#THEN OF COURSE SUPERHORRORBROS HAD A VIDEO ABOUT IT

[thecryptidart1st]

Michael...there's a new bendy game coming out in 11 days...it's gonna be free...it's on steam

idk if there’s another way to describe what i’m feeling exactly

[ideahat-universe]

The horror meta is mutating

I remember several months ago I made article talking about how being stuck in Afton's shadow was bad for FNAF and that Poppy Playtime was peak performance for being a marketable children's horror project.

We have stuff to talk about. So lets get started.

Late last year Bendy and Dark Revival came out and IT wasn't all that good but it was much better than previous Bendy games so it was a huge success but the most innovative trait was the active humanization of the monster in the story.

Making Bendy a creature with a personality that could be cute/redeemable sort of massaged that open secret that most fans love the monsters in these games.

And maybe its wrong to think that but I think that trickled down into the Ruin DLC which was 100% damage control for how bad Security Breach is (btw, there is still unfinished and broken content in Security Breach that will never be fixed, Modders have filled in some gaps though) and part of that was capitalizing on the fact that people liked Sun and Moon and Roxy so they gave them nice moments.

They did some dirty stuff to Monty but somebody had to be the fall guy.

And the Mimic is real and Afton isn't. Hopefully it stays that way but the sequel does involve what could be a reintroduction of Baby which would essentially be a reintroduction of Afton but we'll have to see what Steel Wool come up with.

Now we have Angel Hare which despite having an incredibly cliche soundtrack carried with it an innovative idea that the paranormal activity isn't the villain in the story and that the story is more humanistic and heartwarming than scary which maybe doesn't vibe with the traditional horror crowd but the mascot horror crowd is more compelled to love creepy and paranormal cartoon characters than be afraid of them outright.

But they aren't all were great ideas. Amanda The Adventurer is what I would call "mediocre". It follows basically all the beats you would expect it to do and the animation is very poor (Amanda in particular just doesn't have enough articulation).

Everything else is fine. I like that it was one and done, the voice acting was very serviceable. It really could benefited from having another layer to the story. In a lot of ways Amanda the Adventurer is similar to Angel Hare in that they are both Dora the Explorer inspired stories where VHS characters interact with a real viewer but one is just objectively more creative than the other.

But it's not all bad. Amanda the Adventurer is not bad. No. Garten of Ban Ban, now that's bad. If Poppy's Playtime was the mascot horror genre at it's most artificial and optimized, Garten of Ban Ban is basically a terrible Chinese knockoff of that artificial and optimized product.

But we really wouldn't know of Garten of Ban Ban's existence if it wasn't for Uhyeah making it popular and that's not a good thing by the way.

Uhyeah is one of those youtubers who look for things to cringe at and just make cringe bait videos. When a game is actually good you rarely hear from him but when it's time to spotlight truly horrible content in the mascot horror space he's on it like white on rice.

I think he's mostly a net negative for the mascot horror space. He's not a bad person of course, he's not Theft King.

But he is a person who is obsessed with cringe and cringe culture is a vice. On a good day we can have a laugh at a poorly made product but at it's worse it promotes the idea that you can't be earnest or sincere on the internet, otherwise you risk having someone turning you into a laughing stock because they find making fun of people more funny than actual jokes.

Everybody made this huge stink about Garten of Ban Ban when the first game came out but now we are on the fourth chapter and no one really cares, which is what it would have been at the outset had Uhyeah decided to find something better to do with his time than to create a viral meme on twitter X. Now it's basically just another game on Superhorrorbro's channel who seems to sincerely like it which makes him a real one.

I think Garten of Ban Ban isn't worth the time of day but it's better to sincerely like something than it is to ironically like something.

There's a couple other games like ChooChoo Charles which manages to have actual game play in a mascot horror game which is rare and is also a good accomplishment. Poppy's playtime is taking it's sweet time coming up with the third chapter. They made a multiplayer game for some reason but hopefully that was made because they had the manpower to create a second project without slowing the production of the original down.

The Walten files is trying to complete the next chapter. I can't tell where "this work takes time begins" and "I'm too busy consuming cringe on twitter X." ends but hopefully when Elon Musk finishes killing Twitter X, a lot of creative people will be free from that vice.

