Honestly, i geniunely would fully agree that making this game into a non horror but more of a funky puzzle game as you explore and fix up the weird abbandoned park is the way to go, atleast in my head, specially with how silly and joyful rambley is, i adore him to bits!! I'd love to experience more shenanigans with him above all else :3 Edit: Oh yeah i forgot, i love this style of content please keep making stuff like it!! I love to see you naturally play and getting distracted while rambling off about game design, its fun!
i also like this idea, it doesn't need to be *so* focused around horror, horror can have its way into the game through many ways, yet honestly, keeping horror around in the game should still be a thing since you know, it's a "mascot horror" game and it officialized itself as such, having every chapter not fit into such theme would be rather upsetting, maybe even passed off as a scam, but the other sides of the field such as puzzles and whatever-not-scary also feels crucial to strenghten the impact of the horror, it gives more support to the game's whole structure, and not sprinkling horror everywhere also helps uncondition the player to be prepared for jumpscares, in my opinion, you'd be more scared if 99% of your life wasn't an horror movie bit
41:36 That recording is actually a reference to an old series of FNaF fan games called Dayshift at Freddy's. That's why the delivery when they said "old sport" was so weird, they were mimicking the text to speech voice used in those fan games. And the part about going to Vegas is a reference to one of the game's many endings. This brings up the question: are the characters from Dayshift at Freddy's canon to Indigo Park lore, or are those two guys referencing Dayshift at Freddy's as a kind of meta joke...?
Really liked this! I see commenters like “don’t be too harsh, it’s one dev/one of their first games/etc” but I think if I was that dev, I would find a video like this extremely helpful for my work going forward. Especially since they seem very eager FOR that sort of review and critique, which is a quality I always respect in a creative. There’s a lot of really quality work in this game, like the animations and the voice acting, that I think can make for great bones to build on going forward, and I hope the best for chapter 2
Absolutely! It's not necessarily about harshness so much as it is about presenting critique constructively. These devs ARE new to the craft and eager to learn, so no matter what we say, it's gotta be thoughtful.
I feel like this game definitely focused on being MASCOT horror, rather than mascot HORROR. Maybe they'll add more terrifying things in the future, but it definitely feels like a textbook example of what this genre is in the modern era. Also, I personally really like this style of content you're trying out, being able to see both your general opinion of the experience afterwards and during the gameplay is really nice, plus it feels like it's a good little taste of what the proper in-depth dive could be later whenever you make it!
@@Shenaldrac Honestly I'd say we already have that with Indigo Park and Finding Frankie, but then again horror and what makes you scared is extremely subjective
@@celarts5752 Ah, no, I mean as in there's actually no horror.No chase sequences, no murderous mascots. I guess what I mean is that I want a game that's a virtual tour of an abandoned theme park XD
UniqueGeese, the head of Indigo Park, explained that Isaac Indigo is done with a 3D model and that no AI is used. Isaac Indigo is still somewhat uncanny though
I don't know why anything slightly off gets branded as AI now. Humans are still perfectly capable of creating stilted/creepy looking animation. (Not to knock the game, human facial animations aren't easy to get right.)
"What's the train for?" *misses every tease for the threat* I uh... I guess nothing, buddy, lol I gotta be real, it's just spooky enough to be enjoyable. Not everything has to be scary. There's some stuff for tension, there's some moments that can make you do the little 'oh! oh... woo, yeah, okay' kinda spook. idk, it's like seeing a guy who eats peppers complain that ginger isn't hot, lol Good stuff though, for what you clearly saw, yeah, no spook on offer, I suppose~ Your points for the two directions that the game is tugged in are valid and I see your points. Good vid, waiting for the next vid, man~
I just looked up a video of all Mollie scenes and holy crap I really did miss every time she pops up on the train ride. I dunno if that says something about how I play games or just bad luck but that is honestly hilarious.
@CheeseYeen It says that you respect that the game is putting on a performance for you and keep your eyes up front, I suppose~ Very polite, Train out of Ten
The audio log is a dayshift at freddys reference. the use of "old sport" and mentioning of going to vegas is like one of the main in jokes of that game
Thing is about Indigo Park is chapter 1 is basically just a proof of concept. It's an intro to set the scene and attract attention to help the full game get made. Plus, honestly, even if it's not terrifying I think there's so much charm to it that it's worth supporting.
Hoping Uniquegeese sees this one - he seems relatively active on the critical side of reviews for his game, and this video might be the most throughout critique that I've seen. Sure there's some issues with criticisms (saying the train sequence isn't for anything while actively missing Every Red Flag and scare, for example), but overall this might be the best critique/dissection of this game, and I hope someone on the dev team sees this so they can take it into consideration for future chapters/updates for chapter one.
Honestly, I think you've hit the nail right on the head. This was well done, great mix of comedy and critical discussion. I wasn't sure if I was gonna vibe with calling it "dissecting", since to me that reads as more of a deep dive, but no, this is absolutely a dissection in a different way. You were able to competently talk about WHY you felt something wasn't working rather than just calling it bad (which is what I've come to expect on UA-cam), and I really appreciate that you took the time to do that. This felt good to watch. Also really love the visual and auditory clarity between real time reactions and further analysis, that was very well done and accessible. So, context for the perspective I'm about to give you, because I have some thoughts to add on: I'm both a fan of mascot horror and a voice actor. By some chance, I ran into Vito, the voice of Rambley, because we have some friends in common in the voice world, and so many of us are so excited to see him getting more work, especially in something as beloved as this. I think, Vito and Rambley are my reason to support this game, because I want to see him thrive, and he genuinely does such a great job. The writing of Rambley's dialogue is really fun and engaging (by far it's the greatest strength of the writers), and the way Vito performs it makes me want to hang on to every word. This team has managed to create a very engaging character, and when I see how excited each of the members are working on this project, I can't help but feel a little warm and fuzzy. I want more game devs to go out there and make projects that are real and fun for them, and if this game achieves that, then great. That said, it is lacking in scare factor. Depending on your scare tolerance, it can be decently scary on a first playthrough, but every playthrough after that struggles. I'm with you, scripted sequences are a valuable tool, but they're a tool that you need to use thoughtfully alongside other things in your toolkit if you want them to be effective. We often have the term "walking simulator" thrown around in the mascot horror genre, and as much as I don't like that, it feels applicable here. I'm also not really sold on the whole "lore" thing. Like the 8 bit minigame is cute and fun, there's a lot pointing to Salem as a potential future threat, but...I'm not feeling it. Like I'm fine with mascots becoming "real" and wanting to absolutely wreck their creators and everyone else, by all means, I wouldn't be into this genre if I didn't like that story flavor. But in the game itself, I question how they plan on executing it. Notice I say "in the game itself." Because as of the version you just played, there is now an ARG to go alongside it, and it's just, odd? So in that last section before Oceanic Odyssey, there's a little office you can go into, and if you can find all of a repeating item within that last section and go back to it, it gives you the start of a cipher for decoding things. And all throughout the game BEFORE you have this cipher, hidden very out of the way, there are things to decode and plug into the Indigo Park website for some secret screenshots giving you extra lore. So this game actively (albeit subtly) encourages a second playthrough of this chapter. I won't spoil what the details are, but I will say it's not to my personal taste in terms of what the story implications are. Some people will probably love it, it's just not for me. I understand why devs do stuff like this, it's fun to give players extra ways to be involved in the mystery, but I don't love it when that information isn't in the game itself. Like I should not have to be involved in multiple pieces of media to understand what your baseline story is (I'm looking directly at you Poppy Playtime). Additional stories that can stand on their own and are merely enhanced by the other media, sure, by all means, that's fine. But I should be able to play just Indigo Park to understand Indigo Park. My hope is that if I don't participate in the ARG (since, y'know, websites are not guaranteed to exist forever to have that element), that story will still be delivered in a sensical and satisfying way. But I have yet to see any of these series do that. Like it's one thing if your entire story is an ARG and not a videogame, ARGs are meant to be a temporary piece of media that's enjoyed over a set period of time. ARGs excel at living in the moment, and that's still a valuable and fun way to tell a story. But games are supposed to be timeless, in my mind, so it begs the question of what will happen beyond the initial release of Indigo Park. Which, leads me to one last thought: you talked a lot about building hype, and I think that's gonna be a really prevalent point of the future of this series. Look at the people that make up the dev team. You've got a bunch of popular internet personalities that have an interest in mascot horror, music, and independent creative projects. Some are beginners in the field of game design, and some are more experienced in their crafts. The music of Indigo Park is unsurprisingly fantastic given the track records of those behind it, for example. The gameplay not being as strong makes sense considering what's come before. Every mascot horror game, since the genre started booming, relies on learning from what came before it or trying to be innovative about everything from the ground up, and which lessons the next devs take away about game design are all different. Indigo Park and Don't! Fret fall into this interesting breed of UA-camr Run Mascot Horror (a niche that is rapidly expanding), where fans of the genre are trying to find success in this thing that they love. And they're getting some things right, and some things a little twisted. There's an understanding of what we like in these titles, but not how all the components work together to make something scary and satisfying to play. Now, I want this to be clear, my favorite mascot horror game also has this happening, so that's not to say these are bad things, just things to be aware of. I love Bendy and the Ink Machine with my entire heart, but there's a reason I say it works best when viewed as an art piece or an experience. As a game, it has some struggles. It has a lot in common with Indigo Park, right down to the hype thing with being a chapter based release. If you put BATIM in front of somebody that wasn't there for the anticipation of each chapter coming out, if you ask someone to play it all the way through with no concept of what the development cycle was like, it doesn't land nearly as well. It's not bad, but it's in need of some more substance and detailing. That is my fear with Indigo Park, that it won't hold up as a full experience, that it will only be something to get excited about once a year as a new chapter releases. And I suppose that's okay, it's not the end of the world if that happens. I want games to be timeless, but if they're not, maybe I'll just have to be okay with that. But I want so badly for this game to hold up in the long term. I want this to be something I can point to as an interesting experience that's accessible to many gamers for years to come, where if you didn't follow it all the way through it's development cycle, you don't feel like you missed out on something. Indigo Park feels like it hasn't quite figured out what it wants to be yet, and I think that's okay. No matter how Indigo Park turns out, it'll still be interesting to look back on as an experience. This is both the story of a fictional theme park and the story of a dev team that's getting their feet wet and learning the craft. It's a story about humans figuring out what they want their game to be, what kind of creatives they aspire to be, and that's interesting to watch unfold. I hope it goes well for them, and that they learn a lot. I hope Indigo Park has fun figuring itself out, and that it becomes more fun to play. Because ultimately, that's what matters most: that the game is fun.
