Ophelia Payne

Fatherhood, a game from Polish studio Persis Play, dropped into my email just before the holiday season and had me intrigued by its premise. A father must protect and direct his blind daughter through a war-torn region. Immediately, I knew it was my kind of story, gripping, potentially heartbreaking, and family above all else. I was not fully prepared for just how harrowing the brief demo would be and how much it would stick with me long after the time I spent with it.

You play as Basir, and in the beginning, you are looking for your daughter, Asma. The controls are simple and intuitive, using the standard WASD for movement as well as a few other keys for specialty moves. This is a 2.5D game with Basir able to move towards and away from you, while primarily moving linearly in a 2D environment.

One of the first things you can do is choose whether to render first aid to an injured soldier. Now, at the time, I didn’t realize this choice would have a consequence later in the game. I simply helped him because it felt like the right thing to do. After finding and applying a med kit to the soldier I kept searching for my daughter. Next, amongst some broken glass, I kill my first person in the game. Now, I didn’t want to kill him and after restarting the game to see if it was possible, I learned it was kill or be killed. There seems to be a lot of influence on the story based on your choices. When you kill this person, the screen becomes devoid of colour. Almost as though your conscience knows and is weighing on you.

Finally, you meet up with your daughter, scared and blindfolded, and you get to use one of the special activities, hugging your daughter to calm and reassure her. This is an unusual mechanic and played with my emotions greatly. Now, you must hold your daughter’s hand and guide her through the dangerous war zone, sticking to shadows and out of sight of the enemies. If you crouch, Asma will move closer to you, and this becomes a special skill when you arrive at a large area full of landmines that you need to navigate. Luckily, the soldier I helped earlier knows how to disable these and can clear a very narrow path for us. This was the most stressful part of the demo for me, and I am ashamed of how many times I, or Asma, perished here. Once I made it through, I had to take a small break to compose myself.

From time to time, you must leave Asma alone while you scout for a path for you. You can feel how scared you both are, and as you rush to be reunited, you must also focus on staying safe and out of sight of the soldiers, as well as finding keys, planks of wood for makeshift bridges, ladders, and other essentials to move through the world. I encountered a few more opportunities where I was able to help strangers, and my natural instinct was to assist them, even if I failed at times. The timer that popped up as I was searching for a way to help a man rescue his son from rubble was particularly stressful.

While this was a preview build, and perhaps the character modeling will change before release, it didn’t bother me that they were basic characters. Man, man with beard, child, not a lot of details. The story is what drew me in, and what I’m still thinking about while writing this.

I highly recommend you play this with headphones. The constant gunfire was relentless in reminding you of the dangers, the explosions were crisp and made me jump numerous times, especially that dreaded mine field.

I will play this game when it is fully released. It may not be for everyone, and I can definitely understand physical and emotional triggers that some players may encounter. While my genre of choice is normally cozy and light. I do appreciate a heartbreaking emotional story as well. Check out the Kickstarter for this game if you would like to participate directly.

**Demo code provided through Press Engine and reviewed on PC (Steam)**