Uh, Bunny Graveyard is really well animated. Although that's also going to be in chapters which, I've spoken about chapters and I think they are mostly bad but given that people are taking their time with chapters and not rushing them like they were doing in the past, the only real issue is the future chapters never coming out.

Uh, where is Andy's Apple Farm? I kind of got into it but it hasn't come out with its sequel yet. How many of these Mascot Horror games are going to leave me hanging from year to year?

I guess that's all for now. I missed a couple notable games in the genre but it's fine. The genre has a lot of growing to do. The issue of the mystery box kind of haunts them because once we know everything about the story, the story stops being interesting and we're often left with very little else to enjoy but it's getting there.

It's still better than any horror movie that's been made in the last few years.

[wired-heartbeats]

hello, in the tags of one of your lovely posts (about f/os who are clueless about your passions but are supportive anyways) you mentioned liking to watch breakdowns of horror games you've never played, and as someone who also enjoys stuff like that I was wondering if you had recommendations? or would like to use this ask to ramble about it? 👀

Oh!! Sure thing!! I’m not sure if you’re asking for recommendations of the games or the videos I watch on them so I’ll do a few of both ofjsofidjfjd, I don’t really get to talk about my love of horror games over here since I don’t have F/Os or S/Is (that I talk about) in those universes but I do love me some analyses lol

The most recent game I watched stuff on is Resident Evil Village, I’ll be honest I have not watched stuff on any of the other resident evil games but I caught myself up on the story that happened in 7 and then watched Village and it’s pretty solid, no I didn’t just watch it for Lady Dimitrescu even tho that definitely did raise my interest in the series of it. Some other games i’ve watch stuff on, playthroughs and analysis, thatve raised my interest lately were Bioshock, Subnautica (which is horror by association), Dark Deception, Little Nightmares 1&2 (HIGHLY RECOMMEND, I love LNs), Alice Madness returns, Sally face, Spooky‘s jumpscare mansion, which I’ll be honest I mostly like for the monsters in the monster categories because I think that it’s really creative and neat lol, and Mr Hopps playhouse (The second one just came out but I haven’t watched it yet so I can’t say anything about it but like it’s there 👀) there’s also games that are associated with Fnaf that I always jump on, fan games and games inspired by it are usually pretty good but that’s a whole other can of worms because I really do have a deep rooted love for anything Fnaf 

I would, if you’re going to look up any of those, highly recommend that you check trigger warnings and content warnings before actually starting them in any capacity because there’s definitely stuff that could make people uncomfortable as happens with the horror genre, so please just don’t go in COMPLETELY blind and protect yourself

I have a ton of other horror games that I enjoy but as opposed to just watching analyses on them I often play them myself and or have had obsessions with them such as Batim, Fnaf, Little nightmares (which is in both lists because I haven’t played it but. Dude. It’s good, definitely look up the warnings though) 

As for channels that I watch for explanations, SuperHorrorBro is kinda a go-to for me for explanations if I think I want to get into a game he’s covered or just get the gist of it, there is of course Game Theory, regardless of accurateness on theories, there’s also their sub-channel The Game Theorists which tends to have a bit more variety going on and is fun to just kind of keep an eye on if you’re looking for new content, and then if I get interested in something from there I’ll go down the rabbit hole of looking for creators were specifically doing videos on that game, whether it be breakthroughs, fun facts, Easter eggs, etc, thanks to me looking stuff up all the time sometimes I’ll randomly get breakdown videos recommended to me by YouTube from creators I don’t actively follow and then just watch them and Move on so unfortunately my variety ofcreator knowledge is pretty thin outside of these ones but they’re there and they work as a good stepping stone

I just have a deep rooted love for the Horror and Thriller genres and it tends to cross into my intense love for a story building and theorizing so I tend to get invested in finding out about the different worlds and stories even if I’m never going to actually play the game myself kfndkgnskfndk I also don’t know how long of an answer is too long so I’m gonna stop here but I really appreciate you asking so if do you want more recommendations of a specific flavor or just want to read me ramble on about stuff you can always feel free to ask me more :D



[mwolf0epsilon]

I was asking what you think Henry's fate is. Is it a time loop? Is it just a reel playing? Is all of it just a dream on his or Joey Drew's death bed? But you pose an interesting question too, do all the games connect in some way even if BATDR is not gonna be a direct continuation?