Yes. YES. Give me these long, well thought out and in depth comments. I CRAVE them. Give me frank, civil, polite discourse in internet comments, ahahaha yes I eat this up! With regards to the ARG and episodic releases I'm left worried, and a bit frustrated if I'm being honest, that this will end up being little more than a cycle of hype. I don't think that the development team would intentionally do that, would milk fans and work to simply build hype at any cost without care for the actual overall shape of the game once it's done. But I am worried that, with a bunch of people who are very new to game design, who to the best of my knowledge don't have a structured education in that field, that it may end up like that on accident. The episodic release format's biggest appeal from a design standpoint is that it allows for work to start with a much smaller budget than a game of a given scope would require. I don't think it's likely that these folks have tens of millions of dollars available as their budget for the game. So, you make an episode, something fairly short, you put it out there, and the money from that funds the next part. But then this has the issue of encouraging building hype. Because if your budget is small enough you might NEED to sell enough on a given episode for the next one to be made. So you put in cliffhangers where you might not otherwise, or build tension to things that aren't really worthy of it, in the name of securing sales, preorders of the next chapter, etc. Like I said I don't think this is something that they'll be doing intentionally but it's something easy to fall into if you don't think about it beforehand and without much experience in the field that's more likely to happen. You mention that Indigo Park is a story about people figuring out what they want their game to be and what kind of creatives they aspire to be and how that's interesting to watch unfold. And while Indigo Park episodes remain free I can wholeheartedly agree with you.But once they start charging for it, which I have to assume they will at some point, I think there's a certain level of "having your shit togetherness" that needs to be achieved. I think that there are some industry best practices that the team may not know, not being professionals in the field, regarding game design or even just designing programs. Soviet Womble has a fantastic video on the game The Forest where near the end he talks about how in software design, which he used to work in, planning out your project is super important because it's so much cheaper to have meetings and plan out what you want and get your metaphorical ducks in a row before you write a single line of code than to start making the game immediately and start having to scrap and reinvent parts later because you didn't have it planned. And I worry about that sort of thing occurring here. And of course this is the kind of risk you run when you have people who aren't professionals in a certain industry, who don't have a lot of experience with it, deciding to jump in feet first and made something in the same medium that they love. Because enjoying something and understanding _why_ you enjoy something and understanding _how that was achieved in the first place_ are very different things. You can love reading but be an awful writer. You can be an avid video gamer but be found utterly wanting when it comes to actually making one yourself. You can be both, YIIK showed us that! So which I definitely hope nothing like that happens, it is something I'm wary of. I don't want to sit here and say "Pfft, if you haven't got at least a half dozen games privately made under your belt you have no business making a game to be put out for public consumption!" Screw that mindset. But there is something to be said for industry experience and a formal education and industry standard best practices. I hope the youtubers involved in the writing and design of Indigo Park are more introspective than most and really interrogate themselves about not just what they like about mascot horror but why they like it and how those things were achieved.
Minor comment on the scale of the playplace! When you enter the backroom of Lloyd's theatre, there's a sort of effect in the hallway that makes it seem like your character is shrinking. It might be that this first chapter is setting up some psychological horror aspects for future chapters, where the place is warped by the main character's memories of it. You'd remember a playplace being a lot smaller as a child, after all. I might be getting too floppy with that, though... That aside, I like this style of video! Seeing you get distracted is a little charming, honestly.
I think the train ride, as well as being there to introduce the characters, also has some Lore:tm: that it's trying to build on, especially in the part where it kicks you out for a minute. There's a lot of hints throughout, as early as the intro video with the weird dude, that's implying that Lloyd was the mascot before Rambley, but the reason for the change is still unclear. In any case, while I agree that it isn't really "scary", right now it feels like a standard Mascot Horror first chapter; mostly a proof of concept to get support for future titles, and the creator so far seems pretty open and willing to listen to critique, so hopefully the next one will continue to improve. Also love the new disect format! It's fun getting your initial reactions interspersed with retrospective commentary. It'd be interesting to see your take on Inscryption; it's admittedly pretty differentto the games you've covered on your channel so far, and it's not purely a horror game (more deck building and puzzle sort of thing) but it's got some pretty nice horror vibes to it imo
A big thing im seeing in the comments is that you missed all of the scares and red flags in places like the train ride. Now this might just be me but if its possible to miss ALL of the scares then maybe they arent well placed. Like missing one or two because you were looking around I can get, thats just bad luck for the player but you should at least accidentally see most of them if they are designed well. I really do hope that they figure out the direction they want to take it going forwards because yeh, even with the foreshadowing spooky events and stuff its not really scary. Most of the jumpscares are pretty on cue for people who have played a good number of horror games so you can guess when things are going to happen. But likewise the puzzles are....not really puzzles. Find a gear (twice) and just go through this tunnel and look for coloured shapes to enter (just a glorified combination lock code). I think it'd do much better focusing on the comedy elements with some horror sprinkled in, like My Friendly Neighbourhood, with the mascots being less bloodythirsty and more akin to the puppets "We are so lonely, won't you come play" attitude.
Also, I can probably answer why the hallway was so small. It’s to prevent you from seeing the other side of the hallway from loading in. To walk though the hallway you probably hit a trigger that causes more objects to load in.
It might be entirely coincidental, but I think a lot of the weakness of this first part as a horror game is tied into trying to make a a horror game set in a feasibly real location with feasibly real monsters. These aren't horrific uncanny valley designs that would never have become as popular as the lore says they do, they look like real mascot characters. And they also aren't relying on buckets of blood and viscera, mountains of corpses, or anything like that to juice the atmosphere. It's probably the most 'real' horror game in a while, no 'eternal torture of your own psyche' no 'vengful spirit capable of bending reality' no 'hallucinogenic gas that brings your fears to life' or any of that stuff. It's kind of how one would expect a real Mascot Horror scenario to play out, a LOT of just walking around and looking at things only occasionally punctuated with something scary or dangerous. Though just because something is more 'realistic' doesn't make it a better game, in fact it can make it a lot worse. I really do hope you're right in that this becomes more of a puzzle/platformer game with horror elements rather than presenting itself as a pure horror game. Maybe I'm just sick and tired of the nihilistic and negative horror games where nothing good ever happens. If the theme is centered more around fixing the park, saving/rehabilitating the mascots, and making things better I'm going to be happier than another slog through more depressing horror 'and in the end you ended up being the next victim' kind of bullshit so many games in the genera lazily adhere to. Great review, I like seeing mildly critical reviews of popular stuff and stuff I like in particular. Especially when the points are so good and have a chance of improving things. I look forward to your next reviews.
This style of video is a cool idea. It’s nice to see your live reactions/unscripted thoughts on a game in between the more scripted analysis, I think it works really well!
The funniest thing is that partly because of how weak the horror was, it seems like you just enjoyed your own thoughts. Idk maybe it gets points for the fun moments of quiet.
