Welcome to the showers! Get comfy and wait for the water to warm up.

2022/11/27: Whoa! After several years, Dad is Back From the Store! This update has fixed some bugs, including fixing the "2 hours of shower" achievement, rebalanced Dad Divisions, added Gamepad and WASD support, and more we might not know about!

2022/12/15: We've done it, we've found the real Dad.


Let's hit the obvious question:


Not really! As far as I've seen, there's only been two things that could be construed as sex jokes. One between two adults, and the second one being a "69" on a HUD element. There is the four pixels of dad donger dangling down, but hey, it's a shower. Don't be weird about it.



As you may have suspected, there's a reason why people are paying more attention to this than they should at first glance. As such, since I doubt you need guidance at the game's most basic mechanic, here's your notice for


Spoilers will be unmarked in this guide. You have been warned.



Your choices for the "Nudity" option in the Settings are "YEAH", "YES", "DONG", a constantly-scrolling "HELL YEAH", and "TRUE". I'll let you guess what that means.

There are six primary modes, the last three of which will be unlocked in another mode through a seemingly random occurrence or quirk. Once you unlock them, they will be selectable from the main menu, but you may not be able to play all parts of it again.

You can also access settings, several which are effectively useless, but may be necessary to unlock a secret. If you want to actually change your controls, you can do so by pressing Ctrl+Y, and interacting with the dialogue box. Game Pad support was significantly improved in late 2022 patches, but if you're still having problems with it, you can use a free utility like J2K[emulation-evolved.net] (that's different from Joy2Key) to interpret your gamepad controls as the Arrow Keys, Spacebar, etc.

You can pause the game by pressing Ctrl+P.

There's also a code entry prompt. This will be used to unlock a very late-game secret, and I'm not aware of any codes you can type in until then to skip ahead, so for now you can ignore it.

The six modes are:

• Endurodad
  The main mode of the game. Pick the correct dad out of the crowd. You have infinite time to do so, but a single slip is Game Over.
  
• Dadathon
  Like the original mode, but now you're a different kid each time, and you have to beat the timer, extending it with each success. You can make a mistake in this mode, but it eats a chunk out of your timer.
  
• Dad Divisions
  Cycle through the kids to match up to the falling dad, then click on him with the mouse cursor to grab him with your freakishly long arm.
  
• Soapico
  Point-and-click Adventure Game, with complete nonsense solutions to problems. So basically, a normal point-and-click adventure game. Unlocked by grabbing the Police Dad in Dad Divisions.
  
• The Dad With The Iron Shower
  An endurance test to make sure you're worthy. Avoid three bouncing ninja tots, and the slew of shurikens from Ninja Dad until all the flames go out. Unlocked by finding the glitched wall if your dad disappears in Endurodad.
  
• Inglorious Bathdads
  A bit of Flappy Bird with shooting. Fly into your matching dads, avoid or shoot down the rest. Don't shoot your dad! Unlocked by finding the dad in the bathtub during Dadathon.

Usually when starting up a game, you'll be presented with a magnificent Dad Joke. Occasionally, it will instead be a Test Your Might-style mini-game, requiring you to click or hit the Spacebar within a 5 second period to fill up a rapidly-decreasing bar. Beat 10 of these, and you unlock an Achievement.

This is the most basic mode, the game you paid for, theoretically. You pick one of three (initially?) characters, then match them up to their requisite dads. You've got:

• Thomas & Magnum (Sporting a moustache Mr. Selleck would be proud of)
  
• Richard & Lefty
  
• Johnnie & Robin

Of the three, Richard & Lefty are the easiest to match in a hurry. Johnnie & Robin are the hardest, since Johnnie is paler and has a different hair color than Robin.

