My Number One Boy is a prototype for a playful and silly adventure game in which you guide, protect, and care for your Boy in an open world full of quests to be completed (or ignored) and distractions aplenty. Part silly dad-sim, part frustrating open world exploration, the game draws on my own experience of parenthood and the joyful, exasperating responsibilities that come with being the person nominally in charge of a chaotic and inquisitive young child.

Your Boy may not always listen to you, and, while you may have a to do list of quests to complete, he is much more interested in exploring, playing, and eating donuts.

How can games allow their players to construct and inhabit different masculinities, and what does it look and sound like for those masculinities to be rooted in something other than patriarchal images of men as conquerors, heroes, or rulers? My Number One Boy is an attempt to ask this question.

Placed in the role of a father of a Boy, you have a list of quests to accomplish, but your Boy has other ideas – ideas that may get him into trouble. Can you complete your to do list while keeping your Boy happy and healthy? Should you? The game seeks to present game mechanics and sounds of hegemonic masculinity: achieving mastery over the environment or enemies and control over your avatar, completing challenges and scoring points. It aims to juxtapose these with alternatives necessitated by your Boy’s own desires: guiding, nurturing, and helping.

Boy voiced by Oran (age 3).

Game design, character modelling, sound design and music by Pete Lannon (age 37).