19:29 , Look, man. I break into a park for urban exploration and get pseudo-kidnapped by it AI manager and I see that? I'm walking out. Climbing out over the Fallout 3 destroyed building if i have to. "Oh, but you'll never find the true meaning of Indigo Park Christmas" So? I don't need to know that bad.
I think the problem with most mascot horror games is that they are trying to make cute or happy looking characters that they can sell merch for. They don't want to make a character that would be scary for a kid so that kids will play the games and purchase the toys. That's fine if you are making a game that's happy or fun, but if you are intentionally trying to make a game that is "horror" then there needs to be horrifying things about it. Rambly and the characters are cool, but they are not at all scary. Now to be fair if you think about some of these sections as a kid then I could see some of these moments being scary. Like crawling through a playground, I would have been scared out of my mind as a kid if I was given the idea that I could be chased in one of those. Or that there might be some danger to going to a theme park. However the other problem is that if we are talking about kids at an age where they are playing in play places like a Chick Fil A play area then we are talking about very young kids and those aged kids couldn't handle something actually genuinely scary.
Good first video for a series. I think approaching video game reviews as a quasi-let's play is always gonna be kind of popular in the same way like 2010's Channel Awesome movie reviews were probably as popular as they were b/c people could sort of experience the movie just by watching the review. But with the video game version, at least as far as I've seen from people like Tehsnekerer and you, it's actually got potential for interesting criticism as shown in realish time. I like it. Not sure if this was the best starting game to cover tho. Like makes total sense in regard to how you used Indigo Park as a bait for your Park videos, but a Chapter 1 of any game that gets released in this model I feel only has so much to do. Like Poppy Playtime Chapter 1 was just the tutorial and the big chase but that's kinda all it needed I feel, you don't need to go all out, just grab attention.
I really enjoy this video format. We get to see what your thoughts are during the game play and during your recording process, where sometimes things change or somethings need to be further elaborated. I didn't really know much about the game prior to the video and I tend to not watch people playing horror games outright, so its nice to see the two being blended together. I cannot wait to see more!
keep this in mind when critiquing this game. this is the singular devs 2nd game ever, the previous one being a reimagining of garten of banban he made in one week, and is currently taking advice to making better games. he even has a channel, UniqueGeese. also that audio recording was a reference to DSAF, "old sport" and going to vegas are references to the MS Sam voiced "aurbigine man".
Since you want feedback on the format, "let's dissect" doesn't really describe the video It's more of a casual playthrough- the description even says that Still a good video though. Casual playthroughs are fine. It's just more tangential than the title of the series says (tangential? rambly? rambley?) Good vibe altogether even with parts of the video being edited. It's a nice format
A fantastic video! I'm really enjoying the flip between "in the moment" you playing the game and reacting real-time and future/post-game delving deeper and clarifying your thoughts. Looking forward to seeing what other games you'll have on the docket for this format/series! (maybe games like Finding Frankie or Don't! Fret might work for this format, though the behind the scenes/outside the game shenanigans regarding Don't! Fret might warrant their own video) In regard to the game itself, I have to agree that while Indigo Park is great at giving us the idea/illusion of it being an awesome mascot horror game and the initial "oh shiny", it really does struggle to hold up long term, especially compared to other games, Hopefully the team can figure out the direction, but I'm not neccessarily holding my breath. (Also I completely hate the "Dayshift at Freddy's" reference with the Mascot Head as unless you know that reference (and also know that UniqueGeese is a fan of the series) it just seems completely out of nowhere compared to how the other voice lines are acted)
Yes, just throwing a reference out like that is not only confusing to those who don't know it, but can also take people right out of the moment. It's clunky and doesn't work very well.
Honestly, Id say the horror is just enough for this game. Its much more fun bcuz its cute. Id like to lean more into the personality, its really likable.
I don't think I was ever expecting this to be scary tbh. But I don't think I've ever really found any horror game genuinely scary. I am going to be that fool in the horror movie that dies after they think they've figured out how the monsters work. So I actually enjoyed the departure from horror and instead spent the time exploring. And it... kinda feels like that's what the game was made for. A lot of those big empty areas have small details in them that are cool to see. That being said, as someone who works in theatre, wtf was that stage and backstage area. It was so bad. Also yeah, the chase sucked. I would have preferred her hunting us through the play tubes. I do like the attention to detail that the model never warps and has tubes that it uses to get around. Fun attention to detail that I hate in other games when the monster is just suddenly in front of you for seemingly no reason.
Who uses J to jump. Probably a programmer on the dev team. When you’re building a game usually the initial controls are in the developers preferred place. Especially so if the keybinds can’t be remapped.
"Is Rambley Worth It?" Short Answer: Yes. Long Answer: Mascot Horror is rarely ever 'scary' - it's virtually impossible to have a game that both presents the mascot characters as appealing _and_ threatening, because those elements are just about mutually exclusive. The first two Five Nights at Freddy's games were unique in their ability to nail the aesthetic of 'animatronic characters that you loved as a kid but find creepy and off-putting now', and that was because their inspiration was a product of a pretty narrow time in history. Meanwhile, the broader takeaway Mascot Horror appears to be that, when given even a little bit to go on, people will become fans of the characters. This is, in essence, the only explanation I can think of for how Garten of BanBan continues to exist - even irony poisoning is enough to create attachment. Once you have that attachment, you have an audience for a story, and once you have that audience it doesn't matter how much you feel 'scared' (or more likely just startled) in the moment. The story is doing its job. The gameplay is failing in the sense that it's not causing any dread or tension, but it's still working as a vehicle for that story. And the story is where the 'horror' comes in. At the risk of sounding both pretentious _and_ stupid, Indigo Park is aiming for something that's less Alien: Isolation and more Silent Hill 2. You're not fleeing in terror from something genuinely terrifying. Instead, you've been put in a situation where something is clearly _very_ wrong, and the only way to figure out the 'how' and 'why' is to go further in. And while Indigo Park is nowhere near as effective at getting that sense of underlying dread and discomfort as Silent Hill 2 (which probably is Rambley's fault), it's gotten people invested. And if people are paying attention (and not just because people love to watch a train crash), that means the decision was the right one.
I mean. yeah. the entire point of Chapter 1 is, in fact, to drum up hype. and funding. also the dev seems to treat garten of banban as... not shovelware, so that's a huge redflag right there.
the cuts between live and postscript worked flawlessly to expand the thoughts into full ideas that are clearly communicated and insightful while keeping the pacing and reasonable reactions. i appreciate that you didn't go into this trying to become and stay scared, nor fighting against the emotions. it's just not a scary game, so your reaction was pretty subdued, like most players would have if they actually played it rather than watching a Let's Play. i definitely think this is a game made more for youtube than to be directly played and that's kinda worrying despite the fun cast. i look forward to more of these there are no major criticisms i can think of, the only things i could think to ask for from the postscript interjections (like some commentary on some of the secrets or the development since the devs and VAs have said some interesting things about this project) would defeat the entire point of shorter-to-produce videos
Ngl i kinda found rambleys voice effect distracting when i played it. i get that its meant to be like, an electronic effect but the weird pitch shifting just kinda left me irritated hearing him. also ngl, i dont particularly get the hype of it being like, one of the best mascot horror games to come out in a while, which seems like a fairly low bar. it wasnt super scary, and there was maybe only a couple moments that i felt were actually tense.
I think a horror game with an AI in denial of what has happened to the park could work really well. Except there isn't enough here to be a horror game.
Honestly this is a case where I really wish the devs were doing something besides a game. Like Rambly is super charming at all levels and the ideas are all fine, but actual execution in terms of being a game is... lacking? Like I know it is proof of concept, but there is no real mechanical hook to the game to really sell me on wanting to play the game. Moreover, I do think the level design falls fairly short. Like I know it is a lot to ask to recreate a full theme park but that's the challenge they took on and the result kinda feels like something that is supposed to be more Disney-level scale but ends up feeling like your local city amusement park (something like a Fairyland or Santa's village). I dunno. Like there is definite skill on display, but I don't think much of it coming across in the game part of the game.
by the way i just realised this here and now but the flashlight is held in a "more realistic" way, held at rest, not lifted. this was something told negative by a guy who was writing ups and downs about the game (he spoke about the lifted flashlight and it being kind of silly, instead telling they should opt for another kind of holding, "like the flashlight from tjoc" he exampled), this means that the game has been updated seeeeveral times, which you probably know if you're a well informed follower of the project, why am i talking about something so minimal?