Initially it starts off pretty easily, and you have infinite time, only a clock ticking down your bonus points for going quickly. Accuracy is rewarded over speed, as getting too close to the wrong dad is a Game Over, and very awkward indeed. Wet Floor signs will start appearing on the floor, causing you to walk more slowly if you trip over one. Then puddles form, causing you to slide out of control, often ending an Endurodad run. Then the dads start hiding behind shower curtains, only giving you a brief moment to watch for which is which, all the while still avoiding puddles on the ground. After that, the game starts introducing Decoy Dads, just to confuse you further, then starts hiding all those behind shower curtains.

By playing through the round and beating your score and other milestones, you can unlock bonus items to help you in your dadquest, one by one. Many of these also appear in Dadathon:

• Soap Scrub-a-dub, get a bonus for dads found while the timer counts down.
  
• Razor Smooth pops! Shaves all the dads and gives you a bonus. Look at the stubble color if you have trouble telling Thomas and Johnnie apart.
  
• Ducky Makes everything safer! Reduces the punishment a hazard inflicts on you (puddle or warning sign). Does not take a hit if you mess up.
  
• Adoption Papers Your dad becomes the one pointed to by the flashing black and white arrow. Be careful about going for a dad close to the end of the bonus period, or you could Game Over easily.
  
• Halloween Mask Everyone is your dad! Tag any nearby dad for bonuses. Again, watch out for touching one right as soon as the bonus period ends.
  
• Power Tools Another item that triggers visual noise and bonuses. In this mode, it's accompanied by a bright background change.
  
• Beer Not for kids! Slows down timers so it's easier to find your dad, with a warping screen and a small amount of staggering.
  
• New Family (Heart) Double the dads means it's harder to mess up! Very handy, but again, watch out for heading for the second dad if you're close to the end of the bonus timer.

Occasionally, possibly during Soap bonuses, you may go to a dad only to have them disappear, and the game seemingly become stuck. A part of the bottom of the shower area will go semi-transparent. Venture through it, and the game will "glitch up" in a flashy fashion. You will then have unlocked "The Dad With The Iron Shower".

The basic premise is similar to Endurodad, but on a tighter schedule. You're spawned in a random location as a random child, and must find the matching dad before the timer counts down to zero. Finding a dad adds a small amount of time to your timer; finding several in quick succession can give you a buffer of time. This is handy, as while visiting the wrong dad isn't an immediate Game Over in the mode, it does rob you of some of your remaining time.

As in Endurodad, puddles and Wet Floor signs will appear, and the dads will start hiding behind shower curtains, then the Decoy Dads show up. Items from Endurodad also appear here, with the Beer being much more helpful here than it was in the first mode.

Occasionally a dad will appear in a bathtub with a folded hat on. Visit that dad to put on your VR Helmet and sail through the technospace. Soon you will unlock Inglorious Bathdads. Are you a bath enough dude to rescue your dad?

A lot of people suspected this game would be Frog Fractions 2. This mode seems to be an homage to that.

In Dad Divisions, you move your kid to the left and right with the arrow keys. Up cycles through the various kids in a set order (always Magnum, then Lefty, then Johnnie), and then you click to extend your freakish arm to grab at the matching dad. When you change kid, your movement is stopped temporarily, but as long as you stay in the middle of the screen, you really won't have to move much, as you've got quite a reach. Focus on switching to the right kid and clicking.

You have a life bar, but no way to replenish it. Five misses or misgrabbed dads is a Game Over (even though you have a full last heart on the fifth miss).

The speed of dad drops picks up more and more as the mode goes on.

The best thing you can do is learn how many taps Up it takes to switch to the kid you want from the current one (for example, to get to Magnum from Lefty, you need two taps), burn that into your brain, then stop looking at your kid and focus exclusively on the top of the screen. Making the game Fullscreen can also help, as I've had more than one run end thanks to clicking outside the game window. You can use the F1-F5 keys, and Alt+Enter, to fiddle with it until it's right. You may need to restart the game to get it to show properly. (Hit Escape if you're stuck.)


