Mascot horror, a subgenre of horror popularized by indie horror games in the mid-2010s, involves recognizable, corporeal characters as the main terror. Poppy Playtime, an indie, episodic, survival, and mascot-horror game, was released on March 11, 2022, and is set in 2005 in the fictional toy-making industry. The game pioneered Mascot Horror by using a child-friendly animatronic design with horror elements, drawing in kids and curious players.
The genre’s recency and uniqueness stem from the heavy influence of Five Nights at Freddy’s, which started the trend in 2014. The genre has seen numerous examples, including Freddy, Bendy, Baldi, and more. The genre’s recency and uniqueness stem from the heavy influence of the game, which started the trend in 2014, and its popularity has been attributed to Let’s Play creators like Markiplier on YouTube.
Despite the popularity of Mascot Horror, the genre has seen a decline since the first FNAF, with the game series “Bendy” getting a new installment. However, the majority of its content has been taken from Poppy Playtime rather than FNAF.
In summary, Mascot horror is a genre that has gained popularity in the gaming world due to its iconic and terrifying mascot characters. Poppy Playtime, a single-player game, is one of the most influential horror games of all time, with its unique blend of child-friendly animation and horror elements.
📹 Mascot Horror’s Past, Present, and Uncertain Future..
Today we’ll be talking about Mascot Horror’s evolution and current state. What about this genre has made it so controversial, with …
📹 The Ups and Downs of Mascot Horror
Mascot horror. Is it really over? Let’s take a look at the history of the trend and the highs & lows that came with it! From Freddy, to …
A lot of these games seem to forget that the first FNAF exploded not because it was a dark twisted version of something from people’s childhoods, but because animatronics are inherently creepy and live right in the deepest pits of the uncanny valley. FNAF didn’t have to do much with the context because being locked in a chuckee cheese where the robots can freely walk and are looking for you is already a nightmare several of us have had before it even came out. Most other types of childhood media needs extra work put in to make creepy, but I feel like a lot of devs see FNAF get away with a series of what were essentially powerpoints and went “wow, it’s just that easy”
People really forgot what made Five Nights at Freddy’s so special. The animatronics didn’t have sharp teeth, claws, or anything like that, but the game used the uncanniness of 1980’s animatronics with amazing sound design and excellent camera angles and lighting. The environment makes the monster, not the other way around.
It’s honestly kinda insane and also emblematic of the general internet discourse that the harmless tiny project Garten of Banban got heralded as the end of a genre and a cheap cash grab when Poppy Playtime exists and is actually unironically a massive cash grab. The phrase “Lore NFT Drop” is easily the scariest thing to come out of it.
A lot of new mascot horror games boil down to “guys this kids franchise is holding dark secrets and the company behind it killed 59 CHILDREN AND PUT SOULS IN THE MASCOTS” and has the same look at a big map and get macguffins and items, Garten of Banban is an example and the straw that broke the camel’s back
Fun Fact: 40:26 In the Meeting Halfway Podcast, the creator of Baldi’s Basics revealed that all of the lore was completely satire and added in purely because it was a recommendation. He also revealed that he had talked with MatPat and that MatPat suggested for Baldi’s Basics to release in multiple chapters. In the end, the creator of Baldi’s Basics didn’t decide to go for a chapter based game since he wanted to release a full game and instead opted for making Baldi’s Basics Plus, a complete game that wouldn’t be split into multiple chapters/episodes/parts on which he is still working on.
55:30 Last year (or 2021?), Markiplier did a article where he played two games as picked by a random-Steam-game-chooser website. Both games were unknown, both games were bad. Markiplier talked about how they were bad (in his usual way, alluding to the quality plus moments of obvious frustration). After playing each game, though, he did something incredibly important: He left a Steam review on each, but the reviews were tongue-in-cheek high praise. Perhaps the single most important action of either review, though, was marking them “Recommended”. After I watched the article, which I didn’t get to for a few days, I went to check the Steam reviews for each: They were generally positive. The first game had no reviews prior to his article; the second had two, of which one was negative. After the article, the first game had a dozen more, positive reviews; the second had a few extra positive reviews and one new negative one. (The second game was easily the worst of the two.) There is no doubt in my mind that, had Markiplier left a negative review and/or ragged on them in his Steam review and article (as some other Youtubers might), many of his viewers would have also lambasted the game. (Some to extreme degrees, I’m sure.) It wouldn’t even be his intention, that’s just how communities for content creators tend to operate. ll that to say, this warning against drumming up drama or going full-tilt against some unknown devs has tremendous merit.
I think the real issue about mascot horror the ticked people off was how it all moved towards marketing itself to (mostly) children. It wasn’t about the horror anymore, the horror aspect was subpar at best or laughably bad at worst, it was about it being shoved out in whatever state and trying to get as much money as possible out of it, and more with merchandise. Doesn’t really matter if the game is good or bad, peopel can excuse a horror game being bad, everyone’s gotta learn somewhere, and you learn from mistakes. But it becomes a problem when a failure goes all-in on getting as much money outta you. Prolly doesn’t help that other gaming genres are going through this too, greed overtaking passion for a game and very poor quality of the games.
I’m in my late 30s and I find the discussions about “ugh this is all for kids” incredibly funny for exactly what you said – the people saying it were kids when they got into it. Maybe they were older kids, maybe teens, but still, very much kids. I have literally never felt or thought “ugh they’ve sold out/watered this down/etc” about –well, honestly, about most things. I’m old enough now that I know it’s kind of always been like this. Not to imply that things aren’t always evolving and changing, because of course they are. But I do think people don’t recognise their own growth and evolution the same way they notice evolution in genre or medium.
I do absolutely believe that Poppy Playtime was way worse from a moral standpoint than Banban, but honestly, it’s pretty clear what the intentions of Banban were from the start. The sequel was planned right as the first game released, and merch was marketed right away. I don’t believe the harassment the devs got was deserved, but that doesn’t mean that Banban is completely innocent either. Edit: 1:04:02 This is absolutely correct, and I should’ve realized this conclusion sooner. The euphoric brothers used to not be a part of this mascot horror craze. Before all of this, they made passions projects. But it wasn’t successful enough. They started adopting these somewhat shady business practices, which, considering their situation, is completely fair. Good point, amazing article.