So...What are the monsters exactly? Feel free to let me know if I'm missing something or if this could be some bit of lore explained in updates or whatever. But with Mollie's decapitation showing there is flesh and blood in these things...How have they been kept alive? Clearly, they are biological creatures and not robot animatronics like in FNAF, so they need basic biological needs such as sleeping (what we saw with the Lloyd) and eating. The problem is Rambley said we're the last person to show up in 8 years! I don't think there are enough random birds that can fly in or stray cats in the area to sustain what is probably 5 large monsters. I can suspend my level of disbelief like this with FNAF as robots don't need such things, as long as they can charge their power supply then they are good to go for as long as whatever plot bullcrap calls and I'll be like "Yep, that's fine". But these aren't robots. So...What are they? Why are they? What are the rules damn it?!
Its a stock model with a stock animation, they aren't very good because they are just default engine tools meant to be replaced later in development. Theres actually a youtube channel that uses those for short skits.
15:57 theres a cat???????????????? how did i not know this HOW DID I NOT KNOW THI- but i liked the format :D and yeah i can 100% see wghere most if not all the critisism comes from. I will say that if im remebering correctly (someone fact check me on this) that the play place area is ment to be a way unique geese is showing off how he can do an area like that better than how he did when he remade chapter 1 of garten of ban ban.
I'm not even going to watch the entire video before replying just because I felt like mentioning it: the dev is explicitly anti gen AI (so much so he even put a blurb in the description of Indigo Park so they would know that Rambley is AI in a sci fi sense so no one would think this wasn't a game crafted by actual humans) so the founder looking weird is definitely not because of something like that. I kinda hope in the finished game Unique Geese and his team do a slight adjustment to the intro because that part is I think one of the only aspects of the game that looks rather bad (that and Lloyd's 3D model being... oof. That's a whole other topic though).
i mean, it's also not really fair to compare that audio log to a normal one. it's a reference, not anything with actual utility. the audio log's a reference to DSaF where the main charecters talk with a really distinctive tts voice and they wanna go to vegas. it's not worth to be compared to an infodump or tutorial.
Small correction, Salem has been confirmed to be nonbinary with they/them pronouns. It hasn't come up in the game at all yet so I understand not knowing, hell I didn't know until someone else told me, so please don't take this as an "oh how dare you refer to them as 'her'" kind of thing, just wanted to inform you. Thought the video as a whole was very well constructed and your criticisms are entirely valid Edit: it has come to my attention they go by they/she and my correction was unfounded. Would be nice to have character info like this more easily accessible. Anyway. My bad.
I thought that Salem's twitter reveal was they/she? Mason's referred to them by both multiple times. Which, let's be real, that would be a really nice thing for them to put up on their website rather than having to dig through twitter: character profiles that make that information easily accessible.
@KatAlystsStage you could be right. I honestly am going by what I've heard secondhand. If that's the case then referring to them as "her" isn't an issue and I'm just being overly sensitive. Edit: just checked the wiki. Yeah. They/she. My bad.
Yeah, it's not to my taste either. It's not bad, but it comes with several questions that I'm not entirely sure can be answered in a satisfying way narratively. I suppose my greatest question is WHY this design was chosen rather than a number of other options.
I remeber actively disliking this game when it came out, ive grown more fondly of it because this video. I still believe its a glorified walking sim tho...
They aren't animatronics is the thing. One of the big problems is everyone expected them to be and thus didn't look closer when they're more like biopunk recreations of the mascots. It's why when Molly dies the entire room gets covered with blood.
@Snowmaninadesert the thing is they do! Outside of the game's lighting and whole not moving, they look like the traditional soft mascot suits but weirdly organic with blood where they are injured. And missing patches of fur on loyd and strange scales and eyes on molly. You just aren't really given a good look at them at any point when they aren't flailing around, which is the actual missed opportunity. And tbh, them not looking like complete monstrosities makes sense. Unlike later FNAF titles and a lot of Mascot Horror, they were meant to be friendly mascots that wandered around the park. If they were oozing and had weird growths, that would be more questionable. I think the missed opportunity is the only chance you get to see how messed up they actually look is the game over screen when Molly catches you. They clearly spent time on these designs, and I know you don't show your horror monsters but show off the horror monsters if you're going to show them at all.
just started the video and wanted to comment now before i forgot also if you like this comment it will also count as interaction you could just like another comment and i'd be fien with that just interact as much as you can
Strikes me as a game made by (technical) artists. No complicated gameplay programming necessary if everything's completely scripted/predictable. Not to tear it down or anything, clearly there's an audience for it, but I wish mascot horror would get smth more mechanically interesting instead of walking through Poopoo's Funhouse pushing various buttons. I feel like Indigo is actively doing itself a disservice by even pretending to be a serious horror game.
During the "Let's Play" parts you seem to be over-preforming being quirky and keep trying to fill the space with commentary. If you are going to do "Let's Play" sections I would rather you condense it down so that it is in between your written sections. I like how you write. While the let's play sections probably reduce workload, overall they detract from the video. I really like when you talked about your special interests, or IRL experiences. You seemed to enjoy those sections more, and it was evident in your voice. The rest of the "Let's Play" sections reminded me of cinema sins, and felt artificial. For example: talking about the white lights around 16:00. I would love to hear your opinions on color use and environmental design in a scripted section. The way you communicated it though seems like you were searching for content for this section so that you could have continuity in your video. Though I do enjoy the written sections and how they blend into the video. I say this with love and no malice, from a subscriber.
if this is a 'proof of concept' like some of the other comments are saying, then the concept needs some serious rework to be at all interesting beyond the mascot designs.
Fun video. I like the structure of scripted stuff interspersed with off the cuff gameplay commentary, though you do come off like you're trying a little too hard to be funny during the let's play segments, imo. It's fine to just let the game speak for itself instead of getting ahead of yourself analysing it.
coming back i realised how absurd a lot of the moments are, the game by itself doesn't make do when rambley isn't around, it isn't because he makes the core game better (i swear i dont know how to explain this), it is because the game by itself is bad and rambley is just hard carrying, there's a lot of polishing required and a lot of things that already work but could've been executed way more properly, but im aware that the game is (right now) just a sample to get some attention and support from the crowd, no worries
If you want some feedback I think the thumbnail is definitely not as eyecatching and iconic as your Park review. There's too many of what seems like OCs in the thumbnail, if I didnt know you from the park review I wouldnt have clicked on the video.
Hmm, I definitely agree. The original is too jumbled. I've added a "second" thumbnail that cleans it up a bit and removes "me" from the thumbnail. You might not see it since I'm using a UA-cam feature that tests the two thumbnails against each other, but I think the second one I made is better.
This game is sooo... boring? mid? Not scary? The worst aspect for me though, is all this back and forth in between each area. Go in register room, to go back outside, go back in for a generator. Now go in the park, go back in the shop, go back outside....
No idea if you’d ever be interested but if you ever want a free key to the game my studio is working on I’d love to hear your feedback. It’s an FPS though so I’m unsure if you’d be interested.
Honestly, i geniunely would fully agree that making this game into a non horror but more of a funky puzzle game as you explore and fix up the weird abbandoned park is the way to go, atleast in my head, specially with how silly and joyful rambley is, i adore him to bits!! I'd love to experience more shenanigans with him above all else :3
Edit: Oh yeah i forgot, i love this style of content please keep making stuff like it!! I love to see you naturally play and getting distracted while rambling off about game design, its fun!
i also like this idea, it doesn't need to be *so* focused around horror, horror can have its way into the game through many ways, yet honestly, keeping horror around in the game should still be a thing since you know, it's a "mascot horror" game and it officialized itself as such, having every chapter not fit into such theme would be rather upsetting, maybe even passed off as a scam, but the other sides of the field such as puzzles and whatever-not-scary also feels crucial to strenghten the impact of the horror, it gives more support to the game's whole structure, and not sprinkling horror everywhere also helps uncondition the player to be prepared for jumpscares, in my opinion, you'd be more scared if 99% of your life wasn't an horror movie bit
41:36 That recording is actually a reference to an old series of FNaF fan games called Dayshift at Freddy's. That's why the delivery when they said "old sport" was so weird, they were mimicking the text to speech voice used in those fan games. And the part about going to Vegas is a reference to one of the game's many endings.
This brings up the question: are the characters from Dayshift at Freddy's canon to Indigo Park lore, or are those two guys referencing Dayshift at Freddy's as a kind of meta joke...?
I'd assume it's a meta joke because DSAF is what launched uniquegeese's content into the mainstream!
Really liked this! I see commenters like “don’t be too harsh, it’s one dev/one of their first games/etc” but I think if I was that dev, I would find a video like this extremely helpful for my work going forward. Especially since they seem very eager FOR that sort of review and critique, which is a quality I always respect in a creative. There’s a lot of really quality work in this game, like the animations and the voice acting, that I think can make for great bones to build on going forward, and I hope the best for chapter 2
Absolutely! It's not necessarily about harshness so much as it is about presenting critique constructively. These devs ARE new to the craft and eager to learn, so no matter what we say, it's gotta be thoughtful.