I’ve pondered on the nature of the world of Bendy and the Ink Machine for a while now and, after a little bit of digging around, reading theories that people have had, watching theory videos and a few playthroughs, I’ve come to a few conclusions over Henry’s fate and the meaning behind the ambiguous ending we got.

This idea is, as such, a mixture of Game Theory’s Revised BATIM Ending Theory plus expectations for BATDR, SuperHorrorBro’s ideas for who BATDR’s Big Bad might actually be, as well as several other ideas that have consistently popped up through out the Fandom’s existence.

Buckle up, this might get long as heck.

---

     To start this off, I’m gonna need to clarify that the Cycle (which is the dimension the first game takes place in, although the origins of this particular world are still debatable as real or fiction within the canon itself) functions in a way that seems to rely heavily on ideas and impossible physics. Not only that, but those who exist within this plane will follow a mixture of Real World and Cartoon World laws, so while death exists in the Cycle it isn’t permanent and things that could usually obliterate you in one go (like massive falls, a hit with an axe, or getting bashed by an out of control fairground attraction) aren’t an instant threat to your overall health. It also appears that people within the Cycle aren’t immediatly aware that they’re following cartoon logic, as Henry (who is supposedly human) doesn’t seem to react all that much to some of the most life threatening moments he faces in the Studio. This in itself already shows something is off about the whole situation Bendy’s original creator has gotten himself mixed up with.

Another thing I need to point out is that the Toonification process doesn’t seem to be reliant of the Cycle itself, and instead happened in the Real World as the events in “Dreams Come True”, and Thomas Connor’s and Joey Drew’s Audio Log on the Ink Demon imply. This, to me, seems to point towards the Cycle having been made some point during Joey’s Toonification experiments as maybe somewhere to hide his twisted creations, so it might be the Ink Machine has the capacity to not only bring things to “life” but to also create other dimensions from templates. Where these dimensions are kept is up to debate, but I assume Joey keeps the Cycle withing the Ink Machine itself. Either way, what I mean to say with these two little notes is that, while Henry appears to be in a fake version of the Studio that doesn’t mean the story of the game is just that, a story. I think everything IS real. But more on that in a bit...

Lets get started with the actual questions you asked:

--Is it a time loop?-- 

Yes, positively. The Tool clarifies this as soon as we get it. In fact, the iteration of the loop we’re doing as Henry is the 415th, and the following we do with the Tool unlocked is the 416th, meaning Henry (and by extention the other Studio Prisoners) have been at this for quite some time even if we weren’t aware at first. To the point where Henry began trying to establish contact with himself.

--Is it just a reel playing?-- 

Also yes. The Cycle as I’ve pointed out before, operates on Cartoon Logic. As such it can be compared to an endlessly looping reel of unfinished film. This is made more apparent by the reel Henry uses to “beat” the Ink Demon. “The End” is something of a curiosity as it is a contradiction in of itself. Not so much a final dot to close off an act as an infinity mark. It’s existence within the Cyle is also curious, as it seems unlikely Joey would have physically made a reel to stop the Ink Demon, so it brings the question of whether or not Mr. Drew can alter the Cycle externally (something that’s already hinted at due to the storyboards you can find on his desk at Joey’s apartment).

This to me indicates the Cycle can be altered (which Henry does whenever he tries to communicate, and by Allison Angel discovering the messages), but that bigger changes need to be done from the Real World.

--Is all of it just a dream on Henry’s or Joey Drew's death bed?--

No, I don’t think it’s a dream or just a story Joey is telling a child. I think the happenings of the game are actually happening, but that perhaps “The End” is a series of blank reels Joey feeds into the Ink Machine and that get filled out by Henry’s actions, and that Joey then watches them and recounts the tales to who I can only assume might likely be Henry’s and Linda’s daughter (as Joey pointed out Henry settled down while he did not, and it’s never mentioned if he has siblings).