“youtube colonizes your attention span and the attention spans of children” is so real. definitely something we should remind ourselves of daily and goes for other social platforms too. excellent article full of solid points and meaningful insight. gonna keep my eyes peeled for your remake of alphabet! ♥️
I agree about Banban being sort of the epitome of everyone’s general frustration and irritation with the genre but I also want to say that I think a lot of the frustration towards modern mascot horror was amplified substantially by the reception to FNAF: Security Breach, as a lot of people then were saying that their dislike for its stylings and approach to the FNAF formula and the horror genre were because it was trying to chase the trend of modern mascot horror and a lot of people may have seen modern mascot horror “ruining” a franchise that is so beloved
As saturated as the genre/term has been for the past few years, I’ve always gotten a kick out the concept of mascot horror because twisting something associated with childhood innocence and wonder into a dark, disturbing reflection of itself always brings out the rawest of feelings. Still think that FNAF tackled this the best out of any other game to date.
So happy to see a article that isn’t just “Garten of Ban Ban bad, we’re doomed.” As a writer, this has been messing with my brain, so I’m going to dump my own thoughts. There’s a concept of “write a big shocking scene to surprise everyone and get them thinking.” Often a cliffhanger; it’s a way to drum up intrigue and get people thinking and can be a valuable tool. But recently, it is occurring to me that 90% of the time the writers have NO idea what they’re planning to happen after that scene in question. Many of these mascot horror games seem mysterious, not because the truth of the story is cleverly hidden, but because 90% of the time it starts off with nothing there. A good example is Bendy and the Ink machine; a game that is now finished, and reveals just how much they had no damn clue what was behind all their mysteries. This led to some plotlines getting no payoff, other’s getting too much attention, some popping up out of nowhere with no set up, characters outright forgotten, and the whole story looking and feeling like a mess at the end of it. It’s like a warped idea of a cliffhanger that misunderstands the point. The concept is that there’s supposed to be something finalized to look forward too- not a scene thats there to impress or intrigue and then vaguely matter later. Good Cliffhangers, even the ones that end a story, usually have a very select handful of ways they could be interpreted because the story is the framework to support it. FNAF2, since you brought that up, does a good job of making the framework.
I find it fascinating how fast passed the consumption of this media is. Back then there were less games being made for a specific niche, but not like they were all good. Look at the RPG maker horror era. There were bangers and some really bad ones. The rotation of media nowadays is soo fast that it seems producing more is more important than making it better, or more in depth.
I don’t know about you, but I’m having a huge deja vu, from the time when slasher movies were all the rage in the 80s. After Friday the 13th came out, which itself is a copy of Halloween, everyone was wanting to follow the premise of a group of young people who go to the middle of nowhere, and then get killed by some big guy in a mask. And on the bright side, maybe “Mascot horror” will get some kind of metalinguistic satire that reinvents the genre for good. Just like what happened with Scream in the early 90s… I will be notice one day…
I fully agree with you, that a lot of people seem to go “Unless it’s very high quality/industry standard, it is simply a crash grab and deserves to be dunked and bullied” and it sucks. It’s a big problem not just in the horror community, but in any community. I remember being on YouTube when fnaf was huge (2016-ish) and perusal countless articles just dunking on kids’ drawings, fan songs, fan theories, and the like. I watched them constantly, and told myself “I will not be this cringe, I will not make anything unless it is perfect, and then I won’t be bullied”. The same goes for things like undertale, batim, and hell I’ve even been scared to tell my own stories when it comes to my own experience, things like my experience with art, trama, or gender identity, I and many others are scared to tell our stories because we feel like we need to tell them in the most perfect way possible, otherwise we are romanticizing a bad time in our lives, or that our experience was done in the “wrong way”. I want to make but I don’t feel like I’m good enough to show what I am making, or that what I’m saying will be misinterpreted, or even worse, have my work stolen by ai. It’s fucking hard to make stuff, much less for an entire audience. I can’t even imagine having a parasocial relationship with an audience, it’s fucking scary.
i remember year or so ago my cousin, who i think was 8 years old at the time, was talking about poppy playtime, and i was very unfamiliar with it, i just knew it was some sort of mascot horror game and she just kept naming characters and i felt like i was falling into another dimension. i was also unsettled by how these sorts of games market themselves towards children enough that ny own cousin was seemingly intimately familiar with it. idk
I do wanna admit that as a person trying to get into the game development scene, the viciousness of the internet can get towards people not being top notch at their craft, and especially as of late with making article games scares me. I don’t know if I want to make a Mascot Horror game regardless of how serious I’d be doing it cause people’s hostility towards the idea (And maybe a personal dissolution towards it) kinda scares me the idea of being a target. In some ways I kinda wonder if these kinds of like, overtly loud and overtly antagonistic responses ruin the games being developed. Like the devs become more focused on these kinds of people than not just the valid criticism but also what would just make a decent product. This is admittedly a conspiracy theory; but I’m wondering if the reason why people comment on how overtly dragged out some parts the next chapters are is in response to people making refund speedruns of their game. To drag things out intentionally so you can’t do that. Assuming that’s true, then this behavior actively ruined a game because it made the devs more caught up trying combat these people than trying to focus more on what they had in mind. There’s one youtube article I remember saying something akin to “We can’t make (Garten of Banban) fail anymore” and idk why but that always stuck towards me as like a very misguided thought process. Like yes, telling people to not play a game because it’s bad makes sense, but I don’t think you make something fail by giving it more attention and adding onto the articles that talk about it.
One thing you could’ve brought up as a pro throughout all this time is Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion. It’s been there from the start, releasing after FNaF in 2014 and had slowly updated with dlcs and extra content such as the Katamari Hospital and Dollhouse and everything about the game is absolutely amazing. With Kira making more games currently and seeing the energy and passion he brings I can’t ever agree with “Indie Horror being dead is thanks to mascot horror games”.