I feel like this game definitely focused on being MASCOT horror, rather than mascot HORROR. Maybe they'll add more terrifying things in the future, but it definitely feels like a textbook example of what this genre is in the modern era.
Also, I personally really like this style of content you're trying out, being able to see both your general opinion of the experience afterwards and during the gameplay is really nice, plus it feels like it's a good little taste of what the proper in-depth dive could be later whenever you make it!
As a complete scaredy cat I am so excited for when we eventually reach the realms of just "MASCOT" with no horror at all.
@@Shenaldrac Honestly I'd say we already have that with Indigo Park and Finding Frankie, but then again horror and what makes you scared is extremely subjective
@@celarts5752 Ah, no, I mean as in there's actually no horror.No chase sequences, no murderous mascots.
I guess what I mean is that I want a game that's a virtual tour of an abandoned theme park XD
UniqueGeese, the head of Indigo Park, explained that Isaac Indigo is done with a 3D model and that no AI is used. Isaac Indigo is still somewhat uncanny though
The big thing I noticed is the mouth seems too wide and when features are the wrong size that sets off the uncanny vibes hard.
I don't know why anything slightly off gets branded as AI now. Humans are still perfectly capable of creating stilted/creepy looking animation. (Not to knock the game, human facial animations aren't easy to get right.)
"What's the train for?" *misses every tease for the threat*
I uh... I guess nothing, buddy, lol
I gotta be real, it's just spooky enough to be enjoyable. Not everything has to be scary. There's some stuff for tension, there's some moments that can make you do the little 'oh! oh... woo, yeah, okay' kinda spook.
idk, it's like seeing a guy who eats peppers complain that ginger isn't hot, lol
Good stuff though, for what you clearly saw, yeah, no spook on offer, I suppose~ Your points for the two directions that the game is tugged in are valid and I see your points. Good vid, waiting for the next vid, man~
To be fair those teases are extremely easy to miss, I missed all of them other than the photo in the gift shop lol
I just looked up a video of all Mollie scenes and holy crap I really did miss every time she pops up on the train ride. I dunno if that says something about how I play games or just bad luck but that is honestly hilarious.
@CheeseYeen It says that you respect that the game is putting on a performance for you and keep your eyes up front, I suppose~
Very polite, Train out of Ten
The audio log is a dayshift at freddys reference. the use of "old sport" and mentioning of going to vegas is like one of the main in jokes of that game
Thing is about Indigo Park is chapter 1 is basically just a proof of concept. It's an intro to set the scene and attract attention to help the full game get made. Plus, honestly, even if it's not terrifying I think there's so much charm to it that it's worth supporting.
Its charming, but I wouldn't describe it as a "proof of concept" when all of the "concept" is just a mascot horror game without the horror
Hoping Uniquegeese sees this one - he seems relatively active on the critical side of reviews for his game, and this video might be the most throughout critique that I've seen. Sure there's some issues with criticisms (saying the train sequence isn't for anything while actively missing Every Red Flag and scare, for example), but overall this might be the best critique/dissection of this game, and I hope someone on the dev team sees this so they can take it into consideration for future chapters/updates for chapter one.
Honestly, I think you've hit the nail right on the head. This was well done, great mix of comedy and critical discussion. I wasn't sure if I was gonna vibe with calling it "dissecting", since to me that reads as more of a deep dive, but no, this is absolutely a dissection in a different way. You were able to competently talk about WHY you felt something wasn't working rather than just calling it bad (which is what I've come to expect on UA-cam), and I really appreciate that you took the time to do that. This felt good to watch. Also really love the visual and auditory clarity between real time reactions and further analysis, that was very well done and accessible.
So, context for the perspective I'm about to give you, because I have some thoughts to add on: I'm both a fan of mascot horror and a voice actor. By some chance, I ran into Vito, the voice of Rambley, because we have some friends in common in the voice world, and so many of us are so excited to see him getting more work, especially in something as beloved as this. I think, Vito and Rambley are my reason to support this game, because I want to see him thrive, and he genuinely does such a great job. The writing of Rambley's dialogue is really fun and engaging (by far it's the greatest strength of the writers), and the way Vito performs it makes me want to hang on to every word. This team has managed to create a very engaging character, and when I see how excited each of the members are working on this project, I can't help but feel a little warm and fuzzy. I want more game devs to go out there and make projects that are real and fun for them, and if this game achieves that, then great.
That said, it is lacking in scare factor. Depending on your scare tolerance, it can be decently scary on a first playthrough, but every playthrough after that struggles. I'm with you, scripted sequences are a valuable tool, but they're a tool that you need to use thoughtfully alongside other things in your toolkit if you want them to be effective. We often have the term "walking simulator" thrown around in the mascot horror genre, and as much as I don't like that, it feels applicable here. I'm also not really sold on the whole "lore" thing. Like the 8 bit minigame is cute and fun, there's a lot pointing to Salem as a potential future threat, but...I'm not feeling it. Like I'm fine with mascots becoming "real" and wanting to absolutely wreck their creators and everyone else, by all means, I wouldn't be into this genre if I didn't like that story flavor. But in the game itself, I question how they plan on executing it.
Notice I say "in the game itself." Because as of the version you just played, there is now an ARG to go alongside it, and it's just, odd? So in that last section before Oceanic Odyssey, there's a little office you can go into, and if you can find all of a repeating item within that last section and go back to it, it gives you the start of a cipher for decoding things. And all throughout the game BEFORE you have this cipher, hidden very out of the way, there are things to decode and plug into the Indigo Park website for some secret screenshots giving you extra lore. So this game actively (albeit subtly) encourages a second playthrough of this chapter. I won't spoil what the details are, but I will say it's not to my personal taste in terms of what the story implications are. Some people will probably love it, it's just not for me. I understand why devs do stuff like this, it's fun to give players extra ways to be involved in the mystery, but I don't love it when that information isn't in the game itself. Like I should not have to be involved in multiple pieces of media to understand what your baseline story is (I'm looking directly at you Poppy Playtime). Additional stories that can stand on their own and are merely enhanced by the other media, sure, by all means, that's fine. But I should be able to play just Indigo Park to understand Indigo Park. My hope is that if I don't participate in the ARG (since, y'know, websites are not guaranteed to exist forever to have that element), that story will still be delivered in a sensical and satisfying way. But I have yet to see any of these series do that. Like it's one thing if your entire story is an ARG and not a videogame, ARGs are meant to be a temporary piece of media that's enjoyed over a set period of time. ARGs excel at living in the moment, and that's still a valuable and fun way to tell a story. But games are supposed to be timeless, in my mind, so it begs the question of what will happen beyond the initial release of Indigo Park.
Which, leads me to one last thought: you talked a lot about building hype, and I think that's gonna be a really prevalent point of the future of this series. Look at the people that make up the dev team. You've got a bunch of popular internet personalities that have an interest in mascot horror, music, and independent creative projects. Some are beginners in the field of game design, and some are more experienced in their crafts. The music of Indigo Park is unsurprisingly fantastic given the track records of those behind it, for example. The gameplay not being as strong makes sense considering what's come before. Every mascot horror game, since the genre started booming, relies on learning from what came before it or trying to be innovative about everything from the ground up, and which lessons the next devs take away about game design are all different. Indigo Park and Don't! Fret fall into this interesting breed of UA-camr Run Mascot Horror (a niche that is rapidly expanding), where fans of the genre are trying to find success in this thing that they love. And they're getting some things right, and some things a little twisted. There's an understanding of what we like in these titles, but not how all the components work together to make something scary and satisfying to play.
Now, I want this to be clear, my favorite mascot horror game also has this happening, so that's not to say these are bad things, just things to be aware of. I love Bendy and the Ink Machine with my entire heart, but there's a reason I say it works best when viewed as an art piece or an experience. As a game, it has some struggles. It has a lot in common with Indigo Park, right down to the hype thing with being a chapter based release. If you put BATIM in front of somebody that wasn't there for the anticipation of each chapter coming out, if you ask someone to play it all the way through with no concept of what the development cycle was like, it doesn't land nearly as well. It's not bad, but it's in need of some more substance and detailing. That is my fear with Indigo Park, that it won't hold up as a full experience, that it will only be something to get excited about once a year as a new chapter releases. And I suppose that's okay, it's not the end of the world if that happens. I want games to be timeless, but if they're not, maybe I'll just have to be okay with that. But I want so badly for this game to hold up in the long term. I want this to be something I can point to as an interesting experience that's accessible to many gamers for years to come, where if you didn't follow it all the way through it's development cycle, you don't feel like you missed out on something.
