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Nightmare Fuel / Poppy Playtime

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As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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"I just hope that you're certain whatever you're doing is worth it."

You venture into the abandoned toy factory of Playtime Co., which had a mass disappearance of its employees ten years ago... What Could Possibly Go Wrong? A whole lot, especially since it isn't as abandoned as you may think...


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The Game:

    Chapter 1: A Tight Squeeze 
  • The first scene of the game, where you watch an old infomercial for Playtime Co. advertising the titular Poppy doll. You get to see up close how creepy she is, with her odd proportions, porcelain features, and Creepy Monotone voice.
    • The female presenter in the Poppy-ad always ends her descriptions of Poppy's functions by stating that Poppy is "just like a real girl." When the presenter asks Poppy if she has anything more to say before the advertisement ends, Poppy replies, in a very insistent tone:
      Poppy: I'm a real girl. Just like you.
  • The instruction video for the GrabPack is quick to inform the user to not fire the hands at co-workers because the device has the strength to rip someone's head clean off their shoulders. It's never explained how the company knows this.
    • For a bit of Nightmare Retardant: Consider that the company only knows this based on a few calculations regarding the strength of the GrabPack. It takes an estimated 5,000-15,000 Newtons of force to decapitate a human being. If the GrabPack is capable of exerting more than 15,000 Newtons of force, it can rip a person's head off. (Or, you know - they could have tested on some crash test dummies.)
  • Huggy Wuggy, Playtime's most successful toy, is a recurring threat throughout the chapter. His appearance alone is unnerving, even before he gets his Game Face. He is absolutely huge, with creepily long arms (designed to be able to "hug you forever"), and lifeless eyes, always staring straight ahead.
    • Huggy's Image Song, which you can listen to when pressing the button on the plaque for his statue, sounds harmless at first. But the lyrics start to take on a much more sinister meaning later down the line.
      "His name is Huggy,
      Huggy Wuggy!
      When he hugs you he'll never stop!note 
      Your friend Huggy,
      Huggy Wuggy!
      He'll squeeze you until you pop!"
  • Huggy's first appearance, where he seems to be a statue in the circular room in the facility until you've returned from the power room, where you quickly realize he's disappeared. When you move on towards the Make-A-Friend room, you'll see his arm slink into an ajar door.
  • 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 a no less frightening Jump Scare.
  • When you're looking for the four power cores in the boxing factory, you can spot Huggy peeking at you through a conveyor belt door before he closes it. From this point forward, you know that he is out there, and he knows where you are.
  • When you activate the Make-A-Friend machine, its main set of eyes will open and focus on you, trailing your movement wherever you go. And when the machine finally makes your friend toy, Cat Bee, it's supposed to be endearing but it has a vacant expression that practically screams "I'm dead inside".
  • A minor one, from the same area: Markiplier discovered the hard way that there is indeed fall damage in this game when he jumped off the highest platform after turning on the Make-A-Friend machine. That's not the nightmare fuel. The nightmare fuel is the extremely realistic, clicking snap that accompanies the fall damage, indicating that the protagonist just broke his legs.
  • 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 Nested Mouths with More Teeth than the Osmond Family bent into a Slasher Smile. 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, using his arms to pull himself along as he 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 anymore, he is not "savoring his meal", he wants you DEAD. And he will stop at nothing to achieve that.
    • To make the entire scenario more unnerving is all of the messages scrawled along the walls as you flee. All of them are scribbles with warnings not to move forward, to turn back, etc. However, there's no way back that doesn't involve Huggy Wuggy killing you. Then, when you finally escape and reach the "Flower", there are multiple warnings with arrows pointing away from the door... and possibly over the edge of the catwalk. The warnings may have been trying to tell you that death would be preferable to whatever awaits beyond that door...
    • Even the way you dispatch him near the end of the chapter is nightmarish, if only because he slams his head on a large steel pipe and ragdolls off 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...
  • Listening to the grey tape reveals an Apocalyptic Log by a scientist who locked himself away when... something, implied to be Huggy (or perhaps another toy), broke free of containment when they attempted to dispose of it. Just as disturbing, the scientist brings up how he is unafraid of death, as "one more breakthrough" will bring him back. As the audio cuts out, it makes you wonder what exactly the scientists in Playtime were trying to do with these experiments.
    • Oh, and something else about this tape? You can hear something in the background while the guy is talking, specifically, screaming and banging on metal (and those screams sound a lot like those of Huggy), making it pretty clear what's going on outside that room. Near the end, you can hear something breaking through the doors, and getting closer to the scientist recording this, and he doesn't even seem to notice. It gets closer and closer and then recording cuts out mid-sentence.
    • Although it was hard to see in-game before, a remastered update to Chapter 1 made several graphical changes to the lighting in the facility, which called better attention to a decal on the wall in the room where the first electrical circuit puzzle is solved. A decal of a mechanical hand and the word "wonderful". Both things that were associated with the Prototype, revealing its influence much earlier than previously thought.
  • 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 in a voice that sounds much more different from the advertisment:
    Poppy: (deeper, older voice) You opened my case.

    Chapter 2: Fly in a Web 
  • The start-up screen depicts Mommy Long Legs's hands tangled all across the Innovation room and with her hand front and center, sometimes twitching.
    • It's the aftermath of Mommy's hand getting caught in the crusher.
  • The introduction of Chapter 2 is particularly unnerving. It is mostly presented as a commercial for Mommy Long Legs similar to the Poppy Playtime commercial, fuzzy with overtly cheerful kids pulling and playing with the toy, then a light whisper of "wake up" can be heard as the narrator continues on. Then to display Mommy's bendy nature, they animate her in stop motion making all sorts of unnatural poses while staring blankly, ending with her suddenly crawling towards the viewer then cutting to a worm's eye view of her landing on all fours. As the commercial continues, Poppy's whispers become louder until the screen flickers off and she is seen in the reflection of the television.
  • Whatever the hell happened in Poppy's room, with some furniture in disarray and the entrance you came from barricaded, complete with a wardrobe pushed out of the way of a hidden door. It's implied that this is Poppy's doing, attempting to prevent you from going back, but it's ultimately never discussed.
  • The training video after getting the green electric transferring hand has an animated situation showing someone getting crushed as a door loses its charge and closes.
  • Everything about Mommy Long Legs is nightmare fuel incarnate. Huggy Wuggy, though terrifying in his own right, at least didn't talk and felt more like a feral predator that only kills to eat. Mommy, by contrast, is not only intelligent, but has the mindset of a sadistic killer, making her all the more dangerous, and she'll let you know it.
    • The fact that she somehow manages to have a Slasher Smile despite not having teeth. Nothing about that terrifying grin is "motherly"...
    • Mommy's Establishing Character Moment. After you meet up with Poppy, one of Mommy's hands reaches from the hole and grabs Poppy. She later meets you face-to-face and challenges you to a series of minigames in exchange for pieces of the train code... and makes a rather explicit threat as to the consequences of not doing as she says. The uncharacteristically cold tone in her voice does not help.
      Mommy: Obey the rules, or I'll tear you apart and eat your insides while you're still alive. (Evil Laugh)
      • Oh and during this entire exchange, she's holding Poppy, who is gagged, alternating between talking to you directly and wiggling Poppy around while putting on a voice like a parent pretending to talk to a child with a stuffed animal. While the rest may be more threatening, this behaviour is more unsettling on account of the mix of parental behaviour with showing how little care she actually has for other toys and effectively reminding the player she has a hostage.
    • As you progress through the chapter and survive her minigames, Mommy 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 furious, going full One-Winged Angel with Creepy Long Fingers, disheveled hair, and Black Eyes of Crazy like Huggy. The final leg of the chapter becomes a deadly game of Hide and Seek as you run from Mommy. The horrific howls she makes as she hunts you down don't help, nor does the fact that she can emerge and attack from virtually anywhere thanks to her elastic abilities, which really ups the Paranoia Fuel. Also, it's implied that all the spider webs you see in this chapter are hers, since several doors become suddenly blocked with the stuff.
