I know everyone is like wow omg wholesome dad game with all white cast! yay! based!
But I am a father and playing the game makes me profoundly sad. I have real children near the same age and the game nails the mentality so perfectly I feel guilty playing it, like I am cheating on my real family. Maybe in 20 years I'll play through it to reminisce once they are gone. But I can't play it now for more than a couple minutes before feeling disgusting.
No one is realizing how seductive this is. Like porn tricks you into thinking you have endless women and thus defeating your drive to find a real one, Dad-games sap away your energy to have a real family.
I know in the hunter-gatherer sense all videogames are a waste of time and should be avoided, we're all addicts and none of this is healthy. I can't attack anyone for playing this game while I still waste time with other RPGs and shooters. But there's a reason this game came from a country where reclusive shutins are such a problem they have a completely collapsing birthrate.
That's good you had the reaction you did. It means the game did its job as a positive piece of propaganda.
Perhaps, if the visceral reaction within you was to spend more time with your kids, there will be a similar impetus in the young lads to start a family or seek the means to do so.
For those of us too old to start a family, it at least gives hope for the next generation that they may take the necessary steps to do so.
Also, props to Japan for infusing this kind of messaging in their media recently. I randomly picked a Japanese sci-fi thriller to watch called Exit 8, which is pretty much a Japanese version of the Backrooms (and it's done really, really, really well) set in a subway station. The liminal space concept is executed superbly here.
But what really caught me off-guard was how the story was about the importance of fatherhood, for men to take responsibility, and to lead women and protect their children. It's a shockingly pro-father, pro-responsibility message -- the ending actually brought a smile to my face, as it was basically telling young lads "Take charge, be responsible, be a man, be a father".
I think if we see what some are endearingly calling "Dadslop" make a comeback in media, mayhaps we'll see it subconsciously kickstart the innate drive men have to be fathers and protectors once more. Something that has been unduly suppressed and beaten out of majority men in the West (and even in the East) quite aggressively since the 1960s.