Publications
Poppy playtime
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Toni
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Chapter 1: A Tight Squeeze is the first chapter in the indie-horror game Poppy Playtime. It was released on October 13, 2021, on Steam.
The story revolves around an ex-employee of the toy manufacturing company Playtime Co., that has been invited to return to the factory after the other employees have gone missing.
Trivia
The subtitle of the chapter, A Tight Squeeze, refers to Huggy Wuggy's name and killing method of hugging people to death, and the vent chase scene, where The Player must run away from Huggy Wuggy in tightly constricted vents.
On the letter to The Player, "disappeared" has been misspelt and "we're" has its apostrophe in the wrong place.
The letter also contradicts the chapter's synopsis, as the former states that the staff are still at the factory, but the latter states that they have all seemingly vanished.
The player, an ex-employee of Playtime .Co, returns to the factory many years after everyone within disappeared.
They first solve a puzzle by using three colors on a moving toy train. This allows them to unlock the security room, in which they unlock one of the grab pack hands. Grab Packs have the ability to unlock doors, and rewire electrical wires. The player eventually opens a door by using this specific hand. Soon, they discover a blue monster named, “Huggy Wuggy” inside of a circular room. This previous employee unlocks tries to unlock a door by using this hand, although the gate doesn’t open. When the player looks at Huggy Wuggy again, he somehow grabbed some keys to the power room. You grab these keys from him and open the door to the Power Room. They find that the power appears to be faulty, and decides to wrap their grab pack’s arm around some generators while holding the hand on the power button. This causes the power to activate inside of the factory. They open the door (now that the power is working), and enter into the next room. Two doors appear bordering the player on either side; one appears to be open, while the other one appears to be locked. We are lead into this room by a hand, and the closest pipe, (unexpectedly) bursts.
Eventually, this workers ends up in a completely different room. (The room appears to be a storage/warehouse part of the facility.) They travel up two flights of stairs, and finds that there are four missing power cores, and jumps down on to the factory’s conveyer belt. The person has to search around the room until they find all four of these cells, and opens the door from where they entered. The previous employee ensures that all four of these power cells are in place and soon power up the claw. This claw grabs, and then drops the box on the conveyer belt resulting in the player’s second hand. In front of the player is a door that they have to open with both hands. They open this metal door, and drop down into a room inside of the vents. (This is just another wiring sequence.) Power is added to this belt, and it begins moving. This leads them to a room where you have to power the machine by wiring it for a third time. After you activate the power; you have to activate the button and use all three levers to create a toy. This machine goes through the whole process of assembling, painting and quality checking the toy. You are soon able to grab this toy and are able to put the toy into a small scanner. The scanner soon unlocks the next room.
You are about to return to the circular room once again when Huggy Wuggy returns. You have to run away from him and travel through the vent system. He runs through the other side of the vents, and eventually finds you again. You have to run through the tight area on your right and turn again after you reach the next edge. Fall through the metal plate and slide down the metallic part of the vents. Afterwards, turn and head straight until you see a small opening in these vents. Crouch into the opening and turn right both of these times. When the door in front of you closes, wait for it to open back up and continue moving forward to the edge of the vents. Pull a box down right before Huggy Wuggy reaches you. Huggy not only pulls down the platform, but also falls deep in the facility. You land on a new metallic platform where you are able to head straight or turn to the right. If you turn right, you will be able to grab the final tape in Chapter 1 and listen to it on a tape player. If you head straight, you end up at the area where you saw that flower at the beginning of the chapter. You enter this flower’s door, and find architecture that looks similar to a house. You head down in this mysterious place and end up finding an area with a metallic gate. When you travel around this gate, you end up at a room with red lights and a mysterious shadow figure peaking through. After you open this door; you find Poppy inside of her glass case. If you open this case, Poppy will turn out the lights and mention that you opened her case.
Poppy playtime is a free horror game developed by MOB Games and released in 2021.
Bevan, T. 2022, Poppy playtime.
Tags: Horror Games,