      Mommy: I ASKED YOU TO PLAY FAIR AND YOU CHEATED! I HATE CHEATERS! Now, we're gonna play one... last... GAME! It's called... Hide... and... SEEK!
      • Mommy starts counting down from ten, albeit in a very creepy tone while giving the player enough time to haul ass and run for dear life. Needless to say, if you stick around her by the time she stops counting, it's not gonna end well for you.
        Mommy: Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven... Six... Five... Four... Three... Two... ONNNNEEE!!!
    • She'll still finish the countdown with that loud scream regardless of how far away you are from her.
    • Her jumpscare reveals that her eyes are so big that their edges can be seen at the top of her mouth.
    • And then there's Mommy's death sequence: she gets pulled into a waste disposal grinder because she's so focused on hunting you down and is graphically crushed apart, wailing and begging not to become a part of "him" all the while. Oh, and not only is there a huge amount of Machine Blood, but when she finally dies, her face defaults to her blank, smiling expression as 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.
      • What exactly does the hand belong to, and why is it essentially collecting corpses? The answer can't be anything good. Could it also be possible that it also collected Huggy after his fall?
      • If you look closer, you'll see that the hand has human bones attached to it.
      • The scream she lets out when she gets caught in the machine. It's both somewhat human and completely inhuman at the same time.
      • Regarding Mommy's death, consider this... she goes limp the moment her lower body/abdomen gets burst by the grinder. She's also supposed to be a spider. Which important organs are located in the spider's abdomen? Heart and respiratory system. She died from having the equivalent of her major organs crushed apart, punctuated by her oil splattering all over the gears as it happens.
      • Players have pointed out that Mommy Long Legs could have possibly saved herself if she had simply sacrificed the trapped arm or tried using the other to turn off the switch to the waste disposal unit. Her reactions to getting her hand caught in the grinder indicate absolute blind panic, however; first, she tries to brace herself and push back with her other hand, then she does the same with her foot, which ultimately dooms her when her foot gets caught in the machine instead and fully drags her in. It's a very human panic response from an otherwise-intimidating character.
      • While seeing Mommy get her just desserts might be satisfying (or not depending on what part of the initial death scene freaks you out), when she utters the line below, you might feel your blood run cold.
        Mommy: (screams hysterically as she tries desperately to pull herself out) WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! HE'LL MAKE ME PART OF HIM! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! (continues screaming until her abdomen is crushed, at which point her voice slowly grinds to a halt before her upper body breaks off and falls to the ground)
  • Not too long after Mommy Long Legs' death, a grey VHS tape can be found. Like the grey tape from Chapter 1, this one is on "The Prototype", revealing that whatever it is, it's not Huggy Wuggy (Huggy is referred to as "Experiment 1170", whereas the Prototype is "Experiment 1006"), and is smart enough to figure out how to disable alarms and security cameras and hide from surveillance. While the tape is playing, a metal hand appears on the screen, and that hand looks eerily like the one that collected Mommy's corpse, implying that we just got a glimpse of The Prototype, and it's been following us up until now...
  • A very small one. In the reject toy room, you can mess with the audio cardboard cut out of Bron the Dinosaur which will tell goofy jokes. Initially it starts simple enough with Bron telling some really bad jokes followed up with a goofy laugh. On the final joke, Bron asks "What do you call the scariest dinosaur?" When you push the button for the answer, he only says one word, "Me.". It's not even followed up with a goofy laugh like previous jokes. Suddenly you start to second guess those harmless looking Bron statues.
    • In fact, most of the cardboard cutouts have terrifying lines, from the Candy Cat cutout begging you to stop feeding her to the Cat-Bee cutout warning you to get out of the factory (before saying that she's "joking", supposedly).
    • The Boogie Bot cutout has some very cute lines such as "am I a real boy?" and "I love you.". Interact with it enough times and it'll respond with "the button hurts me".
  • Said Bron statues within the reject toy room lack the eyes of the normal toys, revealing empty sockets. That alone isn't the creepy part, as halfway through your progress of removing one of them from a platform, the largest "statue" will turn its head to face you if you're not looking at it. There's also no fanfare when this happens, so people tend to not even notice.
  • Most of the nightmare fuel comes from the minigames Mommy forces you to play to progress, because just to re-iterate: they had kids playing these when the factory was open.
    • The Musical Memory test room is a frantic stress test since it's a memory puzzle where you must memorize and repeat a series of patterns that get longer and more complex as the round progresses. All the while, Bunzo Bunny slowly descends towards you, descending faster if you get it wrong. And you have to endure five rounds of this, by the way, with the fifth round becoming a deliberately unwinnable sequence to remember that can only be escaped via a literal panic button.
      • Bunzo also shows a few sadistic tendencies throughout his game. When he's first lowered to you, he bangs his cymbals when Mommy tells you that he's excited to eat you, almost as if he agrees. Then, if he reaches the end of the tube above you, he'll actually pause for a few seconds and bang his cymbals in excitement, likely taunting you about how helpless you are to stopping him.
    • The Wack-a-Wuggy test room has you use your Grab-Pack to fend off a seemingly endless wave of miniature Huggy Wuggies trying to get out through the holes. Thing is, the room you're in is rather dimly lit, meaning you have to actually listen for the sound of the Wuggies crawling through the holes and snarling at you and hope your reflexes are fast enough to stop them before they get to you. Doesn't help that as the game progresses, the Huggies get faster and more and more of them start to appear.
      • Right before you play the game, Mommy reveals that the little Huggies had strings attached to them so they wouldn't get too close to children playing the game...then she tells to have fun with this revelation as she implies the strings have now been cut.
      • The way the Mini-Wuggies kill you. If one gets too close they start to growl like an animal which is already unsettling enough but then comes the jump scare where they latch onto you and the screen goes black. Only instead of eating the player like the previous Huggy Wuggy would, they snap your neck!
      • The Mini-Wuggies, unlike the Huggy Wuggy mascot beforehand, don't possess sharp teeth, instead having loose gums where they should be. It's quite likely that Playtime Co. defanged them so they wouldn't just bite children who came near. However, this also begs the question of what the hell kind of process caused them to gain teeth like Huggy Wuggy in the first place.
    • Statues is essentially a twisted game of Red Light, Green Light. You must navigate through a darkened obstacle course while PJ Pug-A-Pillar slowly closes in on you. The catch? You can only move while the room is dark and must stop moving when the room is lit, giving Pug-A-Pillar time to catch up with you. Also, as the game progresses, the amount of time the room stays dark gets increasingly shorter until it only stays dark for a few seconds. Even worse, the test is actually unwinnable too as debris blocks the exit. Your only chance of escape is to grapple into the observation room.
      • When the lights are on, you get a good look on PJ blocking off any possible escape routes with his extremely long body. We also never see PJ's entire body length, which is apparently enough to span the entire room, if not more. Keep that in mind when you realize that (going by his toy box description) he grows by taking various body parts...
      • You also wouldn't expect such a slow thing to catch you easily, right? Try moving in the light, however, and you'll find out just how much he is holding back.
      • In PJ's jumpscare, he manages to distort his mouth so wide that it bends his Slasher Smile into an angry scowl, as well as causing his eyes to sink back into his sockets.
  • After you finish the first two minigames, you can look up in the main room and see Bunzo and the Mini-Wuggys among the webbed toys. They weren't there before you finished the minigame, and if you go to rooms where the minigames took place, Bunzo and the Mini-Wuggys aren't there anymore. What's worse, you can find audio files in the game that are titled mommy_kills_bunzo and mommy_kills_mini_huggies giving you a good idea of what happened to them once you escape their games.
