why is windy castle
One thing the video game My Friend Peppa Pig (2021) does exceptionally poorly is pacing. Dialogue that is intended to establish settings and scenarios can not be skipped by any means, which leads to segments where the game's characters describe something to the player in detail multiple times despite Peppa and her friend having already canonically seen/done the sequence in question earlier in the play session. Aside from lacking in narrative sense, this issue can engender impatience in the player as they sit through (often long-winded) things they've already heard in anticipation of something new.
Keeping this in mind, another problem with the game is its reliance on random events. Most sequences are triggered by a set of consistent parameters, usually entering a new place or interacting with a specific character. Some however, tirgger at a random time when Peppa and her friend are exploring a particular place.
When standing in the entryway of Peppa's home, the rest of her family can randomly decide to interrupt whatever was happening prior and insist the family instead visit Windy Castle. Everything from the suggestion dialogue to travel is entirely un-skippable and the house entryway connects several significant sequences together so it's often visited by the player in the course of normal play.
All of this means the player can find themselves caught in a loop of returning to Windy Castle while trying to accomplish other things, and unless they would prefer to reset the game they have no choice to but to listen through the dialogue repeatedly - the proverbial loop itself offering the illusion that every time Peppa visits Windy Castle is the very first time.
When putting together Pep of Pig I was inspired by this in my own playthrough. I wanted to warp the experience of returning to Windy Castle into something surreal enough to be unsettling, but funny and varied enough to be less painful to sit through than it is in-game.
