At A Glance
Released: 1/6/23
Reviews: 8781, net mixed, as of 12/2023
English Reviews: 5755
Localized in: English
Had Publisher: No
Majority of reviews:
English ~65%
Portuguese Brazil ~8%
Spanish Spain ~6%
Price: Free
Review report:
Negatives: people drew comparisons between this game and Poppy Playtime and grew ‘tired’ of what indie horror has become including mascot horror, more complaints about the game in comparison to indie horror as a whole, not scary, boring
Positives: Very few actual reviews most are jokes, haven’t found any insightful reviews after reading a few dozen, bird was scary, ‘fun and short’
Gameplay
Trash can is a physics object, could possibly make glitches and bugs even though the objects might not serve much purpose
2 batteries need to be collected to use a drone remote
Seems like this may be one of the ways to interact with things in the game and solve puzzles
Gathering the batteries was quick though, could’ve been an opportunity to do something with the player but they just had to explore the ‘cafeteria’ a bit
Drone has a reset button that will orient it appropriately in a certain room
Its somewhat difficult to tell what buttons have an effect on the environment, there are no wires or connectors so you have to be paying attention
Bird comes across the ball pit on a chair, I heard rumors that the AI was sophisticated and would ‘study’ you if you didn’t run away, and it did until it decided to kill me
Dropped the bird into the ball pit
Floor drops out in the orange room and an industrial elevator rises up
Music
Sort of light, not-so-heavy music in the main menu, reminds me of Minecraft
In the main reception area there is an atmospheric noise
Sounds
Open door sfx cuts off a bit too soon
Drone makes pleasant beeping noises when button is pressed
Can hear the droning of lights overhead
Big dubstep effect that plays when feeding the bird Opila eggs
Art
Art looks clean, it gets the job done and reminds me of Roblox
Large playground-esque area for kids, ballpit closed
UI
New game and load game seem to do the same thing when starting anew except for a small narrative segment when choosing new game
Writing
Scare Factor
The bird was peaking around a corner in the beginning upon opening the main door
Same bird was stationary and had to feed it eggs in order to progress, a key also came out of the mouth which might prompt players to think there’ll be a jumpscare
Extra
Made with Unreal
Links to all socials and a merch button are on the main menu, as well as a button to the sequel which is paid
Overall
A very good example of marketing and working with what you have in a very small play environment
Counting the ‘areas’ of the game there are really 1 main entrance, a hallway, a small classroom, a lunch room, a playground, a bottomless pit, a smaller classroom, and an industrial elevator
Using all of these to maximum effect seemed to be key in the game content itself, but it doesn’t really explain why the game went viral
In my personal opinion, I think all the influencer attention, press, and videos hating on the game brought it to the audience it was actually meant for - youngins
Anyone who has played multiple horror games may be somewhat jaded and looking for something polished, unique, and terrifying. Think about someone who has very little exposure to horror and Garten of Banban was their first experience
Consider also the Roblox market, many of those games may be ‘unpolished’ in a sense but are completely playable for the platform and thus enjoyable
Comments