Indigo Park feels like it hasn't quite figured out what it wants to be yet, and I think that's okay. No matter how Indigo Park turns out, it'll still be interesting to look back on as an experience. This is both the story of a fictional theme park and the story of a dev team that's getting their feet wet and learning the craft. It's a story about humans figuring out what they want their game to be, what kind of creatives they aspire to be, and that's interesting to watch unfold. I hope it goes well for them, and that they learn a lot. I hope Indigo Park has fun figuring itself out, and that it becomes more fun to play. Because ultimately, that's what matters most: that the game is fun.
Yes. YES. Give me these long, well thought out and in depth comments. I CRAVE them. Give me frank, civil, polite discourse in internet comments, ahahaha yes I eat this up!
With regards to the ARG and episodic releases I'm left worried, and a bit frustrated if I'm being honest, that this will end up being little more than a cycle of hype. I don't think that the development team would intentionally do that, would milk fans and work to simply build hype at any cost without care for the actual overall shape of the game once it's done. But I am worried that, with a bunch of people who are very new to game design, who to the best of my knowledge don't have a structured education in that field, that it may end up like that on accident. The episodic release format's biggest appeal from a design standpoint is that it allows for work to start with a much smaller budget than a game of a given scope would require. I don't think it's likely that these folks have tens of millions of dollars available as their budget for the game. So, you make an episode, something fairly short, you put it out there, and the money from that funds the next part.
But then this has the issue of encouraging building hype. Because if your budget is small enough you might NEED to sell enough on a given episode for the next one to be made. So you put in cliffhangers where you might not otherwise, or build tension to things that aren't really worthy of it, in the name of securing sales, preorders of the next chapter, etc. Like I said I don't think this is something that they'll be doing intentionally but it's something easy to fall into if you don't think about it beforehand and without much experience in the field that's more likely to happen.
You mention that Indigo Park is a story about people figuring out what they want their game to be and what kind of creatives they aspire to be and how that's interesting to watch unfold. And while Indigo Park episodes remain free I can wholeheartedly agree with you.But once they start charging for it, which I have to assume they will at some point, I think there's a certain level of "having your shit togetherness" that needs to be achieved. I think that there are some industry best practices that the team may not know, not being professionals in the field, regarding game design or even just designing programs. Soviet Womble has a fantastic video on the game The Forest where near the end he talks about how in software design, which he used to work in, planning out your project is super important because it's so much cheaper to have meetings and plan out what you want and get your metaphorical ducks in a row before you write a single line of code than to start making the game immediately and start having to scrap and reinvent parts later because you didn't have it planned. And I worry about that sort of thing occurring here.
And of course this is the kind of risk you run when you have people who aren't professionals in a certain industry, who don't have a lot of experience with it, deciding to jump in feet first and made something in the same medium that they love. Because enjoying something and understanding _why_ you enjoy something and understanding _how that was achieved in the first place_ are very different things. You can love reading but be an awful writer. You can be an avid video gamer but be found utterly wanting when it comes to actually making one yourself. You can be both, YIIK showed us that!
So which I definitely hope nothing like that happens, it is something I'm wary of. I don't want to sit here and say "Pfft, if you haven't got at least a half dozen games privately made under your belt you have no business making a game to be put out for public consumption!" Screw that mindset. But there is something to be said for industry experience and a formal education and industry standard best practices. I hope the youtubers involved in the writing and design of Indigo Park are more introspective than most and really interrogate themselves about not just what they like about mascot horror but why they like it and how those things were achieved.
Minor comment on the scale of the playplace! When you enter the backroom of Lloyd's theatre, there's a sort of effect in the hallway that makes it seem like your character is shrinking. It might be that this first chapter is setting up some psychological horror aspects for future chapters, where the place is warped by the main character's memories of it. You'd remember a playplace being a lot smaller as a child, after all. I might be getting too floppy with that, though...
That aside, I like this style of video! Seeing you get distracted is a little charming, honestly.
I think the train ride, as well as being there to introduce the characters, also has some Lore:tm: that it's trying to build on, especially in the part where it kicks you out for a minute. There's a lot of hints throughout, as early as the intro video with the weird dude, that's implying that Lloyd was the mascot before Rambley, but the reason for the change is still unclear. In any case, while I agree that it isn't really "scary", right now it feels like a standard Mascot Horror first chapter; mostly a proof of concept to get support for future titles, and the creator so far seems pretty open and willing to listen to critique, so hopefully the next one will continue to improve.
Also love the new disect format! It's fun getting your initial reactions interspersed with retrospective commentary. It'd be interesting to see your take on Inscryption; it's admittedly pretty differentto the games you've covered on your channel so far, and it's not purely a horror game (more deck building and puzzle sort of thing) but it's got some pretty nice horror vibes to it imo
A big thing im seeing in the comments is that you missed all of the scares and red flags in places like the train ride.
Now this might just be me but if its possible to miss ALL of the scares then maybe they arent well placed. Like missing one or two because you were looking around I can get, thats just bad luck for the player but you should at least accidentally see most of them if they are designed well.
I really do hope that they figure out the direction they want to take it going forwards because yeh, even with the foreshadowing spooky events and stuff its not really scary. Most of the jumpscares are pretty on cue for people who have played a good number of horror games so you can guess when things are going to happen.
But likewise the puzzles are....not really puzzles. Find a gear (twice) and just go through this tunnel and look for coloured shapes to enter (just a glorified combination lock code).
I think it'd do much better focusing on the comedy elements with some horror sprinkled in, like My Friendly Neighbourhood, with the mascots being less bloodythirsty and more akin to the puppets "We are so lonely, won't you come play" attitude.
Also, I can probably answer why the hallway was so small. It’s to prevent you from seeing the other side of the hallway from loading in. To walk though the hallway you probably hit a trigger that causes more objects to load in.
"I could fight a macaw" I dunno man those things are scary, evil bitey birds!
@@Hoooound the words of a hyena that has never had to take care of a bird
I just randomly found your channel and I NEED more, your humor and pacing of videos is excellent
It might be entirely coincidental, but I think a lot of the weakness of this first part as a horror game is tied into trying to make a a horror game set in a feasibly real location with feasibly real monsters. These aren't horrific uncanny valley designs that would never have become as popular as the lore says they do, they look like real mascot characters. And they also aren't relying on buckets of blood and viscera, mountains of corpses, or anything like that to juice the atmosphere. It's probably the most 'real' horror game in a while, no 'eternal torture of your own psyche' no 'vengful spirit capable of bending reality' no 'hallucinogenic gas that brings your fears to life' or any of that stuff. It's kind of how one would expect a real Mascot Horror scenario to play out, a LOT of just walking around and looking at things only occasionally punctuated with something scary or dangerous.
Though just because something is more 'realistic' doesn't make it a better game, in fact it can make it a lot worse. I really do hope you're right in that this becomes more of a puzzle/platformer game with horror elements rather than presenting itself as a pure horror game. Maybe I'm just sick and tired of the nihilistic and negative horror games where nothing good ever happens. If the theme is centered more around fixing the park, saving/rehabilitating the mascots, and making things better I'm going to be happier than another slog through more depressing horror 'and in the end you ended up being the next victim' kind of bullshit so many games in the genera lazily adhere to.
Great review, I like seeing mildly critical reviews of popular stuff and stuff I like in particular. Especially when the points are so good and have a chance of improving things. I look forward to your next reviews.
This style of video is a cool idea. It’s nice to see your live reactions/unscripted thoughts on a game in between the more scripted analysis, I think it works really well!
im so grateful for the spanish rambley and lloyd bit
The puzzle at around 30:00 at least looks fitting for the airplane theme now. At one point it was just a big rotating cube rather than a rotor blade.
The funniest thing is that partly because of how weak the horror was, it seems like you just enjoyed your own thoughts. Idk maybe it gets points for the fun moments of quiet.
Im bad with horror, so this was great for me.
19:29 , Look, man. I break into a park for urban exploration and get pseudo-kidnapped by it AI manager and I see that? I'm walking out. Climbing out over the Fallout 3 destroyed building if i have to. "Oh, but you'll never find the true meaning of Indigo Park Christmas" So? I don't need to know that bad.
I think the problem with most mascot horror games is that they are trying to make cute or happy looking characters that they can sell merch for. They don't want to make a character that would be scary for a kid so that kids will play the games and purchase the toys. That's fine if you are making a game that's happy or fun, but if you are intentionally trying to make a game that is "horror" then there needs to be horrifying things about it. Rambly and the characters are cool, but they are not at all scary. Now to be fair if you think about some of these sections as a kid then I could see some of these moments being scary. Like crawling through a playground, I would have been scared out of my mind as a kid if I was given the idea that I could be chased in one of those. Or that there might be some danger to going to a theme park. However the other problem is that if we are talking about kids at an age where they are playing in play places like a Chick Fil A play area then we are talking about very young kids and those aged kids couldn't handle something actually genuinely scary.