With these questions out of the way, here’s what I believe happened to Henry and the implications of the game’s ending where Joey’s “niece” requests another story... The fact of the matter is that Henry is dead.

Why do I believe this? It’s like Matpat pointed out in his Revised Theory video (I know, y’all gonna get on my case because “Game Theory is cringy ew”, but seriously have a look yourself instead of going off in my askbox). It all has to do with small details that seem insignificant or just asthetic choices, but that can actually have a lot more hold on the plot.

Two of these details are:

The 5 coffins at the Studio and letters in Joey’s appartment.

The newspaper clipping Joey keeps in the Ink Machine room at the appartment, which was specifically picked and curated to appear in the game despite the player never going into the room to see it up close.

There’s a number of characters you learn about in the game and (by extention) the novel, and quite a few are dead (Such as Buddy’s friends Jacob and Dot who were murdered by an insane Sammy), but surprisingly only 5 have physical coffins at the Studio ingame.

And what do I mean by physical coffins? Well, there’s a 6th unofficial one, that’s what... And where can we find it?

Henry’s cell in chapter 5. He drew it himself even.

This doesn’t confirm anything of course, it could just be that Henry is into dramatics, but then we get to the newspaper clipping that Joey picked out specifically and kept in a room only he likely enters:

“Local Artist Pushed Himself Too Hard, Found Dead at Desk”

And what did Joey say about Henry pushing him to do the right thing? That he should have pushed a little harder... Like somehow Henry is at fault for Joey’s bad choices. Like Henry deserves what comes next... It almost feels like someone dishing out a speech before an execution, justifying why they’re getting killed. It’s a scene that made me inexplicably nervous until I looked into things.

Why bring up the coffins and letters to prove this, you may ask? Well, another thing Matpat points out is that the people who have coffins are people who were put through the Ink Machine, dying in the process and returning as Ink Monstrosities/Imperfect Toons, while people who got a letter from Joey and that replied to him were never lured back to him.

Wally Franks, for example, is living in Florida so he couldn’t make it to New York to fall into Mr. Drew’s trap. Allison and Thomas Connors are also out of the way so they merely exchange formaleties through correspondance (which implies Joey “made up” with them at some point to try to lure them back and has kept the charade up for a while).

So anyway, people who have coffins in the Studio are not only confirmed dead but also became monsters.

Norman became the Projectionist

Grant likely became either the Piper, Fisher, or Striker

Bertrum became the monstrous Carnival Ride

Lacie likely became either the Piper, Fisher or Striker

Susie became the Imperfect Alice Angel

You’re likely asking about Allison Angel and Tom Boris now, to which I raise you another Matpat pointer from the video above: Allison Angel states that she and Tom would dissolve if they were in contact with pools of ink.

Why is this relevant? Well, it means their bodies are made entirely of ink unlike, for example, Norman who is the sculking Projectionist. Why Norman? Well, he wades through a pool of Ink in level 14 and doesn’t dissolve. Heck, he chases Henry through the pool of ink without any trouble whatsoever in catching up. Why is he different from Allison and Tom? Because he has a soul stabilizing his grotesquely altered body.

Creatures that were once human and were transformed don’t just dissolve into ink. Their bodies remain intact after death until they eventually return to the inky abyss (potentially from being ripped apart) or until they’re revived by a Bendy Statue (Like Sammy, as implied by a clever easter egg near the fountain with the respawning Swollen Searcher).

In fact, now that I think about it, out of all the hostile creatures you encounter, Sammy, Susie, Norman, Bertrum and the Butcher Gang are some of the more stable bodied creatures within the Cycle, requiring a lot more hits to die than Searchers and Lost Ones, although Susie does die from a single stab (though the blow itself WAS pretty devastating in itself).