It feels like mascot horror excuses a terrible story by having “lore”. Lore is like the frosting on a cake, it’s nice when it’s there, not all cakes need it and cakes have different amounts of frosting on them. Poppy and banban is like taking the smallest sliver of cake and then dumping a huge glob of anchovy and garlic flavored frosting on it. It’s clear that they don’t understand that the “lore” needs to gel with what little story there is. Either that or it’s not flavored at all. At least like a bendy or a choo choo Charles have some kind of story. I wish we got more diversity in horror games that aren’t trying to rip off bendy
I’m someone still working on a mascot horror game. I’m making it because I genuinely love the genre and want to make a love letter to it and to horror games as a whole. I’ve been playing horror games all my life and FNaF holds a special place in my heart because of an experience I had as a kid with a glitching Chuck E. Cheese animatronic that was stuck repeating one voiceline for nearly an hour. I’m genuinely into this to make something fun, scary (in a classic Resident Evil sort of way) and mildly experimental because I think I can bring something nice into this world based on a genre that has given me over a decade of entertainment and continues to till this day.
Now that I’ve finished the article, I want to add that this article genuinely has so many good points and I think a lot of people need to share some of these sentiments more. Not even relating to just horror stuff, but we are all just humans. Living, breathing, creating for the first time; Be kind, and be open to each other.
Thanks for covering in no insignificant length online bullying and YT’s algorithm. In conversations like these, those points don’t come up as much as they should. Adding that even folks who work in YT don’t have a full understanding of how its algo works reflects such a large issue and another conversation as well. Without getting too into it, online bullying & outright harassment has always appeared very clout-motivated, with users forgoing social etiquette, even online versions of such, and chasing after accessible/easy mic-drop moments. Most of the time, it translates to these variations of “call out’s” over topics like indie games or other media to hold much more vitriol than fits the supposed “crime,” and at such a point, it stops being actual criticism, especially when it dogpiles/happens en masse. It’s also hard not to note that web-wide, algorithms still have a heavy hand in this; algo’s focus on viewer retention, and one of the sure-fire ways to obtain that is through bandwagons of however unnecessary vitriol.
I always thought the term Mascot Horror was meant to be used in the same vein as Mascot Platformer. In that one of the driving points of the design of the game is the focal character of the game, typically the namesake of the game (Sonic, Crash Bandicoot, Alex Kidd, Bubsy, etc.) which is also, coincidentally or deliberately, in tangent with how the game is marketed, i.e. you use the eponymous character to sell your game. Similarly, Mascot Horror’s focal characters are the perceived villain of their respective game and more often than not the game’s namesake as well, and likewise is also used heavily in the marketing of the game. Obviously, there’s more distinctions between the two as you described, but that was one observation I felt I ought to point out.
I really like how you approached the topic of Garten of BanBan. Yes, the game is bad, yes it definitely sought to simply ride on the coattails of more successful mascot horror titles…but the reaction of the internet was awful. How much of a loser do you have to be to send death threats to a duo of brothers making a game for children?
53:25 I think this is the issue with modern internet culture in general. There’s a growing obsession with games needing to be OBJECTIVELY good, with gamers presenting game mechanics, monetization schemes, development processes, etc. like they’re scientific laws of game development. There are some objective facts you need to follow for certain genres, such as needing 70 or 90 FOV depending on if your FPS is intended for console or PC respectively, but there’s a lot of decisions where people assume a specific choice makes an objectively good game when that should be left up to the opinion of the designer. And if you don’t make the objectively ‘right’ choice in your game, or you’re experimenting with whether or not that assumption is true? You better hope your game is massively popular otherwise you’re getting dumpstered for it. And sometimes not even massive popularity is enough to save you. You really only have to look at UnderTheMayo’s review of Ultrakill to see the end result of that mindset.
as someone who was already out of college when FNAF came out, I remember the hype and perusal Markiplier’s playthrough of the series (Mark and i are around the same age and also both mixed Korean so i’ve always been a fan of his) but perusal this vid and the retrospectives have been SO cool. perusal gen z analyze the media they grow up with is not only super interesting but also SO impressive. i’ve watched your long vids multiple times. and I really appreciate the quality of the research and writing (same with izzyzz, y’all should collab!!)
My main issue with Banban was how serious it kept trying to be when it didn’t have enough effort put behind it to justify the tone. Chapter 3 on the other hand changes to being more lighthearted and silly while also actually adding some interesting stuff like a decent enough boss fight and a pretty cool puzzle segment with the Jumbo Josh puzzle room, so if they stick more with that idea going forward then Banban will be a guilty pleasure of mine.
I really loved you nuanced take on the mascot horror genre and how you also point out the algorithm also plays a lot into shaping the genre. The algorithm is more powerful and influential, more than anyone recognizes. I also love how you give suggestions at the end. You’re great and analyzing and thoughtfully criticizing, especially as something as you love. Also yeah, kids should always have a kid friendly horror stuff. Millennials had Courage the Cowardly Dog and it’s still talked about fondly. Maybe because it wasn’t merchandised as much. If it was merchandised as heavily as other medias like today, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be too fond of it. Also can’t blame for any developers for trying to make more money off of merchandising, especially when you’re rewarded with money for doing so. Let them get that bag.
Regarding the toxicity of the community reaching an all time high in recent years, I feel like it’s because of an overall flood of general toxicity everywhere online, probably because of the ukraine war, covid, inflation, all these things back to back. I even had to delete my reddit (good riddance though) to keep my sanity in check. It’s like all of a sudden everyone let loose on their worst behavior online. Yes I know it’s not everyone and it’s just a vocal minority, but it has become so loud it’s almost impossible to ignore or brush off.
I think the fact that like you said, Garten of Banban exemplified all of the negative aspects of this genre without providing something of benefit, does kinda give people a valid excuse to dunk on it. They don’t want it to become a standard. They don’t want it to become a norm. So they made an example of it. Of course that’s ignoring that There’s hundreds of horror game both better and worse that come out each month, hell it’s been like that before even FNAF with folks using cheap jumpscares to craft youtuber reaction bait. Its just incidental that it came out right when these feelings were all boiling over and reached an audience. While it’s not fun to put oneself in their shoes and imagine what it’s like to deal with that reaction… we don’t create things in a vacuum. This is the third article on this exact topic I’ve seen and it’s recapping the same timeline, the same points I’ve seen others do, for example. It’s impossible for a genre to die so long as someone has a combination of inspiration, motivation, and knowledge to create their vision. But if the bar is set so low, it won’t really matter.