Man, I almost sprained my gd thumb with the speed that I clicked that notification.
I'm totally normal about cheeseyeen's vids. 🙂↕️👍
this was a very chill morning upload. casual format is good. still looking forward to your next full video!
Good first video for a series. I think approaching video game reviews as a quasi-let's play is always gonna be kind of popular in the same way like 2010's Channel Awesome movie reviews were probably as popular as they were b/c people could sort of experience the movie just by watching the review. But with the video game version, at least as far as I've seen from people like Tehsnekerer and you, it's actually got potential for interesting criticism as shown in realish time. I like it.
Not sure if this was the best starting game to cover tho. Like makes total sense in regard to how you used Indigo Park as a bait for your Park videos, but a Chapter 1 of any game that gets released in this model I feel only has so much to do. Like Poppy Playtime Chapter 1 was just the tutorial and the big chase but that's kinda all it needed I feel, you don't need to go all out, just grab attention.
I really enjoy this video format. We get to see what your thoughts are during the game play and during your recording process, where sometimes things change or somethings need to be further elaborated. I didn't really know much about the game prior to the video and I tend to not watch people playing horror games outright, so its nice to see the two being blended together. I cannot wait to see more!
Actually there is more that you missed playing the game there are multiple cases of mollie showing up during and before the trainride
keep this in mind when critiquing this game. this is the singular devs 2nd game ever, the previous one being a reimagining of garten of banban he made in one week, and is currently taking advice to making better games. he even has a channel, UniqueGeese.
also that audio recording was a reference to DSAF, "old sport" and going to vegas are references to the MS Sam voiced "aurbigine man".
Since you want feedback on the format, "let's dissect" doesn't really describe the video
It's more of a casual playthrough- the description even says that
Still a good video though. Casual playthroughs are fine. It's just more tangential than the title of the series says (tangential? rambly? rambley?)
Good vibe altogether even with parts of the video being edited. It's a nice format
Honestly, I don't care if it's "scary", I just like Rambley and the other characters' designs.
This was a really fun video! I like this new series and hope you will do more of them in the future!
A fantastic video! I'm really enjoying the flip between "in the moment" you playing the game and reacting real-time and future/post-game delving deeper and clarifying your thoughts. Looking forward to seeing what other games you'll have on the docket for this format/series! (maybe games like Finding Frankie or Don't! Fret might work for this format, though the behind the scenes/outside the game shenanigans regarding Don't! Fret might warrant their own video)
In regard to the game itself, I have to agree that while Indigo Park is great at giving us the idea/illusion of it being an awesome mascot horror game and the initial "oh shiny", it really does struggle to hold up long term, especially compared to other games, Hopefully the team can figure out the direction, but I'm not neccessarily holding my breath.
(Also I completely hate the "Dayshift at Freddy's" reference with the Mascot Head as unless you know that reference (and also know that UniqueGeese is a fan of the series) it just seems completely out of nowhere compared to how the other voice lines are acted)
Yes, just throwing a reference out like that is not only confusing to those who don't know it, but can also take people right out of the moment. It's clunky and doesn't work very well.
Honestly, Id say the horror is just enough for this game. Its much more fun bcuz its cute. Id like to lean more into the personality, its really likable.
It is cute, honestly, but why advertise it as a horror game if your main focus isn't being scary?
The video was amazing! Can't wait to see more Let's Dissect videos if you make more of them! :D for short games or long ones, I wanna see them ♡
I love how you danced to the piano! Lol 😆
Love the Dissect idea
keep it as it is the format is good
also
PUT SOME CHEESE ON THAT YEEN
maybe a cheese slice on the forehead
lol different build XD that playground puzzle used to be screens
putting the used music in the description would be nice
This is an interesting video I can't wait for what other games you plan on covering.
I don't think I was ever expecting this to be scary tbh. But I don't think I've ever really found any horror game genuinely scary. I am going to be that fool in the horror movie that dies after they think they've figured out how the monsters work. So I actually enjoyed the departure from horror and instead spent the time exploring. And it... kinda feels like that's what the game was made for. A lot of those big empty areas have small details in them that are cool to see. That being said, as someone who works in theatre, wtf was that stage and backstage area. It was so bad. Also yeah, the chase sucked. I would have preferred her hunting us through the play tubes. I do like the attention to detail that the model never warps and has tubes that it uses to get around. Fun attention to detail that I hate in other games when the monster is just suddenly in front of you for seemingly no reason.
Who uses J to jump. Probably a programmer on the dev team. When you’re building a game usually the initial controls are in the developers preferred place. Especially so if the keybinds can’t be remapped.
18:14 as a native spanish speaker, I may say that you really pronounce well most of the words!
"Is Rambley Worth It?"
Short Answer:
Yes.
Long Answer:
Mascot Horror is rarely ever 'scary' - it's virtually impossible to have a game that both presents the mascot characters as appealing _and_ threatening, because those elements are just about mutually exclusive. The first two Five Nights at Freddy's games were unique in their ability to nail the aesthetic of 'animatronic characters that you loved as a kid but find creepy and off-putting now', and that was because their inspiration was a product of a pretty narrow time in history.
Meanwhile, the broader takeaway Mascot Horror appears to be that, when given even a little bit to go on, people will become fans of the characters. This is, in essence, the only explanation I can think of for how Garten of BanBan continues to exist - even irony poisoning is enough to create attachment. Once you have that attachment, you have an audience for a story, and once you have that audience it doesn't matter how much you feel 'scared' (or more likely just startled) in the moment. The story is doing its job. The gameplay is failing in the sense that it's not causing any dread or tension, but it's still working as a vehicle for that story.
And the story is where the 'horror' comes in.
At the risk of sounding both pretentious _and_ stupid, Indigo Park is aiming for something that's less Alien: Isolation and more Silent Hill 2. You're not fleeing in terror from something genuinely terrifying. Instead, you've been put in a situation where something is clearly _very_ wrong, and the only way to figure out the 'how' and 'why' is to go further in. And while Indigo Park is nowhere near as effective at getting that sense of underlying dread and discomfort as Silent Hill 2 (which probably is Rambley's fault), it's gotten people invested.
And if people are paying attention (and not just because people love to watch a train crash), that means the decision was the right one.
I mean. yeah. the entire point of Chapter 1 is, in fact, to drum up hype. and funding. also the dev seems to treat garten of banban as... not shovelware, so that's a huge redflag right there.
the cuts between live and postscript worked flawlessly to expand the thoughts into full ideas that are clearly communicated and insightful while keeping the pacing and reasonable reactions. i appreciate that you didn't go into this trying to become and stay scared, nor fighting against the emotions. it's just not a scary game, so your reaction was pretty subdued, like most players would have if they actually played it rather than watching a Let's Play. i definitely think this is a game made more for youtube than to be directly played and that's kinda worrying despite the fun cast. i look forward to more of these
there are no major criticisms i can think of, the only things i could think to ask for from the postscript interjections (like some commentary on some of the secrets or the development since the devs and VAs have said some interesting things about this project) would defeat the entire point of shorter-to-produce videos
Ngl i kinda found rambleys voice effect distracting when i played it. i get that its meant to be like, an electronic effect but the weird pitch shifting just kinda left me irritated hearing him. also ngl, i dont particularly get the hype of it being like, one of the best mascot horror games to come out in a while, which seems like a fairly low bar. it wasnt super scary, and there was maybe only a couple moments that i felt were actually tense.
I think a horror game with an AI in denial of what has happened to the park could work really well. Except there isn't enough here to be a horror game.
Honestly this is a case where I really wish the devs were doing something besides a game. Like Rambly is super charming at all levels and the ideas are all fine, but actual execution in terms of being a game is... lacking?
Like I know it is proof of concept, but there is no real mechanical hook to the game to really sell me on wanting to play the game. Moreover, I do think the level design falls fairly short. Like I know it is a lot to ask to recreate a full theme park but that's the challenge they took on and the result kinda feels like something that is supposed to be more Disney-level scale but ends up feeling like your local city amusement park (something like a Fairyland or Santa's village).
I dunno. Like there is definite skill on display, but I don't think much of it coming across in the game part of the game.
by the way i just realised this here and now but the flashlight is held in a "more realistic" way, held at rest, not lifted. this was something told negative by a guy who was writing ups and downs about the game (he spoke about the lifted flashlight and it being kind of silly, instead telling they should opt for another kind of holding, "like the flashlight from tjoc" he exampled), this means that the game has been updated seeeeveral times, which you probably know if you're a well informed follower of the project, why am i talking about something so minimal?
Holy shit the madlad finally did it
I was getting a chuckle out of the train mind and just when it started to run a bit too long the text joke made me laugh.
