Ron standing next to his father when his mother arrives.
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Ron is the main character and the hero of the indie horror game Bad Parenting 1: Mr. Red Face, released in 2024. He is a young boy with a runny nose, the son of Bruce and Robin. He is quite young, perhaps around three or four years old.. After promising to go to bed early on his birthday after his mother forgets to get him a present, he receives a gift from a mysterious creature known as Mr. Red Face (alternatively spelled "Mr. Redface") in the form of a talking doll that looks like and has the same name as him.
Background history[]
At the beginning of the game, Ron sees his mother come home late. When he asks her why she was away, she tells him that she had to work late again. He reminds her that it's his birthday, but she realizes that she hasn't gotten him a present yet. However, she promises him that a magical creature called Mr. Red Face will bring him a gift in the night if he goes to bed immediately. He is about to when his father, Bruce, walks out and confronts his mother. After some arguing, he tells Ron to go to bed and not stay up to eavesdrop on adult conversations. Ron obliges and slowly falls asleep. Later he is woken up to the sound of heavy footsteps, and a creature enters his room that he recognizes as Mr. Red Face (given the creature's obvious red face). Opening this gift, he finds a talking doll that says that it serves its master, who created the doll through magic. The boy naturally assumes that Mr. Red Face is the doll's master.
Ron decides to try to play some games with his new doll, but its own toys were "locked away inside Ron's closet", which he finds that he is unable to open. Defeated, the doll tells Ron that he is hungry, but cannot actually eat; however if Ron himself eats, the doll will feel satiated too as his master has linked both Rons' senses and emotions to one another. Ron goes to make food that his mother prepared for him, although he ignores her request that he follow it up with his medication. The doll demonstrates some magic tricks for Ron. Firstly, it makes his food appear to be endless. Whenever he finishes it, it immediately regenerates. Secondly, it makes a wine bottle act as if it were being drunk, slamming onto the dining room table. On the third hit, Mr. Red Face flashes in front of Ron's eyes and the bottle shatters, scaring the young boy. Afraid that his father will punish him for breaking the glass bottle and asking if he is still asleep, the doll reassures him that Mr. Red Face has absconded with his father to punish him for being a bad parental figure. This upsets Ron who insists that his dad is a good person, and desperately begs to be allowed to save his dad. Relenting, the doll tells Ron that Mr. Red Face won't be happy that he is trying to save his father but that he can be reached via shortcut through the closet in Ron's room. Ron tries to access the closet in his room but to his dismay, he still cannot get the doors to budge. The doll, demonstrating quick thinking, proposes that they utilize the closet of his parents. To accomplish this, he is instructed on how to perform a ritual that involves adjusting the radio frequency to connect with the other side of a portal, thereby opening a gateway. On the third attempt, he successfully accesses the correct portal and proceeds through it.
Ron rises from his slumber in the closet after trying to save his dad.
Ron finds himself in a dimly-lit forest with an abandoned car next to a campfire and a shallow trench dug into the ground nearby, and a mysterious anthropomorphic cat who seems to serve as a guide to finding specific people. With some inquiry, Ron is able to tap in to the exact location that his father is being held in by being questioned by the cat on who his dad is (referring to him as a "bad Bruce"), and as Ron walks there, he is startled by three other young children as they jump out at him. They tell him that they are also looking for their parents and ask if he would like to stay and play with them. But he refuses and goes through the portal. There he finds his dad trembling on a bed, begging for the punishment to stop. Ron tries to speak to his dad and tell him that he has come to rescue him but his Bruce apparently doesn't hear him. He then discovers a strange card on the dresser that he interprets as a spell, but is immediately grabbed by Mr. Red Face through the closet.