Ironically, my favorite horror games could be classified as “Mascot Horror”. Pony Island is literally “Cute Game is secretly evil”, and it did it in a wonderfully meta way. Inscryption even broke from this by starting off like it isn’t based off of a game with Leshy seeming like the main horror antagonist.
I agree with the fear of posting art, as a multi media artist myself i fear posting most of my art due to how ive seen others criticizing good art from a beginner. I fear posting art due to my own anxiety of “if its not perfect its trash” and I’m still recovering from that mindset and my depression from my abusive parents mindset. I am working on the whole confidence in myself as a person.
I know you said that probably most of your demographic are children, and I don’t necessarily disagree. But I’m 22, I’m really interested in game development and I want to thank you so much for all the work you do. Thank you for this thought provoking articles you keep releasing. It’s amazing how much I learn from them /gen. Thank you, sincerely. Much love from Latin America!
Duck season is possibly the best of these. I love the connected universe of the stress level zero games. I also feel that poppy playtime has started to lean more towards the actual adult horror especially with the latest teaser articles. I think they heard the backlash of it being “just another kid friendly horror game” and decided to try harder.
The funny thing is that, when Slender (and later FNAF) came out, the horror niches I was in basically rolled their eyes at it as “crappy shovelware horror for kids” (for reference, Slender came out the summer before I went to college — I was very much outside of the target audience, and the horror streamers and LPers that I was into at the time had different tastes). There’s definitely a cycle of people crapping on stuff that’s popular with the younger crowd going on here, compounded by the fact that the Internet might as well be expressly engineered as a mean-spirited echo chamber. One thing I find utterly fascinating about mascot horror, though, is that it’s a genre almost entirely defined by non-gameplay elements (because, as you brought up in the article, many of the fans don’t actually play the games themselves). So you get a lot of “mascot horror” games that are, mechanically, a pretty mediocre example of another horror subgenre (Security Breach totally fits within the same general genre as something like the Clocktower series, for example), which are then transformed by how they handle lore/their character design. Which is actually something that I think is a problem for the genre — I feel like a lot of developers within the space start making mascot horror games because they love mascot horror games, and don’t have much experience with horror games outside of that context (especially since a lot of other styles of horror game are increasingly inaccessible to young devs due to age or cost).
Every time you upload i click right away, and i have these articles practically on repeat while I sew or clean my room. The music you compose for the articles, your scripts, and even your voice all work so perfectly together. You’re definitely my current favorite youtuber purely because every article you make is of the same high quality, and I know im going to like it!
While it’s not necessarily Mascot Horror, there’s this very niche little game that I really love and think more people should take a look at: Clown in a House was made by the same people behind the Catghost ARG, a little 2D game about playing a clown walking around a house. It reminds me a bit of the Stanley Parable in that it’s, at least in part, a commentary on art vs the artist with the two primary characters being an unseen narrator and the titular clown. It’s not traditionally scary most of the time, but it definitely has its moments of instilling existential dread in the player. I’d also be remiss to mention the art style of the game, which is just. utterly wonderful. I love the cartoonish look of it and the clear amount of love that was put into each object and environment. Anyways, support small game developers and go play Clown in a House.
It’s so weird seeing what mascot horror is nowadays. I’ve been with it since FNAF 2, and fell off somewhere between Security Breach and Banban. I don’t hate what we’ve gotten lately, I thought BATDR was really good, I just think the genre needs either new life brought into it, or a bit of a break so we can try rediscovering what made it so special in the first place. (I’m just glad DDLC isn’t seen as mascot horror.)
Dev here, and this honestly was an interesting read. We are releasing our own game here soon and excited about what we are debuting and while I would say we fall into this category to some degree, there are a lot of good points. At the very least, this really opens our eyes to the genre and while there are certainly problems with it, having a discussion be brought to the table is a good starting point and determining how we can go about telling stories is important. I think this genre is here to stay, at least for a long time. Look at slasher films, they are a dime a dozen and yet people go back to them and myself as a dev admit I watch many of them including the cheezy horror films out there just because of its unique-non unique take on things. At the end of the day the work artists do is their own and a story to tell. The future is fascinating and regardless if market does well or not with them having a game a dev can look at and say ‘hey I made something neat’ in the end is great. Regardless if a game gets 1 like or a million, as long as the first like is by the creator I think its a win as long as the work is towards a positive goal.
Banban LAUNCHED with a merch store and a preview for the sequel. Idk how anyone could say it wasn’t made to scoop up mascot horror money from children. Should people not have done speedruns for refunds? Absolutely, but there was a reason it was singled out among all the garbage people could have just let go. The standard isn’t “Make good games or we’ll shame you” its “Don’t make a cash grab so insultingly obvious that people start to clown on you”
honestly, I’m really glad that a lot of mascot horror stuff is repetitive and cringy, because when you find that one outlier, it makes it so much better. there are only so many original ideas in the world, and if people keep making those original ideas for every single game, there won’t be any more room for originality. the ideas will run out. it’ll all stop. so despite hating content farms, i’m glad they exist. sure they’re annoying, but it makes it all the better once you find the special original creation.
Mascot horror isn’t dead let alone indie horror (We litteraly are getting a new amnesia game tommorow and it looks great) its just the faces of mascot horror don’t give good represnation of quality and what the genre can bring, its the same problem first person shooters had in the 2010’s, their was geuinely great shooters to come out of that time but the face of it being call of duty and battlefield, two series that basicaly started good and turned into cheap easy cash basically painted the entire genre at the time as one big old awful cynical mess. Poppy playtime and gartan of ban ban are the call of duty and battlefield of indie horror, cheap, easy cashgrabs with a bizzarely loyal fanbase even tho the deveoplers would probably push you infront of the train if it meant collecting a penny underneath you
Man, hearing about all those creepypastas really hits the old memories. Being 10 years old in 2010 and coming back from school and getting on my moms computer to listen to some creepypastas or see any creepy articles going over them was a big part of my childhood. I wish they would make a comeback and get some games around them or something, but they sadly probably never will.
