunk_willy]

I like how Yahtzee's "dad games" shorthand for sims focused on very mundane activities spiraled into an entire theory of video game history. Ramblomatic indeed!

[John_does]

8:00 You joke, but there is definitely a story out there about feeling abandoned by one's children and trying to find meaning to the time who remains outside of it.

[cbruce]

We've added "Dad Game" to our household vocabulary. My kid saw me trying Star Trucker and said, "So is this another Dad game in space?"

[_uncredited]

"This is stupid and pointless" was my internal monologue for 12+ hours of Crime Scene Cleaner. Happily looking forward to the DLC so I can complain to myself some more.

[TheGerudan]

So, the first example of a "dad game" Yahtzee shows while defining the term is Railroad Tycoon II...one of my dad's favorite games...

[felipevega]

I think the progression of Geralt from "idealistic" (in the bad ends) fellow who has sex with anything to cynical man to dad with beard is a pretty good example.

[Donkringel]

My guess is "Martyr Dad" where old men fulfill their fantasy of going out in a bright blaze of glory holding off 100 baddies for their family/clan to escape. How you milk a single combat section into 40 hours with DLCs and micro-transaction I leave to the executive ghouls, but I believe they can do it.

[blackwing]

My dad plays post dad games. I'm currently in college. When I first found zero punctuation he remembered the name like the name of an old friend.

[andrewhickinbottom]

I love me some dad games!
Its funny you got Euro Truck Sim 2 as a joke - a friend of mine bought me Bus Simulator as a joke present one christmas, and i ended up playing the heck out of it, then trying American Truck Simulator since i was more into American road trips. 719 hours of it later, its now my most played game of all time!

[synth-wave_steve]

Learning what yatz’s job before journalism explains so much

[unironicallylikesranger]

You know what character type would fit in fine with the aesthetic of granddad games? Wizards, classic style with pointy hats. Gimme a game where I’m Merlin trying desperately to aim the knights of the round table in vaguely the right direction and away from the weird almost anime type crap they’re prone to. Maybe tell them that killing this green knight won’t prevent him from inflicting the same wound on you as he said.

[wariodude]

This is the first video I've seen in a long time that acknowledges how the original God of War had emotional depth post God of 4 release. Calling it a "sad dad" game fits incredibly well, especially if you pay attention to the story within it. Respect.

[COWHATE]

As a former (and sometimes still) trucker, I always wondered why anyone would want to play a game about my shit job. That said I knew other truckers that would play Truck Simulator in their off time, and I would play Elite Dangerous and never fight just be a more fancy trucker in space so I suppose I actually do understand.

[anezay]

Eventually in life, your satisfaction with watching a head explode goes down and your satisfaction with restoring order to a system under your responsibility that has fallen to chaos goes up. Pat from Polygon did a pretty good dad game round up.

[Eeraschyyr]

4x seems to be an underlooked genre of dad game. It has the slow steady work like city-builders, the mundane repetition of making sure things tick along well, interspersed with sudden and horrible violence as everything tries to eat you for doing well.
Glasses-Dad?

Heck I still remember after many moons, the anguished cry of my dad yelling "cheating bastard computer" when I was a lad.

[Thorn]

I have a hot take, I think Death Stranding is a type of Dad Game, in at least the whole "delivery" aspect part. Like Hardspace, you're given more complex tasks but also improved tools to deal with them over time, and that tickles a part of my brain that enjoys this genre.

Also you take care of a baby.