    • Worse, if you come back to the Game Station after each preceding game, the corpses are nowhere to be found. Then you realize just what happens to Mommy Long Legs some time later...
  • Kissy Missy's brief scene. She walks out of nowhere and sees the player is separated from her by a gate. Kissy Missy then proceeds to look very carefully from the player, to a red lever that will open said gate, then back at the player in a way that makes it seem as though you're about to have a repeat of the Huggy Wuggy chases from Chapter 1. She turns out to be benevolent, simply opening the gate and walking away without hurting you, but it's unnerving in the moment. Plus it's not clear why she did this or if she'll be so nice if she returns.
  • Poppy casually deciding to re-direct the train when you've finally got a way out, after spending the opening of this chapter at least trying to play nice with you (at least until Mommy takes her away and puts her in the control room). What else can Poppy do remotely?
    • The first sign of trouble is just how coldly she asks about Mommy's death.
  • There is a note written by a man named Eddie M. N. Ritterman addressed to a construction company called Warrenbach that you can pick up. The note mentions the construction of a secret laboratory and the deadline for its completion is 12 months. Plus, only select people at the Warrenbach Construction Company and Playtime Co. were allowed to know about it. That in of itself is a big red flag. It gets worse, however. If you use a hack (the hole is too narrow to get through normally and the vent you travel through partially collapses before you get back to the entrance near the water treatment room which would allow you to enter it) and are able to move the camera through the large narrow hole in the wall located in the general location of the Boogie Bot cutout (Where you turn on the power for that section, this is before you come to face to face with Mommy Long Legs again. You can also no clip the camera through the metal security gate where you first enter that section from the water treatment plant.), you can get a glimpse of the aforementioned laboratory, complete with overhead mounted surgical lamps, a computer monitor, and in front of the monitor and most horrifying of all, is an operating table with a large blood stain on it.
    • With the release of Chapter 3, this may not actually be the main laboratory as the end of the aforementioned chapter implies that the laboratory's main entrance is beneath Playcare (For orphans who have been selected for experimentation. There are likely other entrances for the scientists.). Instead, it may be an infirmary or an examination room of some sort. It may even be connected to the main laboratory from an as of yet undiscovered entrance.
  • As you start to uncover more of the secrets of Playtime Co. there are four things that shed light on how things were beginning to go south. The first one is the VHS tape with the interview between Leith Pierre and employee Marcas Brickley. Marcas mentions seeing something that in his words was 50 feet long with a thousand legs (which sounds like PJ Pug-A-Pillar) and it ends with Leith not believing him before dismissing him (Leith only mentions that he will have security skim through the camera footage as opposed to putting them on alert). A second tape has a picture of Mommy Long Legs' arm with a message from management addressing the concern of an alleged giant spider (which fits the description of either Experiment 1006 or Mommy Long Legs herself) and saying that it is nothing to be concerned about (possibly to keep a lid on the truth). The last two things are a set of test score sheets for the games. Both of which have blood stains on them and the notes at the bottom suddenly cutting off as if the author was interrupted (likely because something had attacked them). The proctor's name is different on both sheets (one is named Sara Abell, while the second one is named Mateo Lata) while the name of the child being tested is the same (Makayla Hyssop). This heavily implies that an experiment had gotten into the observation room and killed them while they were proctoring Makayla, and Makayla seems to have gotten distracted by the entity in both cases. This means that some experiments were already starting to breach containment within the factory, while the management seemingly ignored the problem, eventually leading up to the event that caused the staff to disappear.

    Chapter 3: Deep Sleep 
  • The chapter's introduction video will definitely make you view sleep differently and really sets the tone for the horrors to come.
    • It starts like a somewhat normal Smiling Critters cartoon where a night of bad weather keeps the Smiling Critters from sleeping, clearly terrified of the storm. At that moment, CatNap shows up and things quickly take a more sinister turn when his friends start begging him to put them to sleep with his sleeping gas with wide grins still on their faces, and unnerving looks in their inverted eyes which, rather than them wanting to have a full night's sleep, comes across as if they're addicted to the gas. And judging by how desperate they were to fall asleep; it is very likely that they have been unable to sleep for hours. CatNap obliges and dispenses the gas, complete with an unholy exhale. And that's when it truly becomes terrifying as they begin laughing hysterically as the gas floods the room, their body language and expressions making them look like they're going insane. The Critters' laughter quickly becomes much louder and distorted until it evolves into a full blown scream before it suddenly cuts to the Smiling Critters knocked out by the gas (though from how motionless they are, you'd be forgiven for thinking they were actually dead). Meanwhile, CatNap sits in the middle of the room staring right at the screen, his eyes staring straight into the viewer's soul. The fact that he remains completely silent throughout the cartoon and never shows any expression other than a smile only adds to the unsettling feel. And remember, this is supposed to be a cartoon for kids.
      • The video then transitions into a local News Report which reveals that children were experiencing horrifying nightmares caused by CatNap plushies they owned. Understandably concerned parents complained to Playtime Co. which led to the company scrapping and recalling thousands of CatNap plushies around the globe. The video ends with the news reporter commenting that "Your children are not safe with CatNap"...
      • The other introduction videos seemed to be tame with a hint of Accidental Nightmare Fuel at worst in-universe. This one pulls no punches whatsoever, which raises many questions including the public’s possible thoughts and reactions in-universe.
    • CatNap, disregarding the presence of the mascot version, is suspiciously concerning as a character and product. In-universe, CatNap has the darkest color scheme out of the Smiling Critters toy line, in the cartoon he doesn't say a word as he is breathing out his red smoke (as superimposed footage over a still), and possibly overdosing his crazed friends with static cutting their process of actually falling asleep. The toys all look disconcerting, but CatNap's scent gimmick is the only one to have a specific function in that it puts your kids to sleep. It gets distressingly more and more clear as you play through the chapter (though still unsaid), that CatNap's toy failure and recall might have all been deliberate on Playtime's part to test the sleeping agent that it produces. Whether as an experimental anesthesia or for some other angle, the situation takes a disturbingly sociopathic Evil Plan angle in this context:
      • Make a character that sticks out from the rest of its set who's unsettling and underdeveloped as a character in marketing.
      • Make the sleeping effect its gimmick through lavender scenting (a common sleep aid). The spray is notably not colored (as in the demonstration) in order to try and make an attempt to be conspicuous.
      • When the toy is inevitably discovered to be the cause of a problem that can't be ignored by the media, get it recalled and play it off as a genuine mistake.
      • Offer free care to the victims in order to study the agent's results and symptoms in your own facility. As shown in Mrs. Harper's interview tape, in a way where the kids are isolated and potentially able to be experimented on further.
      • Create more of this agent in a dedicated space next to the children and create a Mascot to administer it.
  • The cutouts of the mascots were always creepy, but the Smiling Critters' cutouts (with the exception of the Bobby BearHug cutout, which is just a Tear Jerker) take it to new, truly unnerving heights.
    • The Bubba Bubbaphant claims that he remembers the player and asks if they want to know what he remembers about them. Press the button again, and he just starts screaming.
    • The PickyPiggy cutout gushes about food, starting with roast beef. Innocent enough... and then she adds grilled chicken, seared elephant and flayed unicorn, which are three of her fellow Smiling Critters' species, before admitting she's still hungry and asking the listener to be her new friend in a creepy voice.
    • The KickinChicken cutout asks if the player wants to go outside with him before shakily admitting he's never been outside before and he's a little scared to do so. The last audio clippings on the cutout are KickinChicken telling the player he'll step outside first... and then it's just him screaming bloody murder.
