It’s time for your birthday party

Good Boy is a free puzzle video game wherein you get to celebrate your birthday—and hopefully survive. Developed by thealphagurlux, this 3D first-person indie game is a mystery and survival horror experience that can be deeply unsettling despite the cartoony hand-drawn graphics.

Similar in art style to My Beautiful Paper Smile and Omori, Good Boy features narrative-focused gameplay that offers multiple endings for you to unlock. However, the text descriptions of the protagonist’s inner monologue can be hard to read due to the text’s font, size, and color against the black and white backdrops.

You’re going to get a special gift

In Good Boy, you play as an unnamed young child, who’s currently celebrating his birthday. Excited for the party later, he goes about his day exploring around his house and waiting for the party to start. He lives with his mother and grandmother, who will be celebrating with him. However, all is not well inside their household—and the actions you take can change the outcome of your little party. 

The controls in this game are pretty straightforward. The WASD keys are for moving about, while the E key is for interacting with objects. Your mouse also plays a huge role, as not only does it pan the camera view but its crosshair will change between an eye icon and a hand icon to indicate your available actions on an object. It will even change depending on the ending you’re on.

There’s a short tutorial on these controls but the font of the text can be hard to read. Even the text for your character’s thoughts can sometimes glitch out and disappear as it scrolls—and it’s not clear why this frequently happens. The gameplay and atmosphere are pretty good, though, and there’s a certain challenge to figuring out all three endings to fully complete the game.

The text could be improved

All in all, Good Boy is an interesting little indie game if you want a horror story set in a cute but creepy hand-drawn world. While the text’s font isn’t user-friendly or even readable most of the time, the overall vibe and performance of the game are satisfying enough to finish everything in one sitting. It helps that the controls are pretty easy to master, too.