Who wouldn't want Roxanne Wolf to step on them? OwO
So...What are the monsters exactly? Feel free to let me know if I'm missing something or if this could be some bit of lore explained in updates or whatever. But with Mollie's decapitation showing there is flesh and blood in these things...How have they been kept alive? Clearly, they are biological creatures and not robot animatronics like in FNAF, so they need basic biological needs such as sleeping (what we saw with the Lloyd) and eating. The problem is Rambley said we're the last person to show up in 8 years! I don't think there are enough random birds that can fly in or stray cats in the area to sustain what is probably 5 large monsters. I can suspend my level of disbelief like this with FNAF as robots don't need such things, as long as they can charge their power supply then they are good to go for as long as whatever plot bullcrap calls and I'll be like "Yep, that's fine". But these aren't robots. So...What are they? Why are they? What are the rules damn it?!
Its a stock model with a stock animation, they aren't very good because they are just default engine tools meant to be replaced later in development. Theres actually a youtube channel that uses those for short skits.
Please please make more of thede videos they are PERFECT to listen to at my 9 to 5 LOL
8:02 Security Breach is a FNAF game, FNAF games are built around digging up the truth behind the mysteries for yourself.
Trains are freaking awesome!
15:57
theres a cat????????????????
how did i not know this HOW DID I NOT KNOW THI-
but i liked the format :D
and yeah i can 100% see wghere most if not all the critisism comes from. I will say that if im remebering correctly (someone fact check me on this) that the play place area is ment to be a way unique geese is showing off how he can do an area like that better than how he did when he remade chapter 1 of garten of ban ban.
before i watch: yes, he is worth it
now that i have watched: yes
Tbh,this vid kinda made me intrested in playing the game, dispite its issues, its potential looks Intresting to me
one of my favorite ride at our local parck was the tiny train track in the kid section ( the kid section has most of my favorite )
Spanish Lloyd has me dying XD
Cheese made a video of a game that's not a walking Sim!? I must be dreaming, someone hit me.
16:29 "Wait, a caramel apple is 9-"
Commenting to appease the algorithm.
I'm looking forward to enjoying this!
I'm not even going to watch the entire video before replying just because I felt like mentioning it: the dev is explicitly anti gen AI (so much so he even put a blurb in the description of Indigo Park so they would know that Rambley is AI in a sci fi sense so no one would think this wasn't a game crafted by actual humans) so the founder looking weird is definitely not because of something like that. I kinda hope in the finished game Unique Geese and his team do a slight adjustment to the intro because that part is I think one of the only aspects of the game that looks rather bad (that and Lloyd's 3D model being... oof. That's a whole other topic though).
Maybe this will finally be the video where he manages to avoid mentioning Indigo Park! :D
Ok first off agree a lot second another good horror platformer is little nightmares. Idk wierd thing I wanted to say
You should check out Mouthwashing if you haven't already, if you want some good ol' horror
i mean, it's also not really fair to compare that audio log to a normal one. it's a reference, not anything with actual utility. the audio log's a reference to DSaF where the main charecters talk with a really distinctive tts voice and they wanna go to vegas. it's not worth to be compared to an infodump or tutorial.
Honestly, great Spanish
This video was very interesting🧐
Small correction, Salem has been confirmed to be nonbinary with they/them pronouns. It hasn't come up in the game at all yet so I understand not knowing, hell I didn't know until someone else told me, so please don't take this as an "oh how dare you refer to them as 'her'" kind of thing, just wanted to inform you. Thought the video as a whole was very well constructed and your criticisms are entirely valid
Edit: it has come to my attention they go by they/she and my correction was unfounded. Would be nice to have character info like this more easily accessible. Anyway. My bad.
I thought that Salem's twitter reveal was they/she? Mason's referred to them by both multiple times. Which, let's be real, that would be a really nice thing for them to put up on their website rather than having to dig through twitter: character profiles that make that information easily accessible.
@KatAlystsStage you could be right. I honestly am going by what I've heard secondhand. If that's the case then referring to them as "her" isn't an issue and I'm just being overly sensitive.
Edit: just checked the wiki. Yeah. They/she. My bad.
5:34 so, Yeen gonna Ween?
30:00 Jerma is afraid of play places?
I may sound picky but I dont like that the MASCOTS look so realistic, it kind of looks like we are in a zoo more than a park
Yeah, it's not to my taste either. It's not bad, but it comes with several questions that I'm not entirely sure can be answered in a satisfying way narratively. I suppose my greatest question is WHY this design was chosen rather than a number of other options.
I think it’s meant to be some lore implied
Genetic splicing and cloning
Ah, yo tiene español! Es muy bien! Esquela no bien! Mi gusta el gato! Yo dormir en la noche! Raccoon (en español)!
I remeber actively disliking this game when it came out, ive grown more fondly of it because this video. I still believe its a glorified walking sim tho...
i feel like the places should be less clean, and the animatronics should have looked destroyed or smth. the game looks too friendly.
They aren't animatronics is the thing. One of the big problems is everyone expected them to be and thus didn't look closer when they're more like biopunk recreations of the mascots. It's why when Molly dies the entire room gets covered with blood.
@Mythic_Menagerie then why not make them look biopunky ? i feel like there's a missed opportunity here.
@Snowmaninadesert the thing is they do! Outside of the game's lighting and whole not moving, they look like the traditional soft mascot suits but weirdly organic with blood where they are injured. And missing patches of fur on loyd and strange scales and eyes on molly. You just aren't really given a good look at them at any point when they aren't flailing around, which is the actual missed opportunity.
And tbh, them not looking like complete monstrosities makes sense. Unlike later FNAF titles and a lot of Mascot Horror, they were meant to be friendly mascots that wandered around the park. If they were oozing and had weird growths, that would be more questionable.
I think the missed opportunity is the only chance you get to see how messed up they actually look is the game over screen when Molly catches you. They clearly spent time on these designs, and I know you don't show your horror monsters but show off the horror monsters if you're going to show them at all.
just started the video and wanted to comment now before i forgot also if you like this comment it will also count as interaction
you could just like another comment and i'd be fien with that just interact as much as you can
Strikes me as a game made by (technical) artists. No complicated gameplay programming necessary if everything's completely scripted/predictable. Not to tear it down or anything, clearly there's an audience for it, but I wish mascot horror would get smth more mechanically interesting instead of walking through Poopoo's Funhouse pushing various buttons. I feel like Indigo is actively doing itself a disservice by even pretending to be a serious horror game.
During the "Let's Play" parts you seem to be over-preforming being quirky and keep trying to fill the space with commentary. If you are going to do "Let's Play" sections I would rather you condense it down so that it is in between your written sections. I like how you write. While the let's play sections probably reduce workload, overall they detract from the video. I really like when you talked about your special interests, or IRL experiences. You seemed to enjoy those sections more, and it was evident in your voice. The rest of the "Let's Play" sections reminded me of cinema sins, and felt artificial. For example: talking about the white lights around 16:00. I would love to hear your opinions on color use and environmental design in a scripted section. The way you communicated it though seems like you were searching for content for this section so that you could have continuity in your video. Though I do enjoy the written sections and how they blend into the video. I say this with love and no malice, from a subscriber.
if this is a 'proof of concept' like some of the other comments are saying, then the concept needs some serious rework to be at all interesting beyond the mascot designs.
Fun video. I like the structure of scripted stuff interspersed with off the cuff gameplay commentary, though you do come off like you're trying a little too hard to be funny during the let's play segments, imo. It's fine to just let the game speak for itself instead of getting ahead of yourself analysing it.
Do yiik
coming back i realised how absurd a lot of the moments are, the game by itself doesn't make do when rambley isn't around, it isn't because he makes the core game better (i swear i dont know how to explain this), it is because the game by itself is bad and rambley is just hard carrying, there's a lot of polishing required and a lot of things that already work but could've been executed way more properly, but im aware that the game is (right now) just a sample to get some attention and support from the crowd, no worries
If you want some feedback I think the thumbnail is definitely not as eyecatching and iconic as your Park review. There's too many of what seems like OCs in the thumbnail, if I didnt know you from the park review I wouldnt have clicked on the video.
Hmm, I definitely agree. The original is too jumbled. I've added a "second" thumbnail that cleans it up a bit and removes "me" from the thumbnail. You might not see it since I'm using a UA-cam feature that tests the two thumbnails against each other, but I think the second one I made is better.
Comment🎉
This game is sooo... boring? mid? Not scary? The worst aspect for me though, is all this back and forth in between each area. Go in register room, to go back outside, go back in for a generator. Now go in the park, go back in the shop, go back outside....
No idea if you’d ever be interested but if you ever want a free key to the game my studio is working on I’d love to hear your feedback. It’s an FPS though so I’m unsure if you’d be interested.