At 53:26, I was going to talk about my own experience with this exact problem. I’ve written stories (never shared them, though), I’ve made art, and, recently, I realized I wanted to make a game. However, with the backlash Garten of BanBan received (and now recently learning that Amanda The Adventurer got similar treatment), I’ve been terrified with the thought of being laughed off the internet forever. Especially since my own horror story I’ve written is based off of popular mascot horror games like FNaF, BaTIM, Poppy Playtime, Tattletail, and the many other titles exploring the same idea. I’m almost tempted to create an entirely new identity just to see what would happen if I did end up making a game. Sorry if this is unrelated, but I just wanted to talk about my personal experience with this!
I can’t say how glad I am I’ve found your website like a year back. You’ve got some really original format of articles and you’re just genuinely smart. Your scripts are done very well and I seriously appreciate that and enjoy seeing a new article of yours be uploaded when I get up in the morning. Keep up with the great work man!
Sagan, I’m very curious if you’re a fan of Joseph Geller’s content. I ask because of your comparison of Anatomy to House of Leaves, because Geller’s article where he explores the concept of a haunted house, using both House of Leaves and Anatomy as examples is what Introduced me to both properties. Also I feel like if you haven’t checked his stuff out you’d really dig it. Excellent article by the way.
Brought up the ages ranges of people perusal your articles near the beginning. As a 18-23 y/o who just finished their degree, I find myself preferring to watch long-form content like this over the 15 minute articles I used to prefer when I was younger. It’s nice just put on a article essay in the background to listen to like an audiobook.
“…preys on children that can’t discern what’s real…” This is something I’m very familiar with. As a dumb kid perusal YouTube articles, I was obsessed with Mario. Most of the content I watched when I was little, was Mario. From SMG4, to random GMod stuff, to comic dubs, like 90% of the stuff I watched was about the red plumber. But I couldn’t tell what was “real” Mario stuff and “made up stuff”. For a while, I just assumed everything was canon. I didn’t know about fan content. Thankfully, most of the things I saw were wholesome. Anyone remember Goomzilla? But one time, I remember perusal this comic dub (which if you remember it, I’d be very surprised, I don’t think it had many views.) about Mario and Peach actually managing to get married. It took place a while after that. I remember it pretty vividly. Peach was pregnant, there was some little scene of her talking to Daisy about it, something-something, oh hey, turns out Daisy is too, apparently. So it progresses through the pregnancy, eventually getting to the end, she has two kids, yadda yadda yadda, Mario makes some cheesy comment about “I married a princess, had two kids, and now I’ve got a chocolate cigar.” ANYWAY. All of that is to say, I rationalized that as being the origins of Baby Mario and Luigi, having no idea about Partners in Time at that point. I was actively coming up with lore and headcanon to justify practically everything I saw, no matter how small. The scary thing is, I still didn’t know that it was all fan content.
I find it hilarious that a good portion of the last part of this article goes on and on about how we should take care to be more nice, but all the top comments are still hating on mascot horror. This is such a wonderful article and the only thing the commenters took from it was “let’s not change and continue to be negative.”
13:56 this picture is still fucking terrifying, i remember being a 10 year old kid going through all of these, and of course i was scared by the likes of jeff the killer or the rake, but when i came to this one, i immediately closed out of the website, and to this day, i STILL think this picture is by far the scariest to come out of the creepypasta craze, nowadays i laugh at something like jeff the killer, but i still get shivers down my spine when i see that russian sleep experiment picture
The problem people have with garten of banban is that: the characters have a thousands Polygons per character, the bad optimization of the game because of that, the puzzles being so simple, flat and easy to complete, the drone’s controlls, the super simple jumpscares, the simple and ackward looking design of the characters, the voice acting of banban and sringerflynn for example, the animations that the characters have and for some reason each chapter they add characters out of knowhere and place them of the wall paint like if “they where always there despite you seen they weren’t there in the previous chapter” Ask to El Último TV nauta on his banban chapter 2 stream on his nautrash website, if his PC can handle the game
The argument at the end about going out to seek new games is something that really resonates with me. I hear a ton of people say rock is dead, and where is all the new rock music and like…there’s THOUSANDS of bands out there making music every day. You just gotta look for it. You can’t be mad that spotify only pushes the Top 100, if you aren’t looking anywhere else. Same with youtube and horror games. The algorithm RESPONDS to trends, it doesn’t decide what you like for you. If you want to see change, you have to be that change.
I’m glad you mentioned the YouTube algorithm and the environment YouTubers and even game developers are subjected to in order to look and feel successful. I think people should be aware of that before judging a game, especially mascot and indie horror. I do think one of the bigger problems with mascot horror is not the games themselves but the audience’s expectations of them. I think those that say “indie horror is dead” just want the ‘new’ Five Night’s at Freddy’s. FNAF is nostalgic, iconic, and revolutionary, but I do think its lineage is finally over (thanks to Security Breach). People have put FNAF as the gold standard for indie horror in general for years now and I think it has skewed people’s reception of new games making it absolutely impossible for a game to be ‘good’ because it’s not FNAF. I think people need to take FNAF down as the gold standard and leave the pedestal completely empty so new games at least have a chance at shining. I’m so sad to see that Amanda The Adventurer was poorly received by many because, in the current state of mascot horror, I think ATA is a gold-star game and should be praised. It’s not Game Theory bait, its not monetizing its characters, its story and lore are present enough for the audience to make their own conclusions, and it didn’t do the episodic method to try and draw out its time in the spotlight. It’s a short and sweet game and everything it did it did really well.
