The Wake: Mourning Father, Mourning Mother similar games & best alternatives

The Wake: Mourning Father, Mourning Mother - the-wake-mourning-father-mourning-mother_1.avif
The Wake: Mourning Father, Mourning Mother - the-wake-mourning-father-mourning-mother_2.avif
The Wake: Mourning Father, Mourning Mother - the-wake-mourning-father-mourning-mother_3.avif
The Wake: Mourning Father, Mourning Mother - the-wake-mourning-father-mourning-mother_4.avif
The Wake: Mourning Father, Mourning Mother - the-wake-mourning-father-mourning-mother_5.avif
The Wake: Mourning Father, Mourning Mother - the-wake-mourning-father-mourning-mother_6.avif

The Wake: Mourning Father, Mourning Mother

PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac • 2020

Should you play it?

The Wake is a record of past wounds opened at a three-day funeral. The journal is encoded with a simple substitution cipher that the player must break in order to reveal the writer’s psyche and discover the contradictions that define him.

What works
  • Deep, emotionally resonant narrative
  • Unique cipher puzzle mechanics
  • Introspective and personal storytelling
  • Accessible puzzle difficulty with in-game aids
  • Atmospheric music and presentation
Things to keep in mind
  • Short playtime and limited gameplay depth
  • Puzzle mechanics can feel repetitive or frustrating
  • Story may be too personal or niche for some players
  • Interface and text readability issues
  • Lack of traditional game elements or variety

What to play next

Top picks

Games that feel the closest overall

  • Journal

  • As Long As You're Here

  • Odyssey - The Story of Science

  • Greyfox RPG

  • Perfect Tides

  • Biphase

  • The Lion's Song: Episode 1 - Silence

  • Banter Schooldays!!三〇一室无一人

  • The Star Named EOS
Hidden Gems

Less popular games with surprisingly high similarity

  • Journal

  • As Long As You're Here

  • Odyssey - The Story of Science
If you liked…

Recommendations by what you enjoyed most

  • Story

    HOW WE KNOW WE'RE ALIVE
  • Autonomy

    The Walking Fish 2: Final Frontier
  • Escapism

    Press Any Button

Similarity map

Explore nearby similar games and see why they’re close.

How to use the graph
Similarity map

Each dot is a game. They are arranged from the same motivation profile as in the “Why this game works” section below. Closer dots usually mean more similar reasons to play (exploration, competition, relaxation, etc.)—not that one game is “better” than another.

  • Purple star: this page’s game — everything on the map is relative to it.
  • Coloured chips: click to highlight games that mainly differ on that motivation; click again to reset.
  • Dotted line: link between this page’s game and the one selected for comparison.
  • Hover a dot for a screenshot preview, score, and top score gaps; click to compare in the panel on the right.
  • Scroll or double-click the chart to zoom out and see more games.

Why don’t the axes read like a score? This view uses t-SNE: it only keeps who is close to whom. The scales are not “good to bad” or hours played—they separate groups on the map. Read distance between dots, not the axis numbers (hidden on purpose).

The Wake: Mourning Father, Mourning Mother: Less representative of its motivational profile, with noticeable differences. Motivations that often define this kind of title include Violence, Fantasy, Story, Thrill. Here, the score leans higher than usual among comparable games on Story, Intimacy. It leans lower than usual among comparable games on Fantasy.

Why this game works

A motivational profile of the game, with the closest similar game for each player motivation.

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  • Intimacy

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Last update: 12/07/2026