I love mascot horror games, Five Nights at Freddy's being my favorite. I like this genre of horror because when it's done right, the worlds and potential gameplay are extremely interesting. Unfortunately, most of these games fall flat in multiple departments. Narratively, most of them fall apart because there is no effort made to develop characters. When characters are developed, the world often falls flat and quickly devolves into absolute nonsense.
I write mystery stories and have fallen into many of the traps these games do. Too much setup and no payoff, characters that people fall in love with that never live up to their potential, and too many characters die before the audience can get answers. Enter Poppy Playtime, which offers a first chapter that brilliantly sets up everything we need to know about the world. We even get voice acting!
So, for this In The Night entry, I am diving into Poppy Playtime Chapter 1: A Tight Squeeze.
Chapter 1: A Tight Squeeze
Chapter 1 was released on October 12, 2021, which feels like an eternity ago. We were brought here by a letter, and we know for sure that we are an ex-employee. We also learn that the Playtime Co. staff mysteriously disappeared years ago, and at this point, we don’t know why. The setup was certainly intriguing, and I was more than happy to enter the factory and see what awaited me.
I adore the way the factory looks in chapter 1, and while some of that look is lost in the next few chapters, the beginning of the building is extremely believable to me. As you continue through the main lobby, you finally meet Huggy Wuggy, who is my least favorite character from this chapter, which is fair because he is really the only one who appears.
There is a fair bit of world-building at play in this chapter. The setup for other toys made by the company is thrown out for those of us who want to take the time to look at the open boxes. I love the little details too, such as each box having a unique design. There is a lot of personality coming through each of the designs as well.
After taking a look around, we played the first VHS tape. Poppy Playtime would later come to fully utilize these tapes to give us lore, which I adore. It’s a nice contrast from what we might normally use to find lore, such as brightening images or reviewing game files. We also get the Grab Pack! Something that Poppy Playtime has that I have never seen done before. The Grab Pack lets you open doors, and further down the line, it will be used to complete puzzles. I find them to be extremely fun to use, especially because the puzzles in chapter 1 are not overly challenging but not mind-numbingly easy.
The chapter concludes with a chase sequence. Huggy Wuggy will follow you through a vent, and you have to grab a box to break the catwalk, sending him spiraling into the abyss. Even before I knew how this ended, I never assumed this killed him. The big rule of thumb is, if you don’t see a body, they could come back at any time.
I liked chapter 1 fine enough, but mostly because I liked the world-building presented to us. It was refreshing to see a mascot horror game that was trying to set up a clear narrative. However, Poppy Playtime largely slipped out of my mind after the release of Chapter 1.
Unanswered Questions and Stray Thoughts
Every time I think about Poppy Playtime, I am always brought back to the letter that we get at the start of the game. It looks like a child wrote it, and during chapter 1, I think it was reasonable to assume that it was. But we are on chapter 5, and I assume any of the kids who lived are in stasis.
Even now, we have the reveal of who drew the big poppy flower around the wall where we first found the door to Poppy herself. It was given to us during a YouTube music video of all things. Apparently, it was the Prototype, which doesn’t make sense for a variety of reasons, but the biggest reason is that we know that the flower was put there before he put Poppy back into her case.
Final Thoughts
Chapter 1: A Tight Squeeze is a simple entry into what would grow into a healthy series. You can play it on Steam for free. If you’re going into this thinking that you’ll be getting a complete narrative, you won’t be. You get just enough to make you interested before having to buy each of the chapters that follow.
Poppy Playtime is an ambitious series, and that can be seen. While you can see strands of what will grow into something grand, there is quite a bit that still hasn’t paid off satisfyingly, and maybe never will.