Fear and Hunger Termina, Voices of the void, Muma Rope, Signalis, theres so many new cool indie games out there, theres an incredible ammount of variety and uniqueness out there.. You just have to try to search for them, dont stick to what youtube reccomends or whats “mainstream”, youll never get out of that feeling that “indie horror is dying” if you dont. The genre really is thriving, just go out there, and try new stuff, Im sure you will find something you enjoy. :3 Even when it comes to remakes too, we pretty much just got a remake of Ib, one of the horror games ever. shjfshjf
I’ve been binge-watching all of your articles for the past couple of weeks. They’ve been helping me get through my work day. I’m nearly done perusal everything now and I’ve been stricken with a kind of sorrow that’s hard to explain just knowing I’ll be reaching the end of your articles soon. Thank you. I can’t wait to watch more.
this is an important article, glad you touched on the algorithm and what children watch all day. very interesting also. I discovered fnaf a year ago, maybe more, and I think it was because of your retrospective articles, so I’m kind of new here, but yes, I always finded it weird how some youtubers made fun of Garten, cause to me it was just another game, even with interesting ideas. I thought I didn’t knew enough about the genre so they were probably right but… I like your points very much. Keep it going! (english is not my language, maybe I made some mistakes)
Greetings from lost media archives Inc. we have seen your article and it is very interesting so see horror that revolves in mascots or robots from the past to the present. We really liked the explanation about mascot horror from he past and now. We hope you continue making articles like these and always have a wonderful day. Keep up the good work 👍 Thank you, From: lost Media Archives Inc.
Thank you for calling attention to this. This genre is a testament to the issue with the article game landscape where people demand developers to to make the game the way they want it, and if not, are worthy of online harassment until they do. Like you said honest and detailed criticism is good, especially when it comes to NFTs and toxic monetization structures, but harassment is not.
I think what FNAF nailed so perfectly was the uncanny look. Poppy Playtime’s was designed to look typically scary- big sharp teeth, etc, whereas the FNAF animatronics have these disturbing levels to them. The way Chica’s head is almost always tilted with her beak open, or how Bonnie’s eyes don’t fit right into his eyesocket.
Sagan, this is an amazing article. I’m sure every time you release one of these articles you have to be extremely concise as to not anger random people who can’t think critically, but I hope you know that this is an amazing article, just like your others! Also, what you’ve said about the algorithm REALLY resonates. Look at any digital artist nowadays, they have to have some kind of shop, and spend more time making content to advertise rather than just creating good art. (Yes, that’s exactly my life rn.) It’s like, everything is so commodified it no longer allows for artists or developers to just create art. I feel bad for all creatives as we enter this era of just consumption without thought.
I think this article made a lot of good points. The only thing I’d add is how the renaissance of the article essay might be contributing to the hysteria around mascot horror. As audiences grow older and gameplays become less appealing, I believe analysis articles have taken their place. As GameTheory and such other sources that keep an in-genre appeal are simplified and become more repetitive — both because of aging audiences and the general in-genre plot repetitions of dead kids and spirits in suits — the extrinsic articles (such as this one) that look at the genre as a whole have taken their place in a certain sense on the YouTube sphere. With this comes skepticism and critique, some of which is in good faith, some of which is misguided. I really think what’s happening is a sort of a shift in what makes these things entertaining; it’s no longer the horror or originality, that is more devoted to other such formulas (that may be doomed to repeat the same cycle.) It’s the collective knowledge and community, which sometimes results in mass outrage (Garten of Banban, for example) or occasionally a period of abnormal praise for the ‘outliers’ you mentioned. Either way, what sustains people’s interest I believe is either a sense of faithful continuity, which is almost closer to frustration at this point, (this is why FNAF’s story can never actually end) or that extrinsic analysis of the genre as a whole. The people who are engaging most in this probably aren’t the ones who mainly play the games.
I always loved this concept of taking things from our childhoods, like cartoons or toys and even animatronics, and turning it into horror, that’s why i love the mascot horror genre. In fact, i am making my own mascot horror, i really hope i don’t go through what the creators of garten of banban have experienced, but at the same time i doubt i will get as much attention anyways so i think everything will work out. I loved your article by the way, really explained the current state of mascot horror nicely.
This sort of thing has been going in horror games in general for a long time now. When resident evil and silent hill were at their peak there were a lot of bad derivative games trying to capitalise on their success. When amnesia and outlast and slender man were popular that style of game was all you could find in the horror section of steam. Now it’s became ‘Mascot horror’. Horror games and indie horror games aren’t dead, this is just how they are and always have been.
I feel like the sign of a really good content creator is to make you invested and enjoy content on topics you might not even be interested in. I’ve never played a mascot horror game, not had much experience of it outside of hate perusal the odd game theory article years ago, yet I was invested the whole way through and enjoyed the whole thing, good article!
I definitely agree with your comments about the disproportionate angry responses to a mediocre work potentially scaring away creators from sharing their works, since that’s an issue that expands beyond mascot horror. You either put your work out there with it perfect & flawless or you get savaged for the slightest flaw. This shift in response has taken the internet from the great leveler, allowing anyone to make a film/game/story without needing a studio/publisher, and turned it into a minefield, where you never know whether there’s a Discord out there coordinating a “funny” campaign against your work & probably you as a person. It’s a really depressing shift if you were/are a small creator of any kind, and I appreciate you treating it as the discouraging trend that it is.
53:30 hit me specially hard. I’ve been wanting to make a game for a long while, but I know that nobody makes a good game on their first try and I’m afraid that I will be harassed and mocked because of that. And before anyone comes at me, I know that constructive criticism is key for improving, but there’s a difference between helpful advice and people being outright mean to you.
Look into Hello Charlotte for anyone who likes the genré of RPGMaker Indie horror titles of old like Witch’s House or Mad Father. The series takes a deep psychological toll and tells the story (throughout the three games) of what it means to create fiction, how creative people often view reality in certain ways, nihilism, and the topic of grief and loss and suicide for anyone who feels like they need the kind of story that is deeply dark and disturbing and relatable but with an ultimately extremely uplifting message at it’s very end.
