Just saw manly play indigo park and oh my goodness this is turning out to be mascot horror done right or at least some good handling
Mascot horror’s been kinda a meh genre since people starting riding off the coattails of FNAF (which in itself I find good but the series works better as more of a “Sit and Survive” style game instead of a open world/roaming kinda game like everything trying to follow Security Breach.)
Poppy Playtime is ok. It’s not perfect but the devs do shine with their animation skills (Even if I feel they kinda waste it most of the time with Minecraft animations and some other controversies) and it’s not really something with a whole lot of replay value (Very linear and at least in FNAF there’s some incentive to replay a majority of the games with stuff such as secrets/alternative endings and the custom night mode.)
We have stuff we do not talk about like Garbage of Banban and the fifty million other games trying to copy it.
Anyways back to Indigo park.
Yes it’s your standard affair of mascot horror but this game has a lot of charm to it from what I’ve seen. It’s clear that this project’s being made with love and has a few things I haven’t seen Mascot Horror games do a whole lot of.
Namely in the form of this game’s voice with an internet connection and companion, a goofy little guy named Rambly the Raccoon.
While having a character to act as a guide for the protagonist is a pretty common thing in these sorts of games, they either are a faceless voice over a phone/intercom, don’t show up until much later, or a simple pre-recorded infodump. Rambly is not that.
He’s met almost right off the bat not long after you start the game. While a bit glitchy, he shows right off the bat that he has is own personality to add a bit of comic relief to what is a horror game.
I kinda like to think of Rambly as a mix between Navirou (Monster Hunter Stories) and Wheatley (Portal) since he does act as both a companion character and voice for the (silent) protagonist but also interacts and comments on the environment that he’s a part of as well.
Also while a minor one, a feature for collectibles which also add a bit of lore (and humor with some of Rambly’s comments) to the game, not something we’ve seen too often in your free roaming mascot horror titles save for Security Breach (Yes there’s going to be a lot of comparisons between the two).
Finally, onto the enemies.
They actually work pretty well in the setting they’re supposed to be set in. As in, not overly gross and elongated abstract shapes that look super out of place or filled to the brim with mutations and razor sharp teeth but actually look like the characters one might find in the setting they would be in, abet still retaining that obvious “monsters out to get you look”. Kinda like the animatronics from FNAF that would be “in service” would fit appropriately in their specific location unlike something out of Garten of Banban which is supposed to be a daycare.
In all seriousness, who the fuck would be bringing their kids to a place filled with weird blobby creatures that look something out of a Pamtri video.
In other words, go check out and support the people working on Indigo Park!