Poppy Playtime (2021)

chapter 3 is so good im like so proud on behalf of just... humanity and people who like video games, i guess. it's sick. graphics/performance aren't even that important to me but they really outdid themselves, it's crazy to be able to make such direct comparisons to their previous games, but the time off went to good use and it shows.

it (visually speaking) looks fantastic, and.. what's this? gameplay? in my indie horror game??? like i thought, especially at the time, that chapter 2 was great! but the minigame format didnt really serve it that well i think. it was fun! but looking back, it doesn't feel like it had a clear vision on the actual play experience of the game, i guess. like there's a bit of a disconnect between the puzzle rooms and the minigame rooms, where the puzzles mostly feel like theyre there to A. show off the environment and ambiance but also B. sort of just to kill time. some of them feel more like tech demos of the hand swing than anything else, and the minigames are fun but not long or significant enough to be the main part of the game.

chapter 3 is probably 50% longer than chapter 2, at least, but it feels like has WAY more than 50% more gameplay. like the embracing of much longer puzzle sequences REALLY works i think, because it actually feels like a puzzle game, instead of a game with puzzles. there are still some odd sequences in the vents that feel a bit ?? like they didn't put a whole lot of thought into WHY that section exists other than to get you from one place to another. but i would say 90% of the game feels very polished from that perspective, which is really a lot higher than most games even necessarily needs to be for me to enjoy playing them lmao