    • 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 stuttering and suddenly cutting off with a screeching burst of static, as if hitting a sudden stop. At that point, the reality crystallizes: the "jump to the moon" challenge was a Suicide Pact.
    • The CraftyCorn cutout shyly greets the player and asks for help with her drawing, requesting blue and then 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 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 away 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 CatNap cutout, appropriately for the Arc Villain of the chapter, is just snoring and heavy breathing followed by static-garbled speech that just keeps. Getting. Louder.
    • Mommy Long Legs and Daddy Long Legs also have cutouts in the chapter, and like the CatNap cutout, their cutouts only produce static sounds, making them just as eerie.
  • The exterior of the SkyDome as seen from the cable car. A large, shadowy dome built at the bottom of a MASSIVE underground cavern. The only entrance is a large hole that glows red. And you have no way to stop your approach. And it's double Nightmare Fuel when you remember the whole factory is built on top of this cavern. Suddenly the collapsed floors and hallways seen in Chapter 2 are starting to make more sense. The SkyDome is made even scarier with the tape of Elliot Ludwig espousing his dream of bringing joy and love to children with the Playcare orphanage. The contrast between Elliot's uplifting message and the cold reality of Playtime Co's cruel experiments couldn't be starker.
  • The Playcare. It's essentially an Orphanage of Fear that is more like a Murkoff testing facility than 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 Playtime Co. scientists experimenting with forces beyond their control.
  • Home Sweet Home, the first place in the Playcare you visit, is easily the most terrifying part of the chapter. Especially the beginning portion, which can best be described as Poppy Playtime meets P.T..
    • 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.
    • During this segment, you learn a bit of lore about Elliot Ludwig via radio broadcasts where a news report claims that the body of a dead boy with his organs taken out was found on his estate. The scary part is that it's deliberately ambiguous on whether he went insane and killed the boy or if someone, presumably Playtime Co, planted the body there in an attempt to frame him.
      • The second radio report has Playtime Co. making a statement denying Elliot Ludwig having anything to do with the body of the dead boy in his home, as well as their intentions to clear his name. At the end of the report, the radio loudly blares with a different voice "STAY TUNED FOR MORE" in a creepy tone.
      • One radio report gives an additional look at the case, only to be abruptly interrupted by the reporter blurting out "DON'T MOVE. DON'T MOVE AN INCH." before continuing as if he hadn't interrupted himself at all.
    • At one point, the Player finds themselves briefly trapped in a small looping hallway with a radio on the floor that seems to play unintelligible gibberish. However, as discovered by YouTuber Sheeprampage, it is actually a message being played backwards. When you edit it to play correctly, the message angrily rants about how you (the main character) were not present at the factory on August 8, 1995. In other words, the date that the fabled "Hour of Joy" occurred. The voice sounds outright demonic but as the message ends, the voice somehow begins to sound even deeper and angrier. Combined with the words "GUILT HAUNTS YOU" scratched out on the floor and the fact that the Player is confirmed to be a former Playtime Co. employee, it's heavily implied that they may have known about or possibly had a hand in whatever horrific experiments went down in the factory.
      Radio message: I find your presence intrusive. After all this time, you return. You come in here and you kill and murder. You pillage and destroy. Your presence was demanded 10 years ago and you didn't show up. 8. 8. 1995. You were supposed to be there. Why weren't you here? You missed the event, you missed the meeting, you missed the party. You have no right to be here . 8. 8. 1995.
    • At another point, a loud banging can be heard on the other side of a door, and the door visibly shakes from the impact. No explanation why or what caused it is given.
    • After traversing the hallways, you come to a doctor's office where you find a tape and a video player. You put the tape in, and it turns out to be an employee training video over a static image of Huggy Wuggy's face. But then the speech starts getting more and more pointed, talking to the Player directly and mocking them about their "guilty conscience". All the while, Huggy's face turns more angular and monstrous, complete with a mouthful of fangs and hollow, soulless Empty Eyes. And just as the speech finishes up with a promise that the only thing to be found in the factory are monsters with "smiles full of meat and teeth and plastic", the newly demonic Huggy Wuggy steps out of the damn TV and starts chasing you. You attempt to escape, but Huggy ends up catching you and you wake up from the hellish nightmare. The most frightening part about this section is just how smooth the animation on Huggy is as his image begins to warp right before he physically climbs out of the TV so he can chase you down, mouth wide open for the kill.
      Tape: Greetings, employees, and welcome to your first day here in Playtime! We're certain that in the days to come you'll find your new family here every bit as loving and supportive as your own. Feel free to wander the halls! Sit in the mess for lunch! Or watch our children play and learn to their little heart's content. Join the Innovationists, where the boundaries of science are continuously pushed. Or join the Counselors of Playcare, whose diligence and care for our children will help shape a brighter future. Just you see. Now, every one of you has your part in that future so should you come back tomorrow feeling unhappy for where you are, or what you've done... worry not, for your supervisor is here and happy to listen! And... should you come back... years later... your conscience finally getting the better of you. May you descend into the dark and the dust, finding all that awaits you are incomprehensible horrors, each hungry for your return, each eager that they might find you. Perhaps they'd smile at you from a shadow, their smiling mouths full of teeth and meat and plastic, watching and waiting patiently for their turn at a warm welcome. Or perhaps they won't allow you such time to figure your place in the world you'd left. A world that's theirs now. Welcome home.
    • Exploring the actual orphanage itself. You navigate pitch-black rooms filled with blood splatters and toy parts scattered all around with some being impaled on pieces of sharp jagged metal. There are also creepy pictures of the children Playtime Co. used in their experiments all throughout the orphanage. You'll also see things like windows with one-way glass as well as a large Bobby Bearhug statue with built in cameras in its eyes that monitored the children as they slept. It really shows that despite appearances, the "orphanage" was really just a prison in all but name and the children were nothing more than glorified guinea pigs to Playtime Co.
      • Playcare's orphanage gets so much worse the more the player delves. When the player arrives, the narration given by Elliot Ludwig while on the tram is genuinely uplifting, the voicework clearly displays a man who believes everything he says about caring about the youngest kids and giving them a place to live and be cared for. If there were any reservations about how that notion became a load of bull, they are quashed when you get a tape in the orphanage area. In it, the scientist paints a more clear picture of what the sleeping agent is intended for by citing clear neural abnormalities, and mentioning that the kid in question was taken just before lights out so that they could perform... something. Cue a child's voice interrupting the recording, asking what they're doing with their friend as if they wandered into their parents' bedroom. The scientist is momentarily shocked and angry, but quickly pulls himself together at the questions the kid - Joseph - asks, and lies that the subject (named Kevin) is VERY sick, but that he is being taken care of and will be back better than ever before going to take Joseph back to bed. It's genuinely sickening how impartial most of these people act as they flip-flop between cold professionalism and doting parental calmness. The fact that the caring and the crimes are literally set side-by-side in this facility, next to children so young, is unimaginably horrid.
      • In one of the rooms from the cupboard found inside Home Sweet Home, there is a tape called "Samuel Lee's Last Day", where a woman named Miss Brooks and some of the children at the Playcare celebrate the adoption of a boy named Samuel Lee. The children are very excited that Sam gets to go home with a new family...or so they think. The moment Miss Brooks announces that Sam is going to be adopted, the sound of a child screaming (supposedly Sam himself) is heard. This might indicate that, unlike the other children, Sam was aware of the orphans being experimented on and becoming toys once being chosen for adoption, and he was going to be experimented on next. The tape ends with the children saying one last goodbye to Samuel and applauding as he leaves, not knowing what's actually in store for him.
      • The tape in the Counselor's 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 not alluded to before or after this tape recording.
      • As if everything above was not bad enough, as you explore Home Sweet Home, you can find several empty cribs. Not only was Playtime Co caring for orphans, they were also taking care of literal babies, and infants at that. And considering that the mini Smiling Critters you encounter at the Playhouse move and sound like babies... the implications are horrific.