Ron wakes up in his parents' closet, the portal having closed behind him. Looking up, he sees his mother looking down on him with her hands on her hips as her head cocks to the side... Only to continue to rotate for a short time beyond normal human means. She inquires about his activities, and he proceeds to recount the recent occurrences. However, she cuts him off, revealing that she is already aware of the doll and Mr. Red Face. When he asks how, she tells him that he has been having these same hallucinations lately and that this is why she wants him to take his medication. She tells him that its midnight and to go to his room and go to bed. He does so, but upon entering his room, he discovers the doll suspended in the air. Suddenly, Mr. Red Face appears and assaults Ron. Ron blacks out but comes to, to see his mother standing over him asking him what happened. When he blacks out again she takes him to her own bed and sits with him. They talked for a while, and he asked her to stay home from work that day and be with him. She agreed to do so, and he fell asleep.
Ron found the damaged doll.
When he woke up, he realized that his mother was gone! Believing that she broke her promise again, he leaves his parents' room and returns to his own, only to find the doll injured and bruised. Shocked, he asks what has happened and the doll tells him that his master beat him up. Inquiring about his mother, the doll tells him that his master has now taken Ron's mom away to punish her, too. Ron refuses the doll's suggestion that he run away and save himself. However, the doll softens its stance when Ron shows it the 'spell' he has acquired. The doll confirms that that spell will defeat his master, and Ron returns to his parents' closet and reenters the portal to the dark forest.
Once back in the forest, he now finds that the other portal out that once led to his father's prison now leads to his mother, who is crying at a table. The cat has left and the three other children are hiding behind the abandoned car. Ron runs to the door and the doll, who has also traveled to this realm, tells Ron to throw the spell into the room with his mother; He does just that before running to hide behind the car with the other children. Mr. Red Face comes and enters the room and the door shuts behind him. A green flash is seen and the door fades away. Ron returns through the closet back home.
Ron finds that the doll is now back at home, billowing black smoke as his master has been defeated and thus the magic from the doll is fading away. Ron is sad to hear this but the doll insists that this is what he wanted all along. The doll's tells Ron to go see his parents, which Ron obliges. However, he finds them having their argument that he had left earlier, and Bruce hits his wife, accusing her of cheating on him. She decides that it is time for a divorce, and one or the other will need to move out by tomorrow. She then leaves again and insists that she will be back in the morning; she does not however take Ron with her and instead threatens that she will take him if he has not left by the morning. Bruce then travels to the kitchen and sits at the dining room table, drinking his bottle of wine, slamming it on the table like the doll had shown Ron earlier. On the third slam, his face turns red with anger and possibly from the alcohol, transforming into the real Mr. Red Face. He then walks into Ron's room. Ron follows him as he walks into Ron's own bedroom, only to see his dad strangling him in his own bed. He lifts Ron up and snaps his neck, killing him before taking his body towards his closet. Ron, having experienced the vision, begins to question its validity, but the doll returns and informs him that it is sorry, but this is the truth: The doll is, in fact, the "knowing" aspect of Ron, and the real Ron passed away 14 days ago. However, the two are now caught in a cycle, repeating the same events every day. His father is hiding from the police in a cheap motel room and has not been apprehended yet. His mother is unaware of his death, as she only returns home at night, and the current Ron only appears at night, as a ghost.
Ron is on a journey of self-discovery.
Meanwhile, Bruce has been tormented by the vision of Ron's rotting body coming out of the closet to greet him, and it is this that is leading him to tremble and beg for the punishment to stop. His mother wakes up in her room like she promised to do for her son, only to find him nowhere to be seen. Looking for him, she discovers his long-dead body in his closet. Later, she weeps inconsolably during a police interrogation. Suddenly, a square object falls on the floor, alerting everyone in the room, who think it must have fallen from her person. Ron's mom states that it looks like a motel room keycard, but that it isn't hers. The cops presumably go and arrest Bruce using his keycard -- the so-called "spell". At the funeral watches his loved ones grieve over his body, but is signaled over to the closet by the other children in the forest. They ask if he would like to play with them and he says that he would.
Speculation[]
Given that his mother doesn't visit him until it gets dark, and the fact that he only appears at night, it could mean that the prescription medication he's taking for hallucinations was somehow given to his mother to give to him after he disappeared. This is because she states that they are to help him with his hallucinations over the doll and Mr. Red Face, yet these specific hallucinations are directly correlated to his disappearance two weeks prior to the game's events.