Meeting the Parents
Meeting the Parents is a short slice-of-life interactive fiction game, exploring the expectations of relationships and family meetings.
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English
Every relationship passes through common milestones. First date. First kiss. First night over. First month anniversary. First trip. First fight. Meeting each other’s friends. Any many, many, more.
There is one, however, dreaded by all: meeting their significant other’s parents.
When you meet Kelsie Sparks, a bright culinary student, one evening at a bar, something intense lighted inside your heart. You knew, from this moment on, you should not ever let her go. Following you six months into this exciting and blissful relationship, Kelsie, now your girlfriend, wants to take the next step. You are to be invited for lunch at her family’s home.
Will you win them over and impress Kelsie with your charming manners? Or will you make a fool of yourself?
The future of your relationship with Kelsie will depend on the choices you make throughout the story.
TW/CW: depiction of violence to reach some endings
Note : The game does not define the protagonist's gender, and is thus up to the reader's preference.
Français
Chaque relation passe par des étapes communes. Premier rendez-vous. Premier baiser. Première nuit chez l’un ou l’autre. Célébration du premier mois ensemble. Premier voyage. Première dispute. Rencontre de ses amis. Et beaucoup, beaucoup d’autres.
Il y a, cependant, une étape que tous redoutent : rencontrer les parents de leur partenaire.
Lorsque vous rencontrez Kelsie Sparks, une brillante étudiante en cuisine gastronomique, un soir dans un bar, quelque chose d’intense s’allume dans votre cœur. Vous saviez qu’à partir de ce moment, vous ne pouviez pas la laisser partir. Après six mois dans cette relation passionnante et heureuse, Kelsie, maintenant votre petite amie, veut franchir une nouvelle étape avec vous. Vous allez être invité(e) à déjeuner chez sa famille.
Parviendrez-vous à conquérir sa famille et impressionner Kelsie ? Ou allez-vous vous ridiculiser ?
L’avenir de votre relation avec Kelsie dépendra de vos choix tout au long de l’histoire.
TW/CW: dépiction de violence pour arriver à certaines fins.
Note : Toute caractéristique du protagoniste non mentionnée dans cette histoire est laissée à l’imagination du lecteur/lectrice.
- Languages: English, Français
- Word count: approx. 2k to 15k words per playthrough (approx 5k à 18k mots pour la version Française)
- Total word count: approx. 31k words [EN], 36k mots [FR]
- Playtime: about 10min to 1h per playthrough.
- Endings: 10 endings to collect
- Character creation: minimal (name + favourite dish)
- Mobile: This game should work on mobile screens with little issue.
- Accessibility: Light/Dark Theme, Keyboard support, 6 different fonts (serif, sans-serif, monospace, Atkinson Hyperlegible and Open Dyslexic) + other front settings.
Note: for Opera and other Chromium browsers, if you want to use the keybinding feature, ensure this game is the only tab of your window, or it will not work properly.
If you've enjoyed playing this game (or not), please consider rating it and leaving a comment on this page, reviewing it on its IFDB page, or sharing it with anyone who might like it.
BLOG | GAME POST | IFDB | DEV LOGS | CONTACT ME | OTHER GAMES
This short game was part of a personal challenge, in which I would create an interactive fiction story in the span of a month. The first uploaded version having been a prototype, it has since been refined with a better fleshed-out story (but still cringy at times) and a cleaner UI. This game has been inspired by comedic movies like Meet the Parents. You can check out my Tumblr for more info on my processes.
This game is now complete and finished. If you encounter any bugs, please let me know so I can fix it [link].
Development log
- Source Code Amnesty Day 2023Apr 02, 2023
- An needed Update no one asked for.Dec 04, 2022
- Tutorial - Reaching all EndingsMar 04, 2022
- Meeting the Parents - Fix and QuestionsFeb 26, 2022
- Meeting the Parents - postmortem updateFeb 02, 2022
- Meeting the Parents : V2.0 - FinalJul 21, 2021
- [Hotfix] BugJun 19, 2021
- Meeting the Parents - V1.2Jun 12, 2021
Comments
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This was very realistically written! Kelsie isn't my type of partner though, I feel her expectations were set too high :| Nice game!
Hahah thanks!
Kelsie def knows what she wants, indeed.
I saw you mentioned a coding error somewhere in your rating, where would it be?
When I chose to go to the flower shop!
ah darn it. :/
I will hunt this one down! Thank you for the report!
EDIT: oh yeah, I see where it went wrong... Will have it up when I have access to the files later this week. Thanks again!
no worries! thank you for creating this lovely game <3
Thanks for playing it!
god.. my face hurts from smiling sm, kels is so cute i love this game sm, i got the fairytale ending and im gonna continue ncowncd i love this gameee
Aaaaw Thank you <3
just finished it and (spoiled kinda) got the ending faded away and it’s kinda sad
Don't worry, there are 9 other endings to find ;)
Some are a bit more funny, some are a bit more sad, some are nice.
one of the phone things (right before you get to choose if you want to leave her on read or text back with the same excitement) isn’t working so i don’t actually know what she said it just says error and there’s no phone other than that so far i love the game
Thanks for letting me know!
There was a typo in my code, hence the error. This has been fixed on my end, and will be uploaded sometime today.
Glad you've been enjoying the game so far!
That's fixed!
The humour is very vibrant and the first two endings are truly something. Did notice “he brought me flowers. I had mentioned to him...” & wasn’t sure if the “he” instead of “they” was a minor slip.
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the game so far!
Yup def a slip up. Will be corrected soon. Thanks for pointing it out!
sorry for the delay, it's been corrected :)
oh my god the part where (SPOILER) i literally crushed the dad's hand. it was too funny i cried.
😂 I am glad you enjoyed the game! I had quite a lot of fun writing this part as well.
please give me the chance to tell the girlfriend to fuck off, that's the ending I'd like to have, thank you.
Hi! Thanks for playing the game!
There is kinda already one option where you can do so. Though it is not explicitly a F-Off.
Where in the story made you want to tell off the girlfriend?
sorry for the late reply. it was when I was late and she acted as if it was the end of the f world, closed the door on me and mc couldn't even say anything, I WISH I could just tell her off right there. I was so angry lol
I understand where you are coming from.
However, I wanted to write some endings where the MC has less agency with how it ends, due to the choices they have made beforehand. I mean, this one is kind of a "bad ending". Not every ending has to be satisfying.
I am currently working on an update which will add 2 more endings. It should be out by the end of the month.
Thank you again for playing!