Despite not being very good at them, I do enjoy playing some frantic co-op games like Overcooked or Moving Out, especially when I have friends over and we can play it together in the same room. Needing clear communications at all times, all while keeping an eye on the timer—it’s just about my worst nightmare in real life, but it’s a hell of a time in a videogame. With Dad’s Coming, Brazilian developers Cold Lahmen aim to recreate the fun of those classic titles with their own spin on the genre: make sure to get the house clean before your dad gets home!
The original version of Dad’s Coming was the result of a game development marathon, Alberta Game Jam. Back in 2020, Leandro, Abner, and Henrique, three Computer Science students from the University of São Paulo in Brazil, participated in this jam, trying to create a game within 48 hours on the theme of ‘After the Storm’. That initial demo held so much promise that the trio decided to form Cold Lahmen to dedicate more time to fleshing the game out to its current form.
You play as two siblings, the children of a weirdly punctual father. Each level begins with the father figure messaging them that he’ll be home in a certain amount of time, and that’s how much time you have to get every item in your house in the right place. It starts off easily, with everything being on the same floor, and interaction between the siblings mostly happening as you throw items to the other’s part of the house. But things escalate quickly, as they often do in games like these. All of a sudden you have to throw items to different floors of the house; then certain items become fragile, and you have to be careful moving them around. Every new mechanic gets introduced at the perfect time, with gameplay evolving beautifully as a result. Just when you think you’ve nailed the gameplay and will be able to complete the next level a bit more easily, the game catches you off guard and sets you up with another unique challenge. Later on in the game, a mischievous cat gets introduced, as well as outside weather conditions influencing what happens inside.
With every level lasting for anything from 60 to 90 seconds (on average), Dad’s Coming remains terribly addictive. You’ll be going ‘just one more level’ on multiple occasions, and going back to a level to beat your top score is smooth as well. Depending on how tidy you get the house, you can earn up to three stars, although getting all three isn’t necessary to advance to the next level. Gameplay feels really good as well, with the controls making a whole lot of sense. I played using a controller, and playing as the siblings felt very natural, with switching between them also taking no time at all to get used to. Controls are pretty simple, in the easy-to-learn, hard-to-master kind of way that typifies these kinds of co-op mayhem games. The characters are ultra responsive, and I never had any issues picking something up or throwing something. Anytime I struggled with getting an item to its rightful place, it was purely a skill issue on my part.
Talking of skills: while I had a lot of fun with Dad’s Coming, I can imagine people who are better at videogames to have even more of a blast with it. Being stuck playing this in single player because I couldn’t find anyone to play it along with me for the sake of this review, I quickly ran into a wall, figuratively speaking. While single player is definitely an option to play this game, and while the controls are well suited to playing this on your own, I’m a little unsure of the difficulty curve here. In the first few levels, I could tidy everything up in time, but that quickly became no longer the case, as controlling only one sibling at a time severely limited what I could do. I’m not saying that controlling both kids at the same time would work any better; I just wonder if the time limits could’ve been made just slightly less severe for the single-player version of the game.
That being said, I still had an excellent time playing this. The presentation is neat too, with its cartoon-inspired pixel art being a unique take on a genre that usually goes for a more 3D look. Would I have liked a little more variation in the music department? Sure, but then again, I didn’t complain about something like Balatro having very limited music on offer. Both in that game and this, gameplay more than makes up for this kind of slight, and I imagine when you play this co-op locally, you’ll be shouting too much to be paying attention to the background music anyway.
With 24 levels divided across the four seasons of the year, there’s plenty of game to find here, and with the possibility of playing it on your own, couch co-op or online co-op (with this being available through Steam Remote Play Together), you’ll want to dive back into it again and again. I’m quietly hoping that the game does well enough so that it might even receive some updates in the future, as more levels for this would never be a bad thing. Cold Lahmen have delivered a really neat surprise that, while it might lack a little bit of polish in its menus, absolutely delivers when it comes to gameplay, taking its place alongside Overcooked and Moving Out with confidence.
Verdict
Despite not being the most skilled player and not being able to try out the co-op aspect of the game (which would probably be the best way to play this), I had an absolute blast with Dad’s Coming. This is one of those games that wasn’t on my radar until the developers reached out, but I’m glad they did because this will become a staple of my couch co-op collection of games to play at parties. It’s frantic, it’s fun, it’s challenging in all the right ways, it looks splendid, and it plays wonderfully. What a nice surprise to start the year with!
- Release Date
- 21st January 2025
- Platforms
- PC
- Developer
- Cold Lahmen
- Publisher
- Cold Lahmen
- Accessibility
- Adaptable vibration level, instant hints, unbreakable windows, disabling fragile objects and level hazards, adding more time to the timer.
Many thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

About the author
Tofr
About the author
Tofr
Tofr is a Belgian non-binary lover of narratives in every possible medium. In recent years, they’ve completely fallen in love with indie games, first creating indie game content as play.nice.kids on TikTok, now doing so on Instagram and BlueSky, and co-hosting the Playlog Podcast with CGDannyB, where they talk about all the latest indie game news. They’re always on the lookout for emotional narratives and addictive gameplay loops, with a particular fondness for roguelike deckbuilders.