Occasionally, a dad will drop down wearing a policeman's top, most likely Johnnie. Grab him to get a "BRB Son" message, unlocking Soapico, the point-and-click adventure game.

A gritty point-and-click adventure game in the style of LucasArts titles of yore. And just like those titles, some of the solutions are complete and utter nonsense, and you'll be picking up basically everything that isn't bolted down, and even some things that are. You only need one.

If you've never played a point-and-click game like this before, move your mouse down to pop up the toolbar with a list of actions on the left, and boxes on the right where collected items will appear. To perform an action, click on the word that represents that action, then the object you want to do that to. So to look at the shower, you click "Look", and then the physical shower in the scene. To Use an item in your inventory, you click "Use", then the item in the boxes to your right, which puts it on the cursor. Then click on the location in the scene you want to use it at. Several of the actions have no use, so don't worry about using them all. At least you can show everything your badge, Phoenix Wright-style. If the character remarks about being too far away to do something, use "Walk" and then click on a location to get closer, and try that same action again.

Not every action has to be performed in this order, but some actions will not be available to you until you do others first.

1. Take the Shower (knob)
   
2. Take the Rusty Knob
   
3. Take the Goonz Grafitti
   
4. Use Grafitti on Rusty Knob
   
5. Use Knob on Shower
   
6. Take Puddle
   
7. Take Towel
   
8. Take (Mop and) Bucket
   
9. Take Urinal
   
10. Use Water on Bucket
    
11. Use Lighter on Towel
    
12. Use Burning Towel on Bucket
    
13. Use Hot Water Bucket on Water Spurt
    
14. Take Sign (must attempt 4 times)
    
15. Take Solid Wrench
    
16. Use Sign on that prior spot of floor (important)
    
17. Use Solid Wrench on Urinal
    
18. Take Shower
    
19. Use Urinal Cake on Shower (or yourself)

I'll always have your back, partner.

So why is the sign important? If you don't put it back down, after a few steps your character will slip and die, forcing a restart.

There's an achievement hidden in this mode: Stand in the running shower, but without using the Urinal Cake, for 2 hours of real time. Yes, real time.

The real Dad Showers starts here.

You've glitched your way through the wall, and now you're heading down a dark corridor. Torches light up around you. Your first time wandering into an empty room, you will soon be greeted with "wtf!" You have found the Ninja Dad, the most hardcore dad of them all.

This fight has been edited twice to be much easier!

In the original release, the mini-ninjas would bounce around at a breakneck pace, and change directions without any warning. (You can see a hint of that when they first start moving in the level; they moved at that speed all the time.) Now, they move much slower, they bounce at more predictable angles (90% of the time, anyway), they change directions much less often, and they "charge up" a dash to your current position. This attack didn't exist as such in the previous version, but it makes things easier, not harder, as there's a major visual indicator, and they target your position at the start of their charge, so you can easily move out of the way before they even start their dash.

In fact, you barely have to move for the first half of the fight, now. Pick a vertical wall, and you can stay in place until you see either A. A mini-ninja charging up a dash, B. A bouncing mini-ninja wanders near you (especially if it's due to dash), or C. Ninja Dad readies a shuriken. Shift as necessary, run a small circle around the stray bouncing mini-ninjas if you have to, and you can always switch to the other side if things feel crowded.

The mini-ninjas actually have a smaller hitbox than you'd expect, you'll slide by them a surprising number of times. If you grind against a corner (to where your kid is visibly twitching), that also makes you harder to hit, but not impossible.

Just before the second torch goes out, Ninja Dad will see you aren't challenged enough. He'll start throwing shurikens at your location, to keep you moving. These have a big, solid hitbox, unlike the mini-ninjas, so be sure to give them plenty of space. He'll aim for where you're currently standing when he fires, so you can control his shots to some degree.

