You can’t be indifferent when you read the introduction of My Lovely Daughter on its Steam page. The developers warn that the game was made with the goal to make us sad and upset. Furthermore, it was motivated by experiences that the GameChanger Studio members had growing up (in Indonesia). The truth is that this is a dark game with a lot of gore and horror in it, as well as a profound message that it is trying to send to all the players.
An Alchemist Simulator
You will be playing as Faust, and that choice of name for the main protagonist is no accident. Faust is waking up in a huge mansion. Although it seems that it used to accommodate more people, there is no one around now. You soon notice something that reminds of a doll. However, you soon realize that it is a body of your daughter, cold and lifeless. Your only goal now is to find out a way how to revive her.
The positive thing is that you seem to remember that you are an alchemist once you notice the soul orb lying next to you. This orb is considered to be a human soul vessel, but it doesn’t have any power or affinity at the moment. Faust turns to a book that has some notes about alchemy. However, it will still take a lot of work to make the right formula for reviving his daughter.
Have You Heard of Homunculus?
Homunculus is an alchemist word used to describe an artificially made human. As Faust, you will create them and infuse their energy into your daughter’s soul. However, summoning homunculi is not an easy job. It requires no less than three items, including iron, meat, clay, wood, and, water. The trick is that the materials can be of various qualities and that affects what you will summon.
There are ten levels of homunculi that you can summon in My Lovely Daughter. Aside from creating them, you can also nurse them to higher levels of development. They have four different emotions – joy, sadness, anger, and fear. You can’t summon homunculus whenever you want, but only during a full moon.
When you are not up for alchemy, you can send you and your ‘daughters’ to the nearby town for work. The jobs have different requirements regarding affinities, which mean you have to choose accordingly.
Trying to revive your daughter with alchemy experiments will result in making all sorts of creatures. Over time, you will probably become attached to your artificial ‘daughters.’ That will make it hard to make a decision to sacrifice them to try to resurrect your real one or maintain her decay level. That is where the sadness the developers mentioned comes into play.