  • The School. The next section in the Playcare is filled with tension and anxiety driving moments. Exploring the rooms gives you notes that provide insight into the fall of the Playcare during the Hour of Joy and the aftermath that followed. The whole section can be described as Poppy Playtime set within Midwich Elementary School.
    • 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 human toy mascot in the school called Miss Delight that's so freaky even 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 appearance is also terrifying, a porcelain doll with disheveled clothing and hair and part of her face cracked open, revealing a too-large mouth with too-large and too-humanoid teeth stuck in a permanent Slasher Smile. She also wields a mace made out of a yardstick and pens named Barb, which she even speaks with. The undamaged version of Miss Delight, while not quite as terrifying as her damaged state, is not exactly an improvement either. She possesses a rather wide unnatural smile that shows nothing but piano key like teeth. Even worse, her smile reaches up past her nose to just below her eyes. The blush stickers on her cheeks do not help her image. What's more is that if the Hour of Joy footage is any indication, this was what she and her sisters looked like when caught on tape.
    • Miss Delight's backstory is a tragedy wrapped in a nightmare. Initially there were several Miss Delights, at least eight, 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 one we meet into cannibalizing the rest. The experience drove her mad, with her relishing the thoughts of killing employees and orphans alike ever since.
    • The entire chase sequence with Miss Delight. Much like the Weeping Angels of Doctor Who, Miss Delight will only chase you while the room is dark and she's not in your line of sight. Worse, once she sees you, you can't escape her. From the moment she smashes the generator and comes for you, you have to dodge and weave around her as she chases you, grabbing power cells or using the green hand to charge up doors to escape, all the while keeping her in your line of sight. The only way she's stopped is when a shutter door is dropped on her, crushing her. And judging from the blood smears and detached limbs found in the school hallway after her crushed model despawns, it’s implied that the Prototype dragged away the body when we weren’t looking.
  • The Playhouse. Ollie considers it to be the most dangerous place in Playcare and warns the player in no uncertain terms to stay away from there. And for a good reason. What was once a fun area for children is now the main lair of CatNap and his little subordinates, the small Smiling Critters toys. Thankfully, CatNap doesn't come after you here but his minions are very much present. You're essentially trapped in a claustrophobic underground area where these small Smiling Critters slowly continue to emerge from crawl spaces in the wall and attempt to trap and swarm you.
    • A single one of the small Smiling Critters is already pretty frightening. Its decaying appearance with creepy noises and glowing eyes more than make up for the adorable way it walks or its small size, and even that's made worse by the fact that it moves and sounds like a baby, and given what's gone on in this facility there's a good chance that's more than just appearance. What really makes them dangerous is that there are a lot of them. The moment you step into their turf, they come at you from anywhere. You scare one away, another one comes. They constantly stare at you, indicating how eager they are to eat you. The only way to fend them off is with the Grabpack's flare hand, otherwise, they will chase you relentlessly and kill you.
    • Bigger Body DogDay. We get to see him in his entirety, and he's definitely had a bad time. His entire lower body has been severed, the lack of white eyes in his face indicates he's been blinded, and he's clearly in pain as he speaks to us, claiming that "this is what CatNap does to heretics". Worse, DogDay claims that he is the last of the Bigger Body Smiling Critters. And based on his words and what happens to him, it's heavily implied that CatNap fed the others to the smaller Smiling Critters. Even worse, when the smaller Smiling Critters burst into his cell, we're treated to the lovely sight of them forcing their way inside his body, not just through the bottom of his torso, but through his eye socket as well! After this, the smaller toys puppeteer his body to chase the player, requiring them to run through the claustrophobic play tunnels while also fending off other smaller Critters in their path.
      DogDay: You...You're Poppy's angel. Come to save us. Nothing left to save, not here... You're in CatNap's home, angel. Their home. A million pairs of eyes are on you now. Watching, waiting, hungry. They want nothing more than to crawl beneath your skin and eat away at you bit by little bit, fill what is empty inside themselves. That...thing...CatNap. The Prototype is his God and this is what he does to heretics. These little toys follow CatNap to avoid that very fate, and in return, they are fed. (pants) We tried to fight it, the Prototype's control. I'm... the last of the Smiling Critters. Listen to me, you need to get out of this place. You need to live! You and Poppy can fix this, end this madness, the torment, the— Oh, no. OH, NO! (the Smiling Critter plushies start to take over) Leave me! Please! JUST GO! RUN!!!
    • Even worse, if the sounds DogDay makes as he chases you are any indication, he's not dead yet as the smaller Critters force his body to chase you through the play tunnels.
    • When you explore the Playhouse, you notice that there are a few tents scattered around the area with burnt-out campfires nearby. This heavily implies that during the Hour of Joy, children or employees took refuge within the funhouse hoping to wait out the disaster. The emergency exits to the Playhouse were also cut off by rubble. You quickly realize that the people trapped there died due to starvation or ended up suffering a worse fate from CatNap and his small Smilling Critter followers...
    • Also, take into account what DogDay says. Presumably, the other six Smiling Critters all had Bigger Body versions, too- and thanks to CatNap, they're all gone without a trace. The smaller Critters didn't even leave anything behind when they ate them.
  • Everything about CatNap is literal Nightmare Fuel thanks in part to his fear inducing sleep gas. Like Huggy Wuggy before him, CatNap constantly stalks you throughout the chapter, with you sometimes catching glimpses of him, as if he's taunting you about your inevitable fate.
    • When Ollie contacts you for the first time, he tells you a little information on what he knows about CatNap and the Playcare Center.
      Ollie: Playcare is his church, his hunting ground. Whatever he wants it to be.
    • CatNap's backstory. He was once a child at the orphanage named Theodore Grambell who formed a bond with the Prototype, considering him his imaginary friend. One day, with help from the Prototype, Theodore attempted to escape Playcare only to end up horribly electrocuted when he mishandled the Grabpack's green hand and would've died had the Prototype not took him back to Playcare. He was then used as an experiment for the Bigger Bodies Initiative, having his consciousness transferred into CatNap. Since then, he has become the Prototype's most fanatical supporter, turning Playcare into his personal church and hunting ground and mercilessly killing anyone who opposes the Prototype.
    • His appearance. In previous chapters, Bigger Bodies toys have simply resembled larger versions of production toys, unless they are attempting to eat the player. The Smiling Critters...don't. While we don't see most of them, DogDay resembles a costumed person, with somewhat human proportions. CatNap on the other hand, looks more like a real cat, with a quadrupedal stance (though he can stand bipedal if he wants) and sharp retractable claws. Worse still, he's clearly starved, more than any prior Bigger Body toy we've seen, as his entire body is emaciated to the point that his bones show through his skin. This also begs a question: why was it so important for CatNap to put the player down the trash chute, instead of eating them?
    • His voice. He rarely speaks, but his voice is horrible to hear: A raspy, demonic sounding voice that sometimes sounds like it's physically painful for him to speak as his voice box is apparently broken. No trace remains of the child he once was. He only speaks to the player once, and this one line makes his murderous intent towards you quite clear:
      CatNap:    LEAVE PLAYCARE OR I'M COMING FOR YOU.   
    • At one point, while traversing the cavern depths of the factory, you can catch a glimpse of CatNap worshipping a shrine of the Prototype. According to Ollie, the shrine is a fairly accurate approximation of what Prototype looks like, but the real deal is more terrifying. If you use debug camera to look at the shrine, it has the upper half of human skeleton in place where head would be. If Ollie's claims of its accurate portrayal are true, then it seems the Prototype has more human bones as part of its structure than just an arm...
      • At one point in the game, you can find a recording of Harley Sawyer's conversation with the 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 the Prototype's first victim during the event, then it might be where he got his human bones from.