After nine regular shurikens, Ninja Dad will start firing them in groups of three quick throws. After four of these, another mini-ninja will appear, and again four more throws later, then increasing his throws to sets of five shurikens. The room starts getting pretty full, my recommendation would be to slide along the bottom wall, as it gives you more room to guide the shuriken trios, and count the shurikens as you dodge. Just make sure to move around any mini that's headed toward that wall, or boucing or dashing parallel to it.

If you're having a lot of trouble with this, I highly recommend using a joystick mapping utility, such as the one mentioned in the Intro, to map the controls to a gamepad. I also like to keep the mouse cursor on the bottom right corner of the screen, so you can quickly click on the restart button. You can even click on the button almost as soon as you get hit, before it visually appears.

Can't take the ninja heat? The developer has again given you an out, but only take it if necessary. Hold the "S" key to phase into walls and travel around them. Mini-ninjas can't touch you, although you can still be hit by shurikens. [2022 Note: Heads up, I haven't gotten to test it, but I've been told this trick has been removed in the 2.0+ updates.]


Having proven yourself worthy, and spotless, you take to your Ninja Dad's motorcycle (brave of him to be riding a hot metal motorcycle bottomless). Dodge stacks of tires and ginger ninja (ginjas!) using the arrow keys, and take out the red-garbed enemy clan using the cursor and left mouse button to fire stars. You have a health meter in the form of a fuel gauge that slowly refills itself, which you can also boost by running over gas cans in the road. Because ninjas don't stop for refuelling.

Can't drive a sweet ninja motorcycle well? Hit Space Bar to fill your gas to the brim. But this mode is so easy, try doing it without that, first. Especially since you can now breeze through the first part with the "S" key cheat.

Fill your gas meter full, and you are crowned First Place, and truly worthy of being Ninja Dad's son. But who was that man with the axe that disappeared at the end of the track...?

It's time to rescue your dad! 69 of them, actually, after which you'll visit the 70th. Meanwhile, be sure to take down the dads of other kids along the way, because you're that kind of monster.

This is a relatively simple game. Tapping (or holding) Up causes your bathtub ship to head skyward. Pressing Down causes you to rocket downward, but you probably won't need to use it, and it would likely just give you a Game Over, which happens when you drop too low. Pressing Right causes you to shoot a bullet, that you can use to destroy other daddies. Don't shoot your matching dad, though, as that will cost you some life. Instead, grab those matching dads until you fill up the counter in the HUD, and you're done!

There used to be a cheat code to collected 68 out of 69 dads, by tapping the Space Bar, but it seems like in the most recent version, the code has been broken or disabled.

Because your life is not complete without a tiny pixel image and some text saying you did a thing.


Dippin' Your Toes In
You actually opened a game called "Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015." What will your friends think?!?
You're reading the guide now, so people already know there's no hope for you.

No Pun In Ten Dad
Get a 10 Dadstreak in Endurodad or Dadathlon.
Easy enough, just match the kid with the dad.

With Great Shower...
Score 100 points in Endurodad.
Fairly easy to do, especially once you unlock Soap.

Collateral Daddage
End an Endurodad round by slipping on a puddle into a shower with the Wrong Dad.
Will happen by mistake, almost unavoidably. If you can't get this to trigger, you're trying too hard to make it happen, just play the game trying to win and it'll happen in a later round.

Self-Fulfilling Pop's Slippy
Learn what happens when you fail to read a wet floor sign
Not sure, I believe you need to trip over a Wet Floor sign and then hit a puddle.

...Comes Great Public Utility
Score 300 points in Endurodad
Unlock some bonus items, then use those to boost your score.

Frankly My Dear, I Don't Give A Dad
Shower with the Wrong Dad at the beginning of an Endurodad round, ending the game.
Charge at a mismatched dad. You almost have to be trying to get this one.

Testing The Waters
Keep the shower running in Dadathlon for at least 1 minute.
Keep tagging dads!

Reservoir Dads
Grab 6 dads in under 6 seconds
This is a Dad Divisions achievement. Hard to do initially, but as the dads speed up, with fast reaction times or good spawn luck you will get this.

