Being a parent is the hardest job in the world. Being a parent during the pandemic lockdown is like playing parenting on hard mode. That’s what happened to the developers behind Bundle of Joy, a lighthearted look back at the struggles of parenting with little to no support from the outside world. You play as Dad, trying to bond with your little one whilst your partner is working from home. Can you keep your cool, or will your stress meter blow its top?
Bundle of Joy is designed for replayability as you name your baby, set your skin tones and genders, and then get thrown into five days of semi-randomly selected minigames. There are seven or eight minigames per day to get through, with an optional break to reflect and calm down around halfway. This is crucial because Bundle of Joy is all about stress. Similar to Incredible Crisis on the PS1, Bundle of Joy has a stress head that’s about to explode on the screen, and it increases slowly over time across all the minigames. Take too long to do a task and make mistakes, and it starts to move faster as you get angry and frustrated. If the stress meter maxes out, a huge stop sign appears and you are forced to take a breathing exercise minigame to calm back down again. Lose your cool three times in a day, and your partner has to step in and take over.
This is where the branching narrative comes to the fore, and it’s one of Bundle of Joy’s strengths. There are moments of reflection where you worry about being a parent. This might be your internal monologue, or it might be to your baby or your partner. They are short scenes with options to choose from, but they are very impactful and relatable to anyone who doesn’t think they are cut out for the job. The writing is realistic without being overblown and it’s quite touching. Depending on how well you are doing and some of your choices, determines what those chats involve, but they all sell the same message: no one is perfect and gets it right first time, or all the time. It is a welcome message to hear.
The minigames are where you’ll spend your time. There are 15 of them selected at semi-random each day. You’ll always start with changing the nappy, but whether its soothing a nappy rash with cream or fixing on a new diaper will depend on how well you are doing. Complete a normal difficulty version of a minigame and the harder version will appear. Burping the baby involves button mashing to match the gas line on the stomach. Cleaning the eyes and nose will involve avoiding a stressed baby waving arms everywhere. Putting on clothes or rocking the baby to sleep are rhythm games. Others, like giving medicine and feeding the baby, are more like alignment and timing moves. The controls are quite floaty on purpose to keep the stress high. Each day also has a random variant triggered from a fidget spinner. If you are lucky, you’ll get a good night’s sleep. If you are unlucky, the baby will be sickly and more wiggly than ever, or you’ll have a bad night’s sleep and start the day half-stressed. Remember to use the pacifier to stop the stress rising for one minigame a day if you are struggling. There is also a diary to jot down your thoughts at the end of each day, although it isn’t utilised for anything beyond the narrative of “getting your feelings out”.
All this comes together for a 50-minute playthrough that made a big impression on me. The controls won’t be to everyone’s taste, and the graphics have a crayon scribble aesthetic that is quite angular and rough. They didn’t hold back on the overall experience and I’ve now played this through several times to see all the minigames and variants of them, as well as purposefully failing to see what happens. I have run into some issues with Steam achievements unlocking in-game but seemingly not registering on Steam, and the first time I played the game, it hung for a minute before actually loading. I’m sure these can be fixed later on. I’d have liked to play the minigames separately outside of the main game, but then I guess you can’t practice being a parent, can you? Bundle of Joy is a great bite-sized experience that makes you laugh, groan, and think.
Review copy provided by the developer. Bundle of Joy is out now.
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