The whirlwind of Poppy Playtime

A summer fling

With the ever onward movement of the games industry, constantly reinventing the wheel with newer and more even more bizarre trends and wild doomed-to-fail concepts emerging and sinking like giant monster sand worms, sometimes it can be a bit much to keep abreast of every development under the sun. Sometimes the bigger fads slip beneath the oceans of AAA shipwrecks colliding into one another, sometimes I'm just not on my game when the ball gets pitched, receiving a welt to the noggin' for my troubles. And sometimes I see the game, acknowledge the impact it seems to have had, and then for some reason just don't write an article about it, whilst under the distinct impression that I already had. Yes, I'm currently in that last camp; I could have sworn I mentioned Poppy's Playtime at least passingly throughout the past year but, according to my search function on the blog, apparently not. Must have been a busy week or something, I don't know. So in lieu of freshness, I've learnt a bit more about the full story of the game in question.

When Poppy Playtime dropped out of the ether, it was with that exact same new-indie-horror excitement that I think we're all bored to tears with seeing at this point. That inexplicable fervour of 'Wow everybody- doesn't this look decent? It is now the next big thing and I will become part of a community who will go onto defined our personalities through association to this brand. It is now to be praised as the new god of man, and anyone who raises a single finger of dissent will be burned at the stake for being a godless heathen.' We've seen this pattern before with 'Bendy and the Ink Machine', 'Hello Neighbour' and 'Five Night at Freddys'. (And maybe even Undertale, if we're going there. Not a horror game per-se, but similar cultural stain) Of all those games, I think only FNAf (and Undertale, if we're counting it) released with a proper full game and that has gone on to earn that series ludicrous success and mainstream attention. Although an indie horror game doesn't need to hit the Playstation Direct lineup in order to blossom into an empire anymore, it would seem. Because just the other day I, at my local supermarket, saw a small child playing with a Poppy Playtime doll like it weren't nothing. This game has made a mark based on a single episode which feels more like a demo, and that's worth a preliminary investigation in my book.

But first; what even is Poppy Playtime? Well if you missed it then let me ask you this: Have you ever seen a horror game that you forget about after a week? Then you pretty much know what kind of game Poppy is. It's a 'walk around the dark' kind of game with a generic 'toy company goes out of business' storyline which speaks to the bare minimum of conceptual effort necessary. But- there is a twist. Because the presentation of the game, the textures, the world design, the quality of the models and the sprinkling of a slightly interesting little gameplay device managed to make this demo sparkle against the refuge of this genre for that all-important instant. And the 'very memorable for it's technological achievement' chase sequence pretty much cemented this game in the fond memories of those who played it. The developer at MOB games may not have had a unique concept on their hands, but they had the raw talent to bring their trite concept to life in the best possible form that it could be, and that seems to have been enough to win the internet circuit.

Youtubers and Redditors flew in a frenzy for this game, playing its one released episode raw until they had every second of that one memorable scene with the Poppy chase ingrained into their souls. And to be fair it was an effective scene. The children's toy turned evil design concept might be overplayed, but the model is undeniably impressive. Tall and gangly with realistic fur and believably springy arms that interact with the environment exactly as logic would dictate. Technically I have to shut my mouth when blabbing about this game, because it's all just that solid. And with that attention, it goes without saying that MOB are working on an episode 2. There's a preliminary Steam Page already set up in anticipation of it, and now there's a game being made, the team might have a reason to start working on some real world building! (But then, we did wait 5 whole episodes for Bendy to add some real gameplay, only to be disappointed each time, so maybe it's best we stop expecting things from these 'wow, these look good and that's about it' style games.)

So these are talented visual artists working on this game, that much is a given; but who exactly are they and where did they come from? Well, as it turns out, the team behind this game are actually the old school Youtube Minecraft animators known as ZAMination, a content farm that has been riding the line of racy clickbait and children's content since... around about the Cambrian Explosion by my estimations. They make high quality animations featuring Minecraft blocky characters, which bring in the kids, but mix that concept with Five Night at Freddys characters in there to score those extra clicks. Mix in a touch of exploiting the sexualisation of the poster robot girls of the series, and you've got yourself an uncomfortable Youtube empire likely raking in more annual revenue than most will see out of their entire life-time savings. Oh, and they pump out pretty good animators too.

Well you'd have to be somewhat good in order slap out weekly twenty minute animation projects consistently. I'd imagine those employee's dreams have been translated into their animation software by now, and they're kept alive purely through a computer IV directly into their bloodstream and in constant communication with neural-charged nanobots ensuring their consciousnesses are locked in a hell of touching-up sequences twenty-four seven. And that talent apparently translates soundly into making indie games that look super pretty. And, of course, that background in running a multiyear children's Youtube channel properly primed the team to fully take advantage their moment of flame and pump out merchandise before the end of the month. Similarly, a couple of their Minecraft animation channels have branched out from FNAF themed stuff to now make Poppy themed Minecraft animations. A tad narcissistic perhaps; but everything feeds the popularity tree. 

At this rate, unless the follow game has a honestly revolutionary gameplay mechanic which makes the title even remotely fun past the initial playthrough; the zenith of Poppy's popularity is going to sizzle out before the next episode launches, and I think that's what the team are actually going for. Dumping all the hype and merchandise and self fellating videos in the now when you know the game is a hit instead of waiting and running the risk of the game falling off in the future like Showdown Bandit did. (Don't even want to think about how many Showdown toys got sent for the landfill.) Overall I think that makes Poppy one of most cynically corporate independent horror games to ever snatch the fickle whims of the fandom.

You might have picked up on it, but I don't particularly like Poppy Playtime. I think it's paint-by-numbers penned onto high-grade paper- which is to say it's pretty but uninspired. We'll soon be due a new wave of independent horror games that go back to the tired 'walk around and see slightly scary stuff' formula that we were just starting to veer ourselves out of, and this game's success will be the vanguard of that. Thanks MOB. But can I really complain that a small studio is making their dues and getting what they deserve? I'm tempted to say 'yes' given the people in that studio and the other things they make, but I'll defer to seeing what they make of this success with the rest of the game before laying them in the same 'god please stop making stuff' dump that tinyBuild is in. Poppy's Playtime came right out of nowhere and caused a ruckus when it did, but the jury's still out on whether it's here to stay.