Totally realistic! You (as “Mom”) start off with the Get Out the Door challenge. Seemed like the game threw every possible obstacle in my way, including the puking cat and a four-year-old who’s angry with his pants (authentic audio!).
The game is great, but only in small doses. The third time I got to Call from the School Nurse Though I Know She Also Has Steve’s Number, I got dizzy and had to stop.
Liked most of the challenges, but Trying to Sleep was tough. There should be numerous Tunnels of Thought options to run through, but my Mom just kept returning to What I Should’ve Said to That Rude Woman at the Pool in 2018 or Are the Kids Getting Enough Vitamin D?
Wish there were a workaround for needing to do Birds and Bees Talk multiple times with different children who all react badly, but never in the same bad way.
Pros: Immersive game play—you honestly forget where you are half the time. Cons: A lot of it just doesn’t make sense. Why is Mom the only one who knows how the thermostat works? Or what the next-door neighbors’ names are? Figuring out who not to sit next to at Moms’ Margarita Night seems overly complicated. And it might just be my microphone, but it seems like I keep saying important things that no one responds to at all.
The earlier version of this game was much better, with levels like Book Club, but Carol’s There, and Snoozing Everyone Who’s Doing a Ten-Day Facebook Photo Challenge. The only levels my Mom can seem to complete in the 2021 version are Watching Zooms Through Hair Curtain, Crying Over Laundry, and Just Checking Zillow Prices in Montana.
Shouldn’t you get gold coins or health points or something when you immediately have to pivot from Getting Guilt-Tripped by Your Mother for Not Sending More Photos of the Kids to Running Around the House Trying to Take Photos of the Kids, Who Won’t Let You?
My headset keeps doing this annoying thing where I’m trying to converse with my twenty-year-old Son character, but his sweet five-year-old face appears on a grown man’s body and he’s talking about a cryptocurrency podcast.
You have to be constantly on your toes. I mean, what’s the strategy when your tween just slams a door in your face when you ask questions about her Instagram story? Or when your seven-year-old son yells, from what seems like the roof, something that could easily be either “Hi, Mom!” or “Help me!”? Or when your spouse walks over and asks you—in this house that you’ve lived in together for eight years—where we keep the broom? How about when all of these things happen at once?
Not sure if it’s a feature or a bug that the School Grading Portal challenge is impossible, or that, once you get there, there’s no way out.
I reached the Mother’s Day level! Was worried that I’d have to navigate receiving three cards obviously drawn five minutes ago and a Starbucks gift card someone found in the junk drawer. Then I started telling everyone exactly what I think about their life choices and realized I’d accidentally turned my filter off! Though, from the message boards, it sounds like it just automatically turns off for most Moms, eventually?
Upgrade idea: that door-slam/roof/broom scenario, except Mom isn’t there but in a world she’s built in a secret, soundproof cabin that looks amazingly similar to a peaceful mountain hideaway on Zillow. She’s reading more than three paragraphs of a book without being interrupted, and the cat is there, but has stopped eating things off the floor, so no stomach issues. Also, just for a little while, everyone at home is doing the multiplayer challenge Figuring It All Out Themselves. Just saying—could play for days.
