Nightmare Fuel / Bugsnax

Warning! Spoilers are off, per policy. Read at your own risk.

General

• Throughout the game, you can encounter a strange hulking monster often only seen from a distance. It… doesn't look nice. Needless to say, if you happen to come across it just staring at you from the waterfall in Garden Grove, which it sometimes does, you'll probably jump out of your skin.

Main story

• The very beginning of the game is quite unsettling. You start during a literal dark and stormy night with fairly ominous music playing as you look at a map to Snaxburg. And the next thing you know a giant pizza-moth attacks your ship, knocking you off and separating you from it as it drifts off! You land right outside a small mine with a grumpus skeleton inside it as well as some Fryders scurrying around, which can be quite startling, especially for those who have arachnophobia. And to make matters even creepier, there are two signs in the small cave, one that says "DANGER" on it and the other with a skull and crossbones. And if you take out your Snaxscope and scan them, the Journalist will point out how odd it is that those two signs are there and that they doubt Lizbert set them up. After you leave, a small tremor shakes the area, knocking a Strabby statue off the cliff. You then walk across a bridge that begins to collapse from underneath your feet! You narrowly avoid that and come across some rustling bushes before standing at the top of a cliff with a ladder when the pizza-moth appears over your head again. And then another tremor shakes the area, causing you to fall off the cliff and smack your head on a rock! So yeah, all in all, not a very warm welcome.
  • Even Clumby's interview of sorts after you watch the first tape has some creepy elements to it, such as her telling you that Snaktooth Island is dangerous because "ships go missing around there all the time" and that the place is "deadly". Makes you wonder just how many ships have gone missing and how many grumps are dead as a result!
• The second party you have is a Ghost Story sit-down event. The characters discuss what happened to the dead of those who've come before them to Snaktooth.
  • Firstly, the campfire goes out with a gust of wind and you have to go to the mill to get more wood, starting from silence to the eerie Ghost Story theme.
  • Secondly, once you return, Filbo leaves to use the restroom, and screams a minute later. When you investigate, a creepy deep-voiced growl comes from inside. Filbo then reveals he didn't go in at all, and when you turn around, the porta-potty is wide open and empty. It's never properly explained what happened there, and whatever it was had a voice too low to have been Chandlo.
  • Most people miss it as their attention is on the characters in front of them, but if you turn around near the beginning of the campfire scene, you'll see a dark, shadowy figure run away.
• The final act of the game is this, starting from when Snaxburg is destroyed by the earthquake. You finally head back to open the strange temple door and get in… only for the floor to fall from under you when you succeed and charge in, separating you from Filbo and Eggabell. But the horror only worsens from here, as you've fallen into:
  • The Undersnax, a place that can best be described as a combination of Level Ate and Womb Level, a large tunnel network with large foods lining the walls and floor, filled up ankle-deep with what looks like blood. To make things even more disturbing, if you stand still long enough, you can see that the "food" is moving and pulsating, ...as if it's alive. Needless to say, it's incredibly jarring coming from the relative cheeriness of the game before this.
  • When you find Filbo, he's being menaced by what appears to be a roughly Grumpus-shaped figure composed entirely of Bugsnax, which dissipates and falls apart into the goop beneath you, though not before giving what appears to be a Death Glare at you. And given its similarity to the hulking creature that you've caught glimpses of throughout the game, it doesn't seem that friendly.
  • On the way to Liz with Filbo, sometimes diverging from the path a little means the hulking creature (now called the Snaxsquatch) runs at you, and then the game teleports you a little ahead, where you're supposed to be. It's the closest thing the game gets to a full-on Jump Scare.
  • But all of this is nothing compared to what you find at the end of the tunnel: A large cavern with giant foodstuff… and an absolutely monstrously large Bugsnax… with Lizbert at the very top, horrifically mutated and melded into the monstrosity. And while you've finally gotten your chance to interview her and find out what the hell is going on, and finding out that the Snaxsquatch is her own creation, things only get much worse when it comes to her discovery of the Bugsnax…
    • As you talk to Lizbert and she tells you what Bugnax are and how she became this...thing, her snakified body parts will change spontaneously, and the Bugsnax she's attached to rises her up nearly to the roof of the cave, emphasizing just how thoroughly merged she's become to the Bugsnax.
  • The Bugsnax are PARASITES. They turn themselves into their colorful tasty food-like selves in order to attract their prey, and once you get addicted, they subtly change your behavior to crave them even more by preying on your pain and insecurities. As they assimilate more and more of your body, you will eventually die after having your whole body turned into inanimate snak matter, with your body just… crumbling apart. And this new snak matter is assimilated by the island to create new Bugsnax. Yep, the Bugsnax are the remains of previous Grumpuses brought to a mockery of life to assimilate new victims with their parasitic life cycle. And you've been helping them get new victims with the people of Snaxburg, who've all been feasting on the Bugsnax to deal with their insecurities.
  • To make matters worse, the entire island is made of them. All of the strange geological activity you've been seeing is the island itself shuddering in hunger because it hasn't assimilated anyone recently, and is breaking itself apart out of desperation for new victims.
  • Lizbert's description of her own transformation is pretty horrific in itself. Imagine you've just been out hunting with your girlfriend who you've reconciled with after a nasty argument, only to have an avalanche start due to an earthquake and nearly sweep her away! And after you manage to save her, you're suddenly swallowed up by the island itself and fall down into the aforementioned Undersnax. You're dazed, confused and more than likely in pain, and then, before you can have any sort of chance of regaining your bearings and attempting to figure out what's going on, a swarm of large parasites began to crawl all over your body and force themselves down your throat in order to warp your body into various mutations as they attempt to take over your body unwillingly! That thought alone is enough to make you want to lose sleep!
  • To top it off, Lizbert herself is pretty much the only thing at the moment keeping the Bugsnax at bay, having survived her ordeal with the Bugsnax through sheer willpower alone… and her will is beginning to falter. It's even more horrifying when you consider that if she hadn't been holding them back, all of Snaxburg and its residents likely would have succumbed before you even arrived. No one would have known the full horror that lay beneath Snaktooth Island, meaning new victims would become easy prey if they ever came.
• When you are chucked out of the volcano by the Lizbert/Eggabell Bugsnax monster to go and evacuate everyone off the island, the environment has changed drastically. The water has turned into the same blood red gunk that you saw in the Undersnax. The island is draped in a blood red sky as it shakes with an increasing frequency. But worst of all, parts of the environment around you are now showing the same food patterns that had lined the walls of the Undersnax, all the while an increasingly frantic twisted version of the background music plays. Snaktooth Island has shown its true horrid face… and it hungers.
• While not elaborated on much outside of Liz's reveal earlier, the implications of the Bugsnax turning on their "predators" and forcing themselves down their throats to force snakification is extremely disturbing in itself. This ends up playing out in front of you as you work with the town defenders, as if you don't do a good job of keeping the Bugsnax at bay, they will do exactly this to them, forcing them to change and become Bugsnax even faster. It's even more horrifying given how much the locals have come to see the Bugsnax as harmless, only for them to turn out to be anything but.
• If one of your characters dies during the town defense, their snakified body parts start to fall off as they succumb to their desire for the Bugsnax before disappearing completely, leaving only the parts behind. To put the cherry on top, they'll delve into corrupted ramblings of despair.
• Then there's the post-credits scene if you get the Golden Ending. You hear your old boss, Clumby, speaking to a mysterious voice and as they talk about what to do with the survivors of Snaktooth, the voice she's talking to says that they need to "keep an eye" on the group. Then, they end with these relatively shocking lines:
  Mysterious voice: Tu Quid Edas.^translation You are what you eat
  Clumby: Omne Vivum Ex Bugsnax.^translation All life is from Bugsnax
  • That's right. Clumby knows damn well that bugsnax exist and her giving you crap about believing in them was just a cover to hide her true intentions! Now, we don't know just what her and the voice are planning but whether it's good or bad, it still might prove troublesome for the survivors...
  • And to top it all off, it turns out that a Strabby managed to sneak onto the boat and is now more than likely on the mainland!