    • When you return to the Gas Production Zone near the chapter's end, CatNap decides to stop playing and confront you head on, using his sleep gas to create an illusion of himself transforming into a more monstrous form, looking more reptilian and skeletal with a long drooping mouth. Picture a Five Nights at Freddy's-style boss fight in an arena with five potential entry points. Four of these entry points can be sealed using steam pipes as long as they have power, either temporarily or indefinitely. One entry point, the vent on the ceiling, can be closed manually but can also be reopened by the threat. Your enemy can create false duplicates of himself a la Springtrap in FNAF 3. And as the battle continues, you are forced to sacrifice batteries used for sealing entry points in order to power up the Green Hand terminal, leaving more and more areas unguarded and requiring either alternative methods of power (ultimately still requiring a battery), or transferring the battery from another area to that specific area, wasting precious time. It's incredibly nerve-wracking. The music for the fight, appropriately titled "I Had a Nightmare", perfectly encapsulates the sheer terror you'll likely feel throughout the battle.
      • CatNap's death. You fire an electrified Grabpack hand at CatNap, electrocuting him severely. CatNap attempts to use his sleep gas only for his electrified body to ignite the gas and burn him alive. The Prototype's hand appears through the ceiling and impales CatNap through the mouth, killing him and dragging him away. It gets worse when you realize that CatNap saw it coming. When the Prototype's hand shows up, he shuffles back away from it, clearly expecting punishment for failing to kill the player, then holds himself open for his master to stab him to better use his body to kill the player. It gets mixed with tearjerking in that, before he became what he is, CatNap was the sole person The Prototype made a sacrifice to save. You really wouldn't guess that if you played the game without seeing the ARG explaining that fact.
    • Here's an unintentional bit of Nightmare Fuel. While CatNap stalks you in the halls of Home Sweet Home, you sometimes see him watching you at a distance. Here’s the real nightmare fuel: if you use a debug camera to get a closer look at him, his head turns to keep watching you.
  • While exploring the Counselor's Office, CatNap violently head butts the player back into the room they came out of and takes your gas mask, leaving you to suffocate from the red smoke which once again drags you into a nightmarish hallucination that appears to be made up of several flashbacks from the main character's point of view. Several distorted images appear. The first one shows the exterior of the factory while Poppy says, "find the flower" and "this isn't a place you come back from" in the background. She speaks after each transition, her voice sounding distorted and far away. It then changes to the entrance first seen in chapter 1 (Poppy: "Do you have any idea what you're doing?"), Home Sweet Home ("Do you know what's happened here?"), the School ("Do you know who we once were?"), the Playhouse ("Do you see why we have to end this?"), and what appears to be a Counselor's Office ("Do you even know what's real?"). Several children appear as shadows. Each transition involves a bunch of red smoke that takes the appearance of a tunnel in a cave. It then cuts to a black void with Huggy Wuggy in his iconic pose with a rather toothy grin while Poppy says in a rather disgusted tone "No. You don't." He then fades away as an alarm bell begins to blare. The last scene is the Play Area from chapter 1 bathed in blood red with alarms blaring loudly and people screaming in terror in the background. Most prominently, Huggy's pedestal is empty. As it ends, the Prototype's clawed hand reaches down towards the main character from above.
  • The Prototype can mimic voices. Suddenly "Ollie" doesn't sound as innocent as his voice would imply...
    • Worse, if that is the Prototype on the other end of the phone, the child he would have had the most contact with prior to their Bigger Bodies transformation would have been Theodore Grambell. Perhaps that's his old voice we're hearing.
  • One of the first tapes you listen to in the chapter is the hysteric concern of what sounds like a concerned caretaker named Mrs. Harper talking to an associate. The interviewer asks Harper what the symptoms were. And it appears that the effects of CatNap's sleeping gas don't simply end at nightmares. Pupil dilation and eyes darting everywhere, quivering lips, thrashing and flailing limbs, and the fact that the girl in question's hands become extremely hot, which means she was either getting a sudden fever or her blood pressure raised exponentially. Say nothing of the "Colorless Monster" that's dreamt of. Keep in mind, even with all of this Marie was still technically alseep.
    • The child in question is Marie. The future Mommy Long Legs. And it's implied this nightmare is partially why she fears the Prototype so much.
    • The voice acting really is what sells most of the horror that comes from the implications of the tape content, arguably more than the previous Chapters. from the Big "NO!" Mrs. Harper screams, to the interviewer showing more clear interest in the girl's symptoms than the victim's well-being or the suffering Harper is going through as a concerned mother.
  • 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 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.
    Poppy: I remember hearing every moment of it. It went on so long… so agonizingly long. They tried to hide… to run… anything to stay alive… I remember their cries: "What's going on?"… "Why is this happening?"… "What are those things?" (sniffles) Senseless slaughter, that's all it really was. They killed everyone. The guilty, the innocent, didn't matter. All that death… it didn't fix anything. And then, once it was all over, they dragged those corpses down below where they'd never be found. And they… ate the bodies… to stay alive. The Prototype has to die. For this. For everything.
    • It's implied that it wasn't just the adults who were massacred, but the children currently living in the factory as well, which one or two of Kissy Missy's moments during the chapter imply.
    • The scene of Miss Delight chasing an employee through the school reveals what her sisters looked like. They all look just like her, all steadily approaching the employee en masse the same way she chased the player. At the point the footage was taken, neither Delight nor her sisters have sustained any damage to their models, which somehow makes them look just as creepy as when the player eventually found her.
    • If you look closely during CatNap's scene, you can see several bodies just... wiggling. It's implied here that not only did CatNap kill everyone in Playcare through physical means, he used his sleeping gas to force people into unconsciousness before their deaths. Sweet dreams!
  • The chapter's ending. As you and Poppy begin to descend further into the depths of the facility with the intent on stopping The Prototype once and for all, Poppy assures Kissy Missy that they'll send the elevator back up once the two of you reach your destination. However, once the elevator goes down a certain depth... trashing, monstrous roaring and Kissy Missy's horrified screams can be heard above, causing Poppy to panic as she realizes her friend is in trouble, and tries to get the elevator back up only for something to have the hatch closed shut on both of you. Whether it was The Prototype itself, or another one of its minions, it made sure you're not going anywhere and given Kissy Missy's screams, whatever it did to her wasn't pretty.
    Poppy: What? …What's she doing? …This isn't- (hears the screams and realizes what's happening) No, no no… NO! We're coming! Just hold on! C'mon, c'mon! Go faster! KISSY!


Trailers and Other:

    Trailers 
  • The chapter 1 teaser, which features a "Poppy Playtime Maintenance" video, which starts off with an In-Universe warning to stop watching. It seems normal enough, showing how to paint Poppy's face, brush her hair, and polish her shoes... until the unnumbered step flashes on the screen. It shows Poppy being opened up with surgical forceps and having what is presumably her voice box removed, dripping blood and fluids, while Poppy's eyes have rolled back in her head like she's dead. After a brief flash of LET ME GO LET ME GO LET ME GO appears on the screen, the video declares that "she is all better now", and the video ends with an uncomfortably long shot of Poppy sitting down, staring right into the camera. In addition, there's what looks like blood splatters underneath her chair on the table, compared to the clean table top at the beginning of the video.
    • The already creepy and off-tune music coming to a dead stop as the camera lingers on the shot of Poppy's bloody voicebox being held up by the forceps, and the blood splatters on her neck, is unsettling.
    • If you pause the video and turn up the brightness when the "LET ME GO" appears, Poppy's eye can be seen in the background.
  • The teaser trailer for Chapter 2 includes a very creepy rendition of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", with ominous shots of rooms in Playtime Co. At the end, a door begins to open, but the trailer cuts out before we get to see what's on the other side.
