Game EXP: The Grandfather (PC)

The Grandfather

Systems: Windows, macOS

Release Date: May 13, 2026

Publisher: David Szymanski, Mikeypoo's Games

Developer: David Szymanski, Mikeypoo's Games

Time Spent: 30m 11s

Playthrough Video on YouTube

Wow.  Who would've guessed that 10 years later, I would have finally gotten around to playing The Grandfather, the game I mentioned in my article for David Szymanski's game, Fingerbones, that I played and talked about in 2015.  The Grandfather was a game that looked promising, and I pledged money during the Indiegogo campaign.  The campaign, however, did not reach its goal, but I still received the three games that were part of the tier I pledged.

The Grandfather is a dark, very dark, story about an abused old man who lives alone with his wife.  The reliability of the grandfather as a narrator is up for debate, likely due to his mental state.  So, how abused the grandfather was from his wife may not be entirely true, but that's the way that I'm interpreting the story.  The story is told, I think, over the course of a single night as the titular grandfather literally and figuratively pulls himself together through various rooms in his house in order to escape the situation he's found himself in for decades.

Each room consists of a few puzzles that are all centered around turning out the lights.  Be the lights lightbulbs, candles, or the fire from a furnace, you have to interact with what few objects are in the room to trigger objects or events that will cause the lights to extinguish.  For the first puzzle, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing, as I was only a floating head that could pick up three objects, so I consulted a walkthrough and kept it open just in case I ran into any other confusing puzzles.  I ended up referencing it one other time because it turned out I wasn't quite clicking on the right area of a room.

The Grandfather is a pretty disturbing short story, but in a good way if you're already a fan of comic art-style dark horror stories.  This just might be for you.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Instrumental