History NightmareFuel / PoppyPlaytime

*** The official handbook sheds some more light on this and revealed that the recalls led to the entire Smiling Critters brand becoming [[OvershadowedByControversy overshadowed]] by the incident, and subsequent attempts to promote other toys led to the brand's failure. The kicker is that the failure of the Smiling Critters is what led to Harley Sawyer pitching the Bigger Bodies Initiative in the first place, leading to a lot more nightmares.

** Likely taking place during the Hour of Joy, listening to the Yellow Tape reveals a conversation that Miss Delight presumably had with an employee about the children's safety, with the latter not revealing their location. Miss Delight says this with a giggle, thinking that he knew that she would kill them all. This causes her to go from a happy giggle to giving a [[LaughingMad maniacal laugh]] that wouldn't be out of place in ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry''.

** To elaborate: Shortly after you enter the orphanage, you are hit with a face full of the red smoke, which takes you to a nightmare sequence where you explore the seemingly endless hallways of the orphanage, all the while being stalked by [=CatNap=] who watches you from a distance. At one point, you hear a ringing phone and answer it with Ollie telling you to run, only to turn around and spot [=CatNap=] peeking from behind the door before he quickly vanishes. It's a rather effective {{Jumpscare}}.

* The {{Cliffhanger}} ending, where you release Poppy from a glass case, and the light flickers and dies just as she opens her eyes. Then, moments after the screen flickers to black, Poppy replies to your actions [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98JhdaFgATY&t=1690s in a voice that sounds much more different from the advertisment]]:

** Right off the bat, the trailer starts with the shadow of someone's hands (they're clearly human) laying out a series of three different slides on an old style projector. The first slide is of a group of Playtime Co. employees wearing hazmat suits complete with gas masks standing ominously around several beds with children still in them. When the beds are counted, there appears to be 12. There were 12 possible candidates for Experiment 1188 which would become [=CatNap=] (Theodore Grambell being one of them). The second slide is of four children that appear to be three boys and one girl (interestingly, the girl is clutching her left arm which is the same one that dooms Mommy Long Legs). Their faces are also scratched out. The last slide has the 1188 document from the ARG with a picture of a boy. Unlike the other two, his face is not scratched out. Once the projector turns off, the silhouette of [=CatNap=] can be seen lurking in the background.

** As you progress through the chapter and survive her minigames, Mommy [[TranquilFury gets increasingly agitated at your continued survival, but hides it with her motherly demeanour]]. But when you're essentially forced to "cheat" by making a detour to escape the "Statues" minigame, all pretense of fair play goes out the window as Mommy gets downright '''''[[VillainousBreakdown furious]]''''', going full OneWingedAngel with CreepyLongFingers, [[CurlyHairIsUgly disheveled hair]], and BlackEyesOfCrazy like Huggy. The final leg of the chapter becomes a deadly game of Hide and Seek as you run from Mommy. [[HellIsThatNoise The horrific howls she makes]] as she hunts you down does not help, nor does the fact that she can emerge and attack from virtually anywhere thanks to her elastic abilities, which really ups the ParanoiaFuel. Also, it's implied that all the spider webs you see in this chapter are her webs since several doors become suddenly blocked with the stuff.

** And then there's Mommy's death sequence: she [[GroundByGears gets pulled into in a waste disposal grinder]] because she's so focused on hunting you down and is graphically crushed apart, [[VillainsWantMercy wailing and begging not to become a part of "him" all the while]]. Oh, and not only is there a huge amount of MachineBlood, but when she finally dies, [[GoOutWithASmile her face defaults to her blank, smiling expression]] as [[HellIsThatNoise her voice slowly and terrifyingly grinds to a halt]]. And to top it all off, a creepy metal hand slowly reaches out from under the door and drags away her remains... meaning that there's something ''far'' more dangerous in the factory than Mommy.

* The door leads to a long, dark hallway with the only light being the door at the end. While Huggy isn't there, a pipe breaks as you pass, giving an equally frightening {{Jumpscare}}.

* When you're looking for the four power cores in the boxing factory, you can spot Huggy peeking at you through an air vent, already showing his GameFace, before he closes it. From this point forward [[ParanoiaFuel you know he is out there, and he knows where you are]].

* You finally get the door deeper into the facility open with your friend toy... only to discover both potential passageways to go through are locked. Then Huggy comes shambling out of the darkness of the hallway straight ahead, sporting NestedMouths with MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily bent into a SlasherSmile. To escape you flee into the vents through the conveyor belt, only to be pursued, Huggy's body contorting to fit into spaces far too small for him, the same smile never leaving his mouth as he chases you down.
** More disturbing than his face is the way that Huggy Wuggy moves throughout the chase. He isn't some stiff, awkward automaton, but instead, his motions are disturbingly smooth and organic, with it using its arms to pull itself along as it speeds through the vents after you, moving much faster than you'd think something that big could go, especially in such tight spaces. It all gives the player the impression that, rather than being chased by a mindless automaton, you're being pursued by a living thing that's coming for you with all the speed it can muster. He is not toying with you, he is not "savouring his meal", '''he wants you DEAD'''. And he will stop at nothing to achieve that.

