Mad Father

Mad Father is a game that was available a few years back for free. It was given a bit of a rework and turned into a fully fledge horror game! While many people simply refer to this as a horror RPG, Mad Father is a blend of RPG and point and click adventure and that makes it a rather unique (and terrifying experience) for you to play through.

Just A Little Girl

The character that you play as in Mad Father is a young girl called, Aya. She is sneaking around her house and hears a bunch of screams coming from her father’s lab. Her father is clearly not a nice man, she has lost her family and all of a sudden her home is full of ghosts and other creatures. Not to mention, her father has some very sick and sinister plans for her. The story is very, very well written and it is also super unnerving. A huge reason for this is that Aya is just a child and unlike other games with a child protagonist, Aya actually acts and feels like a child. Her childlike “innocence” is taken advantage of time and time again in this game and it makes things even more creepy.

What To Do, What To Do?

Mad Father will see you go around this large and spooky house. You will be required to find clues, solve puzzles, talk to NPC's and do lots of different quests in order to progress the story. There are these ghosts/corpses or whatever you want to call them all over the property and it is these that are going to give you things to do and help you understand what your father is doing and what you can do to stop him.

Some of these are rather helpful, others are not quite so helpful and have their own motives behind what they are asking you to do. I found this one of the most creepy aspects of the game and it really made me uneasy at some points in the game when Aya was clearly distressed or uncomfortable with what was going on. There is a little bit of combat in Mad Father where when you do encounter an enemy you have to press certain buttons in the right order. You have to do this before Aya’s health depletes or she dies! It is rather simple, but I do think that it goes with the rest of the game fairly well and it is not overused so it never gets bothersome.

Way Creepier Than You Would Think

I know that you have taken one look at the retro (but still pretty detailed) graphics and wondered how can a game that looks like this be scary and creepy. I think actually creepy might be the better description than scary. The game is just so weird and as I said the fact that Aya is just a little girl makes things seem even more messed up and you really do want to make sure you do each thing right so that she is safe.

Three Peat!

One thing that is really neat about Mad Father is that there are three different endings for you to discover. Depending on what you do in the game you will get one of the three different endings. I enjoyed my time enough with this game that I am actually very interested in playing it again so that I can experience the two other endings.

Mad Father is a game that is a lot of fun. If you love RPG’s, point and click adventures and games that are all about the darker and more twisted side of the world, Mad Father is really going to suck you in and is well worth playing through.

7.5/10

Pros:

• The story is very creepy and engaging
• Little Aya is a great protagonist
• The different ghouls that you encounter are interesting
• Puzzles are actually a lot of fun
• Three different endings to discover

Cons:

• Combat is a little simple
• Not the fastest paced game