I really hope the term “Mascot Horror” is only useful as a marker how people felt looking back to the this moment, in this particular bubble of the Internet, and we forget about it in the long run. I personally dont like the term because it lacks boundaries and thus you can pretty much call any IP’s unique cast of characters “mascots” and then that becomes a war zone because I believe some people will love to hate on the IP just because it has Mascots, and thus toxic fandoms are formed….. I think we took something that i believe whole heartedly was a knee jerk reaction by Jhon Wolfe, a man who plays articlegames to make a living, weather he likes them or not, and then we are starting to define reality by that subjectivity.
I’ve had a few ideas for some article games, and i’m taking a 3d game design class for high school. I’ve actually had a few breakdowns over trying to be original. I’ve been really disappointed to see where mascot horror has been going, but Amanda the Adventurer gave me some hope. It’s a mix between lost media, and a more traditional mascot horror game. I honestly think it’s quite original. ATA is giving me hope for the future, because it knows how to be interesting without being a total content farm and reskinned other horror game. For those who didn’t know, it was a tiny little demo for a ‘lost media’ prompt on gamejam i think? not 100% sure. It had humble beginnings. oh, and hey. If you see a mascot horror game that you think looks original, check it out! make a article! Try to get what you think is underrated on the radar.
I can understand why Mascot Horror has developed a bit of a hatedom lately, and that’s mostly because of a mix of over-saturation, lack of real quality control, and the fact that it’s kids who are most often into these things (considering for a long time horror was seen as an “Adults only” kind of thing). But they all forget the reason WHY FNAF became so popular in the first place. When the first FNAF game came out, creepypastas were waning out of style, and what drew people towards it was the feeling of “familiarity” it had, how it was based around something nostalgic, being a children’s pizza restaurant a la Chuck E. Cheese. This was especially true when you consider that the most popular creepypastas were centered around normally kid-friendly media such as Spongebob or Sonic the Hedgehog. FNAF came out at just the right time, but as so much time has passed since those pastas were popular, that magic was forgotten and people misunderstood what made it so popular to start with, leading to the current situation.
I think the main problem with Garten of BanBan is the lack of polish acompanied by the merch plug. Even Baldi’s Basics didn’t have a merch store link in the main menu, and yet it feels more artistically…intentional? The point is, the game just highlighted the overarching problematic nature of the subgenre: the fact that you can cut corners for the sake of vibrant and or kid-friendly ip for the sake of immediate commercial use and profiteering And it doesn’t really matter if you’re two brothers trying to hit the bank or a big studio trying to rush things out to not lose momentum of the engagement cycles, ahem, security breach.
I just had this conversation with a family friend. We agreed that old raunchy and gorey movies were very problematic in hindsight, so i explained, (since hes much older,) that on the internet, the slasher stories are called creepypasta. First one i named was Jeff the killer. I bridged the gap with them on this subject, which felt nice.
Sometimes I forget I’m in the target demographic for mascot horror, I’m 14, and the demographic is like 11-16. Not to be a “I’m not like other teenagers that engage in internet culture” but I really thought the demographic was younger, it really doesn’t seem scary enough to scare a 14 year old, I thought it was like 8-12 at the latest, but maybe thats just because I was scared by fnaf when I was 8. (Edit/29:10 🙁 I love furbys and I actually have one. Theyre quirky and charming…)
Honestly nothing in any horror genre has come close to eliciting as much visceral fear in me as discussions of the “attention economy” and how content hosting sites target children with algorithmically designed visually appealing articles of little substance. I think it would be really cool if someone made a “mascot horror” game based on that, with themes deconstructing the genre and how children’s attention is capitalized for profit regardless of their own well-being. Puzzles could even involve struggling to maintain your attention in the face of the constant distractions the algorithmic villains are putting out. I’m not sure if this was already what you were planning with your new game you’re working on (and if it is, I’m so excited to see it and sorry if I just spoiled it), and I don’t have the game development experience or time to craft something like this myself, but it’s an idea I would love to see someone run with.
Gartan of BanBan kinda feels like someone stumbled along someone’s shitty DA ‘oringal oc’ and while I talked shit about it, it was in jest and in private. I doubt, I highly highly doubt, modern indie horror is dead. Amanda the adventurer and the fucking mountain load of fnaf stuff dropped on us in may shows that.
to be fair, i was already anxious to ever post my work when FNaF1 came out, and i was already an adult, now I’m more than terrified, not only from what was discussed in the article, but from the general direction that social media is taking and the constant, unrelenting “sweetening” the world with cancel culture & Co. I’ll keep selling assets or my skill as a ghost worker for now.
I think banbans main issues is it’s cliche filled game being released at a time when the genre is saturated It feels like a parody (at least the first one) because it was full of the genres cliche without its own spin and the basic art style really didn’t help Also it had a merch button (especially after poppy palatine) and a really quick turnover time that it feels like a jibe and when it turned out to be serious it infuriated the community and gave quite a backlash Akk look so people seriously hate Amanda? It really doesn’t feel anything like the tiger games mentioned outside if the hidden lore and the puzzles were generally a lot better than the fetch quests of other titles
garten of banban deserve all the criticism it already have and more, the devs can’t take constructive criticism, the games get continually more expensive with less things to do and no improvement of the graphics. and they did something horrible for business, that is ostracizing brazilian fandom. they blocked basically the “brazilian markplier” and took out the pt-br chat in discord. the way they handled the situation with this brazilian creator will certainly have a negative impact with sales and popularity here in Brazil, since almost no big creator wants to make content about it anymore (partially because is really bad and partially to side with this big brazilian creator)
Now that i almost went from the mascot horror genre, now i understand what was the biggest flaw of thise series of games, its thats almost nobody ever understood what really made older games work, and what direction they can go with the framework of those games, what elements made fnaf so unique and what they can add on there own game, like poppy playtime could have went into more corporate style, Industrialised style but no, childish things that are scary probably beacause they looked at everything from the surface, which is pretty much why it gor souless and souless time by time
Love the article as always man. The angle you took with comparing mascot horror to 80s slashers is something I had never considered, yet now that I see it I can’t unsee it. Legitimately so many parallels between the two! Anyways, your articles continue to get better and improve, and your analysis is great as always.
