I love a kid adventure. The sub-genre, codified in film for the most part by Amblin Entertainment in the ’80s (but drawing on all sorts of sources, from Huck Finn to Lassie to Hardy Boys to Scooby-Doo), uses a straightforward formula: take some kids and stick them in a dangerous situation that only they can handle, because adults either don’t believe or aren’t around.

The problem with most kid adventure stories is that adults write them, are at least partially for adults, and because of that, they adhere to an adult sense of logic. This is true of kid adventure RPGs like Kids of Bikes and Tales from the Loop, for sure. You can hear an echo of Richard Dreyfuss’ Stand By Me narration in both those games. Not so for Don’t Tell Mom & Dad (2022), which delights in its own kid logic.

You’re a kid. You live in a town (a big part of DTM&D is collaboratively creating that town using the included tiles, something I unabashedly love). Something weird is going on (possibly many somethings) and you need to get to the bottom of it by the end of summer vacation. There are a bunch of cool mechanics to manage — dinner time, curfew, zzz (countered by the use of sugar), the scared-o-meter and cool points (there are also “good kid” skills and “bad kid” skills). There are summer jobs, of course, and chores. But there’s also cool stuff to buy at the corner store and endless equipment to improvise through crafting and the powers of kid imagination — they can bend reality with a successful roll.

There’s such an appeal to how these (light!) mechanics hang together to simulate the improbable twists and turns of childhood imagination. They’re poised to create off-the-wall adventures that are more dangerous than you’d expect and probably don’t make conventional sense, but that’s not the point, now, is it? Rather, the point is running around on a summer evening with your friends, having a blast (or, you know, around a table, because you’re old in body, but young at heart).