A Fraction Of The Beast
Grab exactly 3 of each dad in Dad Divisions
You don't need to end the level to get this, just grab three of each. Depending on what random spawns you get, this may take a few tries, as too many ignored dads results in a Game Over.

Inglorious Bathdads
Earn glory for yourself and your dad
Flappy your birds all the way to the end.

The Wrongfather Part II
Shower with the Wrong Dad at least 5 times in a single Dadathlon round.
This is hard to do. You need to make sure you have a lot of time, go to the wrong dad, and then grab a few correct dads in a row (quickly), then repeat. After you have 4, you can make a run for a Wrong Dad if you want to stop there, as it gets harder to avoid a Time Over.

Soapico
Get the shower up and running again.
Put the thing with the other thing and rub the items against each other until you're sharing a lovely bath.

Daddy Issues
Shower with the Wrong Dad at least 10 times in a single Dadathlon round.
Like The Wrongfather Part II, but way harder.

I See Dad People.
Last 3 minutes in Dad Divisions.
I am not so good at the Divisions.

I Told You I'd Get Around To It
Pass 10 mini-games between levels
Once you start triggering the mini-games, the easiest way to unlock this is to pick a mode, skip past the Dad Joke if there is one, then back out, until you trigger a mini-game. Then just spam the Left Mouse Button or the Spacebar until you fill up the bar. Repeat.

Eternal Paternal
Keep the shower running in Dadathlon for at least 3 minutes.
Not complicated, just difficult.

Let's Dance To Dad Divisions
Last 6 minutes in Dad Divisions.
I have a feeling this mode takes a sharp turn once you get a little further in.

The Dad With The Iron Shower
You showered with one of the toughest dads in town.
Refer to the section for suggestions on how to outlast him. Or just cheat and use the "S" key to phase into the wall. If you're not a real ninja.

Two Hours Of Shower
??????
Corrected/Altered in the Back From the Store update. Complete Soapico up until just before you lather up with the Urinal Cake, making sure you're under the running shower (Taking the Shower might be necessary). Leave the game running for 2 hours and it'll be yours. (Thanks to Alolan Raichu for commenting with this!) Not personally confirmed: ʜᴜɴɢʀʏ ɢʜᴏꜱᴛ mentions in the comments it will save your time across multiple sessions cumulatively, if you need to break it up. I'd personally recommend doing it all at once if possible, but nice if that helps someone finish it sooner.

"Go ahead. Make my Dad."
Find out who your real dad is.... without cheating
Go ahead. Make my D.A.D.
Find the real Dad and 100% Uncover everything, head to toe
This process is lengthy, and has been moved to its own section just below. Scroll down a bit to learn the truth!

A Good Day to Dad Hard
100% Uncover everything, head to toe
One wonders if this would actually be unlocking everything, or if there's a Braid situation involved, given how this game likes to play with expectations.
This achievement seems to have been removed with the 2.0 updates, likely consolidated into "Go ahead. Make my D.A.D." unless I'm mistaken.

This is a dedicated guide for the final achievement! Turn back if you want to avoid spoiling yourself, however you're not that likely to find it naturally, unless you live in the shower.

Go ahead. Make my D.A.D.
Find the real Dad and 100% Uncover everything, head to toe
All the pieces are here, it's time to find the real Dad. But do you even know what that means...?
This process requires several steps (and you'll need to remember or write down a code):

1. Play 501+ games. This is a lot to ask (I only had 105 played, and many of those were for writing this guide!), so if want to expedite this, go to your save file location (in Windows "%APPDATA%\MMFApplications\SHOWERDAD.ini", in Linux "<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/359050/pfx/" (Source: PCGamingWiki[www.pcgamingwiki.com])) and modify the "GamesPlayed=(number)" line to at least "GamesPlayed=501". You may want to back up your save file before doing this!
   