    Poppy: Mommy doesn't like guests...
  • The main trailer for Chapter 2 slowly builds up to the reveal of Mommy Long Legs by opening with her elongated arm snatching up a Huggy Wuggy doll and pulling it into the darkness. The limb slithers from room to room throughout the video, dragging the doll along with it before disappearing into an upper level, all while Poppy delivers a chilling monologue. The trailer ends with Mommy Long Legs herself Emerging from the Shadows and greeting the protagonist in a disarmingly cheerful yet ominous manner.
  • The new teaser trailer for chapter 3 opens with a recorded statement from Elliot Ludwig, the founder of Playtime Co., regarding the grand opening event for Playcare, the on-site orphanage. At first, there are a lot of loud cheers of excitement from several attendees, which is normal. However, the cheering eventually morphs into what sounds like screams of terror and distress from several children as the camera zooms in on a colorful, yet very ominous looking gas mask that seems to match the colors of Bron the Brontosaurus.
  • The cinematic trailer for Project Playtime is full of this. First, the trailer is rife with tension, with the playable characters finding a discarded Mini Huggy Wuggy, which suddenly comes to life and begins screaming and writhing around. Then, the actual Huggy Wuggy comes out of nowhere and graphically bites one of the team, leading to a scene with Huggy and the worker in his mouth, before he begins chasing the others, running like a wild animal down a corridor. You thought Huggy was menacing on two legs? Think again. Huggy then mauls another worker whilst the other two flee for their lives. Thankfully, the remaining two workers manage to escape to safety... right? NOPE! Here's Mommy Long Legs, snatching one of the workers to an terrifyingly ambiguous end. Finally, the last worker makes it to the train, but the music box sitting there begins to slooowly open, revealing new antagonist: Boxy Boo, a kind of dinosaur crossed with a Jack-in-the-box, who swallows the final worker whole, leaving no trace he was ever there. Such fun!
  • The second teaser trailer for Chapter 3 (officially called Deep Sleep) is practically oozing with nightmare fuel. And serves as the debut of CatNap. It begins with the aftermath of the train derailment with a fire having broken out just under the front of the locomotive. It then cuts to an open door with the sign Playcare above it. Inside of Playcare, a single light appears to be working, illuminating an empty hallway with large scratch marks on the floor. No music plays, just an eerie ambiance. A Huggy Wuggy toy with its head seemingly smashed into a bloody pulp (or torn off) complete with a large black stain on the floor underneath it is then shown. A photograph of a child and a drawing on the wall with more huge scratch marks dug into the wall. The phone that was given as a gift in Project Playtime is seen laying on the floor with a disconnected dial tone playing in the background. A sudden snarling sound plays out followed by the sounds of the children screaming in distress. Several messages are seen scratched into the wall including some more drawings. One particularly noteworthy drawing says "He gives me nightmares." Three lights that appear to be from candles illuminate the floor once again displaying more scratch marks. The screams become louder before Huggy Wuggy's severed head appears, graphically impaled on a spike. Eerie music drones out as a shadowy amalgamation of titanic proportions that seems to be made out of several toy parts appears. More messages (including "Never forget the hour of joy") appear with CatNap's claws being dragged across the wall. The camera then turns to a completely blacked out hallway where the only things visible are CatNap's white eyes peering out of the darkness with the sounds abruptly ceasing. CatNap slowly moves closer before a jet of red gas spews from his mouth. A truly horrifying jumpscare plays out as CatNap is now directly in front of the camera, revealing a grinning purple face that causes the screen to shake violently. The screen fades to a crimson cloud as the words, Chapter 3 Deep Sleep appear followed by the message Winter 2023.
    • Viewers have noticed a split second secret black and white image of gas masks that Playtime Co. used inside the Playcare Center. The image appears right before the video starts.
  • The first gameplay trailer for Chapter 3 reveals dozens of fresh horrors that were lurking within Playtime Co. The Playcare is shaping up to be a horrifying experience. The trailer begins with an old TV showing the infamous Smiling Critters cartoon before it cuts off and reveals an Emergency Alert System reminiscent of the ones used during the Black Mesa Incident. The recording encourages all active workers to evacuate from the factory before things fell apart on a key date which is revealed to be the 8th of August, 1995. Another glimpse reveals the large structure teased in the last trailer which is revealed to be a massive shrine of metal and bloody toy parts scattered all over the shrine. The shrine looks like something that belongs in Dead Space. Even worse, a human skeleton wearing a worker's hat can be seen emerging from the top of the shrine. The trailer also reveals that DogDay will be actively chasing the protagonist through a ruined playground section meaning that most, if not all, of the Smiling Critters will be trying to attack the protagonist within the Playcare. The trailer ends with CatNap glaring at the protagonist surrounded by sleeping gas.
  • The second gameplay trailer for Chapter 3 is even more terrifying then the last one.
    • 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.
    • Another shot from the trailer reveals a familiar, but new face chasing the protagonist. Huggy Wuggy has returned. Or more accurately, Nightmare Huggy Wuggy. His design looks like it was directly taken from Five Nights at Freddy's 4 with his razor sharp teeth, blank hollow eyes and long arms and legs. The worst part is that no explanation has been provided for his appearance in the trailer.
    • At several points, we're treated to live action footage shot from the first person perspective of someone navigating the maze in a desperate bid to escape while CatNap can be seen stalking them from the darkness.
    • Towards the end of the trailer, as discovered by British YouTuber Tericho, the unnerving sound of a child crying in distress can be heard when CatNap appears in full at the end of the trailer (similar to the other teasers). There's something far darker hidden behind it, however. If you edit out some of the background sounds or listen more carefully, you can hear what clearly sounds like a gunshot. This sound plays three times after each cry. The question is, was this an employee trying to defend themselves from a rogue Bigger Bodies Initiative experiment, or were the surviving children executed (if the crying is any indication)?
    • As if the aforementioned crying child and CatNap finally Emerging from the Shadows to greet the viewer in all his horrifically monstrous glory weren't bad enough, the trailer also concludes with the narrator from before delivering a truly haunting quote that aptly sums up the terrifying nightmares lurking within the Playcare.
      Narrator: All that awaits you are incomprehensible horrors. Smiling mouths full of meat and teeth and plastic. This world is theirs now. Welcome home.
    • There is a mysterious shadowy figure that appears throughout the trailer. It can be seen in the VHS chase sequences with CatNap. It can even be seen moving. Towards the end of the trailer, this figure appears in the schoolhouse. The only thing truly visible are the white pinpricks of its eyes and it only moves when the lights flicker. After it moves, it appears to wink at the viewer before the scene cuts.

    General and Other 
  • The Doctor himself, Harley Sawyer, is an unnervingly calm sociopath who spearheaded the entire operation of mass child torturing and experimenting, using Elliot Ludwig’s love of orphaned kids to transforming hundreds of them into psychotic toys, all the while silencing the lower employees, and the reason? To simply cut payment to employees.
    • Chapter 3 contains some subtle implications that he had something to do with the body of a dismembered child found on Elliot's estate in order to frame him and ruin his reputation, and may have possibly had Elliot killed so he cannot interfere with the Bigger Bodies Initiative.
  • The Playtime Co. Website has a hidden section of the factory's security cameras being recorded in real time. Some of it shows feeds from the same room Chapter 2's title screen is from, with Mommy's hand still lying limp. For now the grainy footage makes it unclear if there is anything happening, and the cameras will also periodically be cloaked by static, as if there is....
  • The messages that pop up whenever you die. Some are simple "get up"s while others creepily urge you on, as if unconcerned that you died. Considering the nature of Playtime Co.'s secret agenda, there may be something more to it than simple feedback for death.