As an unknown indie horror dev, I’m glad someone is addressing in a realistic way the state of the genre. I find most people are quite cynic, and don’t see the good things we have right now. There’s a big library of classics (that aren’t going anywhere), some big names are getting remakes, even if end up being bad it’s great that the industry is paying attention, and if that’s not enough there’s a ton of small devs creating horror games with unique ideas. It’s truly a golden age for horror games in general, but we will not see it until it’s over, just like now days we talk about “the golden age of flash games”, and believe me, back in the newgrounds era, we didn’t know we were experiencing a golden age until years later.
Interesting. I agree with like, 90% of this article. Although I have a few issues: The euphoric bros being a small dev team doesn’t mean their motives for creating Banban aren’t any less shallow. Creating a vast amount of content to keep up popularity is fine- literally every piece of media does it, it goes beyond the horror genre or even the article game medium, but effort, passion and quality of said content is equally if not MORE important than quantity. FNaF 1-4 were made within less of a year, yes, but they were made with effort, functioned properly, actually scary, and built upon the last title in multiple ways. Not to mention outside of the main fear factor- it didn’t take inspiration from any horror games released at the time, or at least utilized said inspiration well and expanded upon it. Unlike Banban, which does nothing unique for the mascot horror genre or even the horror genre in general. -Obviously we can’t expect every project from a 1-dev team to be masterpieces, and yes, Kane Pixels, 2-Star games, David Szymanski etc. are outliers, but then those lesser quality projects have no excuse to try to gain the Youtube algorithm. Especially since it diverges attention from the outliers and gives the genre a bad name. (hell, at this point I think shitting on indie horror has become as much of a trend as making a shitty indie horror game). And on the other side of the spectrum, we shouldn’t be giving attention to stuff like Bendy and the neighbor machine chapter 56 even if is just to hate on it(something if noticed and been bothered by) What I’m saying is there’s a reason Banban got the backlash it did, some may have taken it too far but the frustration with it is understandable.
I think the thumbnail explains my opinion perfectly. FNAF is obviously the goat of indie mascot horror. And garten is the worst. And poppy in the middle. FNAF and gartens spots need no explaining but the reason poppy is in the middle for me is cuz, it’s actualy really high quality! And from what the devs have teased for ch3, this series is gunna get dark and scarier than before. They legit had to cut some stuff from the chapter to keep it under an M rating! And about their controversies, all of that was from the doings of the higher ups at MOB. And they aren’t doing NFTs anymore (which I agree was a shitty move). And they just uploaded a article saying their “Fazbear and friends” series is ending and they will work more on animated song articles. (Which is amazing news imo) and the gameplay of both ch1 and 2 and likely 3 is pretty good! Especially the chase scenes. So ye as I explained before, FNAF is the GOAT of mascot horror, garten is the WOAT(worst of all time) mascot horror game, and poppy playtime is in the middle. Not perfect, but not horrible as MANY people say. Hope you enjoyed my mascot horror talk👾
One indie horror game i really love is Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion, because of how many references it makes to other horror games in the past like Silent Hill, Amnesia, etc. But i feel like if people really want to make mascot horror better is that some devs need to make good quality games that have a interesting story and concept on paper instead of being the next game that Matpat makes a article about so the game theory nerds can talk about it for 10+ hours.
While I understand and even respect your stance on giving budding indie devs room to flourish and grow, it is perplexing to see you use Garten of Banban as the cautionary tale for that stance. Garten of Banban is a game that fails the eye test so badly that it’s extremely difficult (if not impossible) to justify or defend its popularity. I find it extremely telling that creators such as AstralSpiff who usually relish in finding the fun out of unpolished projects like Choo Choo Charles and Poppy’s Playtime have turned on Garten of Banban. It signals to me that there is some kind of floor that a game has to pass in order to successfully justify asking for people to buy in.
5:53 This is a weird, half-second point for me to argue, but I do have to disagree with the statement of Frozen being intended for marketability, only because I have first-hand experience proving that was not the case. The year the movie came out, my sister wanted her birthday party to be Frozen-themed, but no matter what store you went to or where you looked there was absolutely no Frozen merch anywhere. It took hours of DIY and Pinterest ideas to get an effective Frozen party, and it wouldn’t be until a couple months later that stores would finally be populated with Frozen merch from wall to wall.
Honestly I disagree with you on the point that “Speedrunning the Refund” is that horrible. Whilst it is definitely in part for the spectacle, it is more a demonstrative protest. It shows that not only is the game not good, but it is not worth playing at all. It’s a content shaped middle finger to a blatant cashgrab game made specifically for the purpose of making money, and not as a part of a Fandom Ecosystem or as an Expression of Art. Doing this to a two person team of developers may not be nice, it should however be seen as a critcism of methods, intent and denied value to the community and future community. It’s the step beyond a bad review, it’s saying “This is so bad, it is not worth playing and not worth paying for.”
Yeah, it was totally stupid with how the internet reacted to Garten of Ban Ban. In my opinion, I believe it started with Poppy’s Playtime as people already didn’t like the reputation of that game to begin with. Garten of Ban Ban at face value just looks like another clone of Poppy’s Playtime and I think that’s where the toxicity started. Also add onto the fact that around this time, there was this controversy that surrounded FNAF creator Scott Cawthon which I don’t want to get into. Actually, I see this kind of behavior a lot within some fandoms or certain celebrities where people treat said individual like some sort of religious figure/anti-christ and honestly it’s pathetic (i.e Star Wars, Harry Potter, Chris Chan). I can’t change people’s opinions or what they believe in, but this kind of behavior at a fundamental level is just unfathomable to me. Ultimately I believe it’s YouTube and Twitter as websites that are to blame at the end of the day. How the way these sites are structured and how they operate, it’s no wonder why so many people behave and present themselves in a manner like a MrBeast. It makes me think that Filthy Frank did the right thing by going on to pursue something different after spending a decent amount of time on this site. He left just around the same time COPPA and demonization started to take over YouTube in the late 2010s. I guess the point I’m trying to get across is that while I don’t want to think much about it, YouTube is most definitely either going to go defunct or become a completely different site all together.