Mobile gaming has grown a lot from the days of Match-3 games and free-to-start Tower Defense titles. There are a lot of creative games being made for phones, and Forgive Me, Father… certainly falls in that category.

In Forgive Me, Father…, you play as a priest for the Church of Spades, a church designed to mirror the Catholic church quite closely. You are put in charge of a remote parish, and are basically the source of your town’s guilt, as well as their arrogance. The game takes place mostly in a confessional, where you decide by swiping one way or another how to view the actions of members of your congregation. The game rests upon this game mechanic, with meters for the seven deadly sins weighing whether or not you are being too harsh or lenient.

The ability to decipher what choice you’re making relates to which sin is tough. Even hours after trying to get a hang of it, It’s not always clear; which I guess leads you to decide what’s moral and what’s not in a realistic way. Unfortunately, that also means when your meter for a sin is near game-ending levels, it’s tough to save yourself. It’s a frustrating part of the game I never got the hang of, even after going through multiple priest characters.

When your town is judged too harshly or largely forgiven too often, your priest dies, starting you over as another holy figure for the parish. You can get an idea of how your town is acting behind your back in the tavern, where you can eavesdrop on conversations. Likewise, the longer you last, the more you can build up your parish, including buildings and businesses. You and your wife will have kids as well, cutting into your church budget as you divert coin away to your family. These side mechanics offer little in terms of depth, and never really had me wanting to push forward to grow my holy sanctuary.

In a lot of ways, I felt that same apathy towards the gameplay itself. I never felt too sad if a sin got out of control because there were few ways to get a grasp on how to rule your congregation. The choices are often clearly bad versus evil, but some sins that benefit from one decision falter at another, and this made it tough to manage my rule. I’d admit the game was challenging if there was logic to the decisions, but I never found any. This lead to more frustration than a desire to push on and learn the inner workings of the moral compass the Church of Spades operated under.

The game is now live in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. At $4.99 USD, I can’t say it’s worth the money. That doesn’t make it a bad game, that just means its not something I feel warrants a purchase.

A Review Copy of Forgive Me Father… was provided by the developers for the purposes of this review.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Forgive Me Father

0.00

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• Unique concept
• Easy mechanics

Cons

• Unclear moral system to gameplay
• Limited depth
• Repetitive experience
• Not worth the pricetag