  • Cut lines in the game code reveal that Poppy is the first successful attempt at turning a flesh and blood person into a toy, hinted at already by Huggy and Mommy bleeding during their defeats... now the question is, how...?
  • The soundtracks for Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are now on music streaming sites, and the choice of album art is unsettling to say the least. They feature their chapter's main antagonist, Huggy Wuggy, Mommy Long Legs and CatNap, but their faces are shrouded in darkness, lit from the back with the lights of their pupils staring directly at the camera. One can only imagine which horrors future releases will feature.
  • "RESTRICTED_disappearance_06-18-1992.mp4" is an Analog Horror report of Playtime's security staff pursuing Huggy Wuggy, who somehow escaped the factory. After being shot with a tranquilizer dart, the creature still gets far enough into the woods to arrive at residential areas and devours several of the security officers before being subdued. At one point, an elk is also shown to have been killed by Huggy. The final shot of the video is of Huggy leering into the camera while standing right next to a house, following a letter from Leith Pierre about how it was blind luck that no civilians came across Huggy until he was finally caught.
  • "RESTRICTED_relocation_08-08-1995.mp4" is another piece of analog horror uploaded not too long after Disappearance. Story wise, it occurred in 1995 (three years after Disappearance). It seems to give an idea of when things at Playtime Co. were truly beginning to fall apart. This video is a step by step instructional guide on how to relocate the monster toys that have been created for the Bigger Bodies Initiative (dubbed "Giants" in the video). This video involves Kissy Missy, who's being relocated to another part of the factory (this video shows just how tall she truly is). A warning at the beginning of the tape states that the video has been tampered with by a third party (likely Experiment 1006 aka the Prototype) and gives an order to destroy the tape. The instructions start normally enough. Retrieve and restrain the Giant to a wooden board from current location (includes a guide on how to properly restrain a Giant). Load Giant onto the train and inform the driver (referred to as the conductor) of the intended route. When it gets to step 4, which is to consult the Bigger Bodies Initiative Handbook for Contingency Plans, red text that says "Loosen the straps binding the Giant" appears. Step 5 which involves informing the conductor of the intended route is normal and shows the train (using the design from Project Playtime) traveling to its intended destination (on the wall, there's graffiti that reads "the hour of joy is at hand" and inside the locomotive's cab, we see the train code from Chapter 2). Step 6 is the next step that has been corrupted. It reads "Keep watch of giant during transit before ominously switching to "Release the straps binding the Giant." It then cuts to Kissy who's sitting docilely on a flatcar still bound. Step seven is also corrupted. It should read "Deliver Giant to new location." Instead, it shows that same red text which reads "Release the Straps" before cutting to the same footage of Kissy, except the train is now traveling at a high rate of speed (it's unknown if the video is sped up or if the train actually is speeding). The screen cuts to black and when the footage comes back, Kissy is covered with blood and two employees wearing hazmat suits lay dead next to the train while a scream from a third is heard in the distance. Kissy is no longer bound to the board. However, it appears that she hasn't moved from her original position. It's unknown if the workers were killed by her, the Prototype, or by Kissy's male counterpart, Huggy Wuggy. The tape ends with a sad looking Huggy Wuggy and two words that simply read "footage missing."
  • "RESTRICTED_restoration.mp4" features a close up of a badly damaged Bron the Dinosaur with haunting eyes as its thumbnail. The tape documents how a Playtime employee named Thomas Clark was diagnosed with terminal cancer and volunteered to be turned into a Bron toy to save his life, only to end up with little idea of what even happened to him. He's left with the other toys, but they can tell he's different and only stare ominously from the distance. Boxy Boo's distinctive music box can be heard nearby, until Boxy suddenly grabs Bron and it cuts to researchers intervening in time to find Bron half-devoured and lying in a pool of blood while the other toys, including what seems to be Kissy Missy, scatter off. The tape ends with Bron left in isolation to not be further harmed by the other toys.
    • What makes this even worse is that there's a mysterious high pitched frequency which sounds like a bunch of crickets (or static) that plays at the very end of the video. If you put it through a spectrograph and set the pitch to somewhere around 1006, you get a message that reads "Go to sleep" along with a very familiar-looking gas mask if you keep adjusting it. Yes, that's the very same one from the teaser trailer. This also gives credence to the theory that the scientists at Playtime Co. were indeed using some kind of gas (likely derived from opium based poppy flowers) as a sedative. On top of that, Bron's field of vision even mimics that of a gas mask.
  • "Playtime Co. Employee Safety Video" may not be as creepy as the other tapes at first glance. But there is a very sinister and dark undertone present throughout the training tape. The way the instructor (played by The Stupendium) talks about Playtime Co. is creepy and malicious despite the training tape's playful nature. His dialogue sounds scripted and forced in its delivery to the unwitting employee watching the tape. The Huggy Wuggy costume used in the tape borders on the Uncanny Valley during its interactions with the instructor. Especially the section where it wears costumes, laughs in a derpy manner and uses toy props to enforce the instructor's points. Finally, the instructor talking about No OSHA Compliance of Playtime Co. by denying the bad working reports of the company. Such highlights include, the insistence of reporting someone not following rules, the mention of hazardous materials not being used in product creation, and the mention of an on sight physician if you are suffering from hallucinations or schizophrenia. The sheer amount of Fridge Horror in this video more than makes up for the lack of in-your-face terrors.
  • "Bunzos Eggstravaganza" is drawn in a cute 2D animation style similar to classic animated movies with 3D backgrounds taken from Chapter 2, but is rather chilling. It was written according to the results of Twitter polls and starts out with Bunzo the Bunny greeting the reader and explaining he is looking for secret eggs. Bunzo then talks to Bron the Dinosaur who explains that the secret eggs are on the Game Station catwalk. However, Bunzo ends up getting lost and crawls behind the same cover space the Prototype was hiding in at the end of Chapter 2 next to the grinder where Mommy Long Legs was killed. Inside the storage room, Bunzo then finds the missing egg using a grab pack, but accidentally ends up cracking the secret egg, which is revealed to be a bird yet to hatch, with hollow eyes no less, which is already unnerving. Startled and hoping to somehow help the chick, Bunzo tries to leave to get to someone, but mysteriously falls down a pitch black hole down into the darkest depths of the factory. There a montage of Bunzo crying and struggling to escape before decaying away over each day plays before the final in game graphic image of Bunzo lying against the wall is shown. Whilst the comic has an ambiguous situation, there is a lot of Fridge Horror to think about. When did it take place? What pushed Bunzo down in the hole? How long was Bunzo trapped down there for? Was it even the same Bunzo from Chapter 2 or was it an entirely separate model?
  • A new promotional photo was shown to the public a week before the trailer for Poppy Playtime: Chapter Three was released. A Huggy Wuggy toy, clawed to bloody shreds, lies on the now-familiar multicolored tile of the factory... except there are deep claw marks in the floor under the toy, and a large purple paw tipped with lethal-looking claws is standing on the shredded toy. In the background, a pair of red eyes glow. Just what in the hell is this thing?
  • Before the release of Poppy Playtime: Chapter Three, a new teaser image was revealed. The Smiling Critters. These plushies already look downright freaky with those black beady eyes and that large gaping smile. What parent would want to buy those creepy plushies for a child anyway?
    • Here's a horrifying part, the Smiling Critters are clearly knockoffs of the Care Bears, some of the kindest and nicest souls in the world of toys. So, if the Smiling Critters are going to be the antagonists of the third chapter… How will they be corrupted into homicidal monsters?
  • The thumbnail for the standalone version of the Smiling Critters cartoon posted to Mob Entertainment's YouTube channel. CatNap and the Smiling Critters just stare with those creepy smiles and the haunting eyes with white dots in them. It makes you wonder, are the plushies haunted as well?


"What have you done?! He'll make me part of him! You can't do this to me!!!"

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