DLC content

• According to Triffany, there was a chance that the old grumpus civilization that used to reside on Broken Tooth Island was destroyed by something "very big" and "very nasty". Shelda even theorizes that it was either the wrath of her god, Mother Naturae... or the wrath of the lost and vengeful grumps that were sacrificed and may still lay dormant beneath their feet... Even Triffany, the Nightmare Fetishist and slightly nihilistic archealogist that isn't usually bothered by things like her inevitable death and old grumpus skeletons, seems almost disturbed by that thought!
• The Triplicate Space. Aside from the mournful music that plays as you explore it, there are several unsettling implications as to what the place is and what it's doing on Snaktooth.
  • For starters, there are various tape recorders scattered all throughout the area, with a mysterious voice - the same one from the original post-credits scene - basically mocking whoever's interviewing him. As we later discover, the voice's name is Alegander Jamfoot and the journalist interviewing him? It's Clumby, your cranky boss from the beginning of the game! We know this because if you find and listen to all ten of the tape recorders, she sends you a letter, asking you what you plan on doing with the truth now that you know. She then tells you to not make the same mistakes she did and to not let Jamfoot push you around. Makes you think of just how he treats her...
  • Jamfoot then begins to gradually reveal what he's learned about this area, such as the fact that it's more than likely a temple of sorts as well as the discovery of the three queens. And he also describes how the first Queen was wrathful and when awakened, she wrecked a "terrible vengeance" on those who had sacrificed her to the Bugsnax. There's even a mural depicting someone being sacrificed and either turning into a queen... or outright dying!
  • He then tells Clumby that Bronica Lottablog has gone someplace that Clumby "should not follow". And what exactly this means is never explained...
  • And then, to top it all off, he forcefully inducts Clumby into the organization of the Snakolytes to keep it's secrets from being revealed! And it's clear from the aforementioned letter that Clumby is not happy with this, with the implied way Jamfoot treats her...
  • And then there's the fact that Jamfoot was more than likely completely on his own during the time he spent on Snaktooth! And how long was it? Well, judging from the fact that he has thirteen "Employee of the Month" pictures of himself on the wall in his office, he was there for at least an entire year! Makes you wonder just how he didn't go insane until Clumby showed up!^note Of course, the Cappuceetle, who he named Joey Quickbeans, might've helped him with that.

Unused content

• As described here and here, the original ending was much darker then what we got and what we got is scary enough! To go into detail, Elizabert's original reason for disappearing was unintentionally causing Eggabell's death! The original story would've had the grumpuses turn into something similar to zombies instead of just turning into bugsnax upon consuming too many of them! Eggabell ended up undergoing this transformation and attacked Lizbert only to be pushed off the cliff at Frosted Peak! And then her corpse disintegrating into various Bugsnax upon her death! This caused a distraught Lizbert to simply hide in a cave in shame. The various video diaries of Lizbert and Eggabell were meant to help the player get to know Eggabell before her untimely death. To add insult to injury, in the second video diary, Eggabell tells Liz that "she'd fall to pieces without (her)", foreshadowing her eventual death! Of course, all of this is also a massive Tear Jerker and they thankfully changed this, to avoid the Bury Your Gays trope and keep this game relatively kid-friendly.

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