Occasionally, something becomes so ubiquitous in it’s respective field that it is essentially a household name. That is, in the Adult Gaming Community, what Dating My Daughter has become to many.
It would be silly to say that Dating My Daughter is one of the original adult games, since porn has been making its way into video games since video games began to exist, but it would be safe to say that Dating My Daughter is one of the first juggernauts of the Adult VN scene. And why wouldn’t it be? With some scenes showcasing some of the best written dialogue out there, graphics that still hold up (even after four years of being in development,) and additional branches to discover, this game is packed with content.
Dating My Daughter has been in production for over four years now. That’s a very long time in the adult VN community. In the time since Dating My Daughter first entered the market, literally thousands of games have been created. Granted, a lot of those are trash (sorry, not sorry) or went unfinished, but there have still been a couple thousand completed games in the last four years. Despite the rampant oversaturation of the market, Dating My Daughter is still a game that maintained overwhelmingly positive reviews for a very long time.
In this game, you play a father who is getting a chance to connect with your 18 year old daughter, who you haven’t seen in many years. There is an initial attraction to your daughter, and after a brief internal struggle, you give in to temptation and begin dating your daughter. It’s a storyline that has been done, and over done, in the time since Dating My Daughter began and yet this game is doing that plot very well (see my article on Survivorship Bias.) There is definitely setting this game apart from the rest of the crowd, but what that is comes down to a few, albeit important, factors. The Graphics, the Writing, and the Size!
The graphics for Dating My Daughter are created using some of the same assets as other games. Hell, if you’ve played more than a handful of VNs with 3D art, you’ll probably have seen the daughter’s face around. Even though some of the assets are semi-commonly seen, the quality of the renders, the customizations the artists have applied, and the well considered posing all lead to a very good looking product. Looking at the art in the game is like watching a movie play out in snapshots.
The team behind this game have taken a lot of care with the writing as well. Story drives a VN, and these devs seem to understand that. The concept, so far gone from reality, works here in a believable way because of the way it progresses. It’s a slow build. In fact, that slow build was, for a time at least, the cause of some concern from some of the community. There is a fine balance between slow progression and stagnation. For a while, the community wasn’t sure if this game actually was progressing, or if the story was being artificially fluffed with filler. Couple that with the fact that MrDots, the developer, was forced to remove the game from Patreon after they got hit with ToS Violations for the content of the game.
The patreon removal caused a delay in the game for a little while, as the development team shifted focus to another game that would be patreon-friendly. Taking the development focus off Dating My Daughter allowed the team to really hone in on the story they were telling in each update. Whether this resulted in the sexual side of things moving faster or slower is unclear, but regardless, the game is still going strong. The game has a few potential branching paths available to discover. Though they don’t change the fundamental story, they do add in or change certain aspects of the game. Additional scenes with other women are available if the player so chooses to pursue them.
But now, four years into the game’s development, there are those who are questioning the game’s future. This review is for version 0.28 of Chapter 3, and that’s important because by this point, there isn’t much that you haven’t been able to do with your daughter. Without diving into spoiler territory, the game could have run its course to a natural conclusion already. Speaking about this is tough without getting into spoilers, though. What can be said is that for quite some time the game’s story has been off on a new course, much different from what it seemed to be at the beginning. It feels like one whole story was told and ended, while another has begun – but not necessarily to the benefit of the final product. But don’t misunderstand, the new storyline is not bad, it just doesn’t feel the same anymore.
Chapter 3 is finally complete, and despite feeling to many as though the story itself isn’t quite as strong as it used to be, Chapter 4 promises to introduce a new set of possibilities that some players have been waiting for… for four years. Will Chapter 4 be the last one for what has been an industry mainstay for the last few years? It’s unclear – just as it’s unclear when Chapter 4 will start to release. But one this is for sure, even with the potential slight decline in story, this is still one game that is worth checking out. With hours upon hours worth of content, so much of it very sexy (both images, and the writing,) Dating My Daughter has earned it’s place among the most well known and most replayed Adult VNs.
