Review:
I'll start by saying that, although I tried Dream Daddy, I never got very far into it. The idea of it was fun, but I loathed the character creation process at the start, wasn't a fan of the mini games, and eventually just sort of lost interest in the whole thing. According to my notes, I started off by trying to romance Mat, the coffee shop owner, but my memories are so fuzzy that I suspect I never even finished that one route.
All of which is to say, you don't need to have played the game much in order to enjoy this. I generally had fun while reading this. It read like the aspects of the game I enjoyed, minus the stuff I didn't.
Anyway, on to the individual stories.
"Much Abird About Nothing" written by Wendy Xu, illustrated by Ryan Maniulit
The unnamed player character and Craig (Fitness Dad) go to their college reunion together and have a nice evening that wraps up with a bit of mild adventure.
This was very sweet and wholesome. Not much story, but I didn't really mind.
"Let the Right Dad In" written by Lee C.A., illustrated by Jack Gross
Robert (Bad Dad) lives in a drunken fantasy world in which he's convinced that Damien (Goth Dad) is a vampire. This gets to the point where Robert bursts in on Damien and Mary while brandishing a stake, but it ends on a positive note.
This reminded me that Joseph wasn't the only dad in Dream Daddy that didn't appeal to me. But hey, reading this didn't require me to try to romance Robert, and goodness knows his alcohol-fueled fantasies at least keep things from being boring.
"Dream Ad-y" written by Vernon Shaw and Leighton Gray, illustrated by Jarrett Williams
Business at Mat's coffee shop has been so slow that he's been practicing the theremin in the back to pass the time, so Robert, the player character, and others agree to shoot a commercial for him.
The artwork in all the previous stories was stylistically close enough to the game artwork and Kris Anka's cover art to not be too jarring. Not so with this story. While I wasn't a fan of the artwork, I did at least enjoy the story, which was another nice and heartwarming entry.
"Fair Deal" written by C. Spike Trotman, illustrated by Drew Green
Brian (Rival Dad) and Joseph (Cool Youth Minister Dad) are helping their kids prepare for the science fair, which happens to be tomorrow. The whole group heads to the library, where the two dads get extremely competitive while their kids try to hide from it all before eventually working out a plan together.
Another one in which the art style was radically different from original game's style - it kind of reminded me of Steven Universe. I really liked this story. Poor Daisy, just wanting to put minimal effort into her project in order to save herself some grief later. And Joseph's twins were fantastic little gremlins.
"Dungeons & Daddies" written by Josh Trujillo, illustrated by D.J. Kirkland
All of the dads get together to play a TTRPG. From the sounds of things, Damien is normally the DM, but this time around it's Hugo (Teacher Dad). Everyone seems to want to do their own thing and Hugo, who has ideas about how he thinks this campaign should go, gets increasingly frustrated.
Granted, my TTRPG experience is super limited, but this felt like something that could actually happen, complete with a healthy side discussion between the experienced and newbie DMs.
The volume ends with creator commentary for each of the stories, from both the authors and the artists. Kris Anka (the cover artist) and Hassan Ostmane-Elhaou (letterer) also got their own commentary sections.
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