** Even the way you dispatch of him near the end of the chapter is nightmarish, if only because he slams his head on a large steel pipe and ragdolls off of it in a manner disturbingly similar to the way a human being might. And then you notice the blood splatter left behind on that pipe after he's fallen out of sight...

* After you find the four power cores in the boxing factory, you can spot him peeking in on you through an air vent, already showing his GameFace. From this point forward you [[ParanoiaFuel know he is out there, and he knows where you are]].

** The [=CraftyCorn=] cutout shyly greets the player and asks for help with her drawing, requesting more and more "red" until she runs out, at which point she'll demand the player hand over more red and seemingly attacking them. Speaking to her afterwards has her [[PaintTheTownRed express enjoyment at having found more]]. What did that smoke do to those kids?
** The [=DogDay=] cutout is him playing fetch with the player... and then asking why they're not running before dourly saying the player can't be here. And just like Bubba Bubbaphant's and [=KickinChicken's=] cutouts, [=DogDay=] starts screaming at the top of his lungs if you press the button again.

* The Playcare. It's essentially an OrphanageOfFear that is more like a [[VideoGame/{{Outlast}} Murkoff]] [[VideoGame/OutlastII Testing]] [[VideoGame/TheOutlastTrials Facility]] rather than being a safe haven for the adopted kids who were forced down there. One shudders to imagine what exactly happened to the adopted kids because of those [[MadScientist Playtime Co. scientists]] experimenting with forces beyond their control.

** Before entering the School, Ollie warns you that [=CatNap=] doesn't even like going into the school and that he stays out. Just what is [=CatNap=] afraid of? Turns out, there's a hidden human toy mascot in the school called Miss Delight that's so freaky even ''[[HorrifyingTheHorror [=CatNap=]]]'' doesn't want to be anywhere near her. And for good reason. She starts off nice enough, but as the player listens to her intercom announcements and tapes, and reads her notes, it's clear she's insane.

** Miss Delight's backstory is a tragedy wrapped in a nightmare. Initially there were dozens of Miss Delights in the Playcare acting as teachers. But when the Hour of Joy occurred, they were all locked in the school by [=CatNap=] for fear they would harm the children in the orphanage. Eventually, isolation and near starvation pushed the current one into cannibalizing the rest. The experience drove her mad, with her relishing the thoughts of killing employees and orphans alike ever since.

** The Hoppy Hopscotch cutout tries to get the player to jump all the way to the moon with her, slowly getting more desperate. The final voice clip has her shouting at the person involved to jump before suddenly cutting off with a screech, as if [[NotTheFallThatKillsYou hitting a sudden stop]]. At that point, the reality crystallizes: the "jump to the moon" challenge was a SuicidePact.

*** The tape in the counselors offices is perhaps one of the most subtly horrific. In it, a married couple, The Hartmanns, have come in and eagerly discuss how they want to adopt a boy named Jeremy with the head of the department, Stella Greyber. She seems equally happy to have found Jeremy a family, but interrupts herself by reading his paperwork noting Jeremy's status as "Testing," before the conversation quickly becomes sour, and ends with Stella apologizing. Firstly, apparently not even ''being adopted/scheduled to be adopted is enough to save these kids if something the scientists take interest in crops up in between.'' Secondly, Stella, who knows about the experiments and is the Head of the Dept., ''was so caught off guard by what was happening that she read Jeremy's vague paperwork status out loud to the Hartmanns in confusion.'' Lastly, The Hartmanns themselves are in an isolated area, are angrily questioning the situation and [[UncertainDoom not alluded to before]] [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse or after this tape recording.]]

*** At one point in the game you can find a recording of Harley Sawyer's conversation with Prototype, before it cuts off at what seems to be the beginning of the "Hour of Joy", when all living toys rose up and massacred everyone at the factory. If Harley was Prototype's first victim during the event, then it might be where it got human bones from.

** The child in question is Marie. The future Mommy Longlegs. And it's implied this nightmare is partially why she fears The Prototype so much.

* After defeating [=CatNap=], you meet Poppy again and she finally reveals what exactly happened during "The Hour of Joy". Like many have predicted, it was effectively a wholesale '''''massacre''''' of the place. Under the control of the Prototype, the mascots rose up and slaughtered every human they could find. Guilty or innocent didn't matter. Anyone at the factory on that day was marked for death, even innocent workers who had no involvement with the experiments and civilians who happened to be touring the factory. And we even get to see a videotape of the massacre taking place with Huggy, Mommy, the Mini Huggies and the Mini Smiling Critters, Miss Delight, Boxy Boo, and [=CatNap=] all murdering everyone who crossed their path, leaving Playtime Co. utterly ''littered'' with corpses by the end of it all. A portion of the footage even shows Kissy Missy's transfer to Playcare, revealing that although peaceful towards the player, even she participated in the attack on the employees, with the implication this was the missing footage in the tape, between her being transferred and the shot of her unstrapped but [[BloodSplatteredInnocents covered in blood]]. Things take an even darker turn when it's revealed by Poppy that the toys took the bodies below where no one would find them and ''ate the corpses'' to survive. Despite not having seen it due to being locked in her case, she recalls everything she ''heard'' on that horrible day in vivid, disturbing detail, and is on the verge of tears the further she goes.