2. Start up the game. The Steam Cloud sync theoretically should revert your save file edit, but doesn't seem to. (If this changes in the future, try editing it again once the game is open, and just play a round or two.)
   
3. Enter Dad Divisions. Instead of playing the game, hold Down to slowly exit off the bottom of the screen. (Fully completing the Frog Fractions reference.)
   
4. 
   You'll appear in a spooky hellscape as Robin. Passing by the tree switches you to a halloween outfit. Run over to the right, and grab the gun. Johnnie will appear... and turn into a monster! Flying beasts and crawling creatures with dad heads will assault you! You should probably see some therapy after this! Blast the creatures with the same controls as Dad Divisions, but with the ability to jump with "Up", and use their corpses to jump up to the right hand's palm. (You can just stay still and fight, but eventually the monsters will stop spawning. Johnnie did not return, unless it required more waiting or other steps.)
   
5. The hand will grasp you! Look in the top-right corner, and a code will appear there! Make sure to write that down! Only the code that is shown to you will work for this next step, and the code can be different for different people. It'll be 6 characters long, and may include "Dad Head" symbols.
   
6. You awake in your bed. It's all been a nightmare, right Dad? Time to get some cocoa.
   
7. 
   The game starts over. In the Main Menu, select the Code Entry icon in the top left. Enter the code you just saw after the hand grabbed you. The game will stutter, and then pretend to crash. After the game "reboots", you're dumped into a text terminal interface similar to Linux or DOS. Typing "Help" will show you various commands. Most are explanatory, but "LS" will display a directory's contents, and "CD" will change directory (to go up to a parent directory, use "CD..", including the two periods). You can explore the directories, "VIEW" the diaries and birth cerificate, but you'll want to head for USERS/DAD, Login with "(Password)" as the password (without quotation marks), CD to Private, Load RESETDAD.EXE, then Run. For the exact steps, type these commands:
   
   • CD..
     
   • CD..
     
   • CD USERS
     
   • CD DAD
     
   • LOGIN (Password)
     
   • CD PRIVATE
     
   • LOAD RESETDAD.EXE
     
   • RUN
8. Now you'll finally learn the truth about your real D.A.D. Congratulations, it's been a journey.

(Special thanks to Newbo.O, Nyxieee, Soop-Om, RVK, and everybody else in the Steam forum that refused to stop looking, and the developer marbenx for revisiting their game after many years to indulge us.)

If you go to your local storage directory in a file explorer (for example, in Windows 7, it's \Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\ , you may have to enable viewing hidden directories to see AppData), you'll find a folder named MMFApplications. Inside that is SHOWERDAD.ini, presumably the save file (but possibly not the only one!) Open it up, and you'll see the following at the bottom:


Suspicious, huh? If you want to try it out, copy your save file to another directory (don't just duplicate it in the same directory), then while the game is off, change the text to "TRUE" and start the game.

You'll be greeted with a black screen with "YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE CHEATED, SON". If you click on the screen, it resets, showing the message again.


There's no known way of unlocking Ninja Dad and Kid, or ninja outfits for all three sets.

The game already has two Something Awful references in it, including the "Goonz" grafitti in Soapico, and the Dad Joke with the "Get Out" frog. I've seen a single screenshot where the frog's face was blown up to screen size, but I'm not sure how to trigger that.

The Golden Axe fellow at the end of the motorcycle minigame for Iron Shower is super-suspicious. He later appears in the bedroom cutscene of the "Go ahead. Make my D.A.D." achievement process.

Regina Case on the forums apparently saw a door appear during Dadathalon. Further discussion here: http://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/app/359050/discussions/0/523897023725833254/

I figured having a guide available sooner would be preferred, even if there are some holes in it. If you can help fill those hol- wait, let me rephrase that. If you can provide accurate information about things not yet included in this guide, it would be appreciated. All the achievements are finally achievable, but there's always the possibility of more obscure secrets still slumbering in the game, or being patched in at a future date. But for now, the water's gone cold. Time to towel off.