After pondering on this little idea I realized that the presence of Allison Angel and Tom Boris were entirely fabricated at that point. One of many alterations created by Joey to guide Henry through the last leg of his journey towards “The End”, very likely modelled after the real Allison and Thomas who he viewed as hostile, thus portrayed them as initially aggressive towards Henry. I mean, after so many unsuccefful attempts to make creatures entirely of ink (like the Ink Demon), it’s not too farfetched to say Joey eventually got the hang of it. The Mini Ink machines do it flawlessly and even help Henry, so who’s to say Joey didn’t perfect it within the Cycle to create beings not quite as strong as the Ink Demon, but strong enough to kill corrupt humans?

Again why is any of this relevant to how I think Henry’s dead? Simple. People who replied to Joey lived. Henry didn’t reply, instead he was lured in.

      I believe that the Ink Machine’s disastrous results in the Real World made Joey realize that making a person into a Toon through passing them through the machine with a template wasn’t gonna cut it to fix the grand mess he’d made out of the Ink Demon. But, I also think he realized passing them through the Ink Machine while living was also the issue. The ink corrupted their souls, left them vulnerable to becoming Imperfect beings like Susie. Having them ingest the ink prior to going through was also not gonna cut it, as it’s connection to the Ink Demon gradually destroyed Sammy’s already frail sanity and changed him into an abomination (that had a pretty strong will for possibly three deaths before he finally lost himself completely and became a soulless Searcher). This left one final method to experiment with on the one person he thought responsible to clean his fuck-ups: Joey had to kill Henry prior to putting him through the machine.

     In “Dreams Come True”, Buddy reveals that upon becoming Boris, his body was discarded. A byproduct of his soul enfusing with the ink and rejecting his human flesh. It might be possible that Joey was quick enough in killing Henry in an inconspicuous manner and then putting his body through the machine that Henry’s soul was pulled into the Cycle flawlessly while his body was spat back out for Joey to later deal with (Putting him behind his work desk as if he’d simply died of exhaustion, neatly hiding his crime behind the “suffering of a tortured artist”). This would explain why Henry lacks a shadow or reflection. He’s a ghost. A ghost that’s slowly realizing how hopeless his situation is. What a great pal Joey Drew turned out to be...

     Moving on to the ending of the game itself, there’s some very dark implications that come with Henry being dead. For one, Joey Drew doesn’t have a family, yet he’s recounting Henry’s plight to a little girl who affectionately calls him “Uncle Joey”. We know Henry pursued a family over a busy career, so it’s heavily implied that during the 414 attempts of trying to find a way out of the Studio, Henry’s wife has been grieving him, going so far as to leave their daughter with Joey as she tries to provide for the both of them.

Joey being the pathological liar that he is, would likely graciously look afer his old friend’s daughter and maybe offer “emotional support” to a distraught Linda, cementing his innocense, all the while bragging to the child about what really happened to her father without her knowing. That is a pretty twisted theory and I honestly like the idea due to how horrific it is.

But where does BATDR come into play here?

Well, it’s been confirmed to not be a prequel nor a sequel. Matpat suggested it might either be an Alternate Universe or a Side Story. I believe the latter is more likely, thanks to SuperHorrorBro theorizing that the people behind Gent might be the Big Bad/cause of that particular game’s misfortunes. A Side Story about the Ink Machine being recreated and templates re-used to create a familiar yet brand new nightmare.

I believe BATIM and BATDR are a vicious cycle of madness happening at the same time. The same task repeated by people who expect different results. Only with Joey Drew it was an animation studio, with GENT it might be on a larger scale...But who knows?

There will be returning characters, so maybe BATDR will shed new light upon the Ink Machine and the Cycle’s true nature.

[inkwelldevil]

With what you just mentioned about Henry already possibly being Bendy I really think that you should really take a look at a video made by SuperHorrorBro called Is Henry Actually Bendy? as it points out a lot of good clues to help support your theory.

I have indeed seen that video! I feel like it’s good apart from the part it speculates Henry is already a Bendy and that the perfect Bendy is that unused incomplete texture.

For starters, Henry definitely has spoken out loud a few times (i.e. to Boris and sometimes to himself); it’s a subtle detail but when he says anything out loud, it lacks the “thought echo” effect to them.

Also, I’m pretty sure Henry would have noticed already if he’s been turned into a wonky ink being. Especially if his memory has supposedly been reset to when he just arrived at the studio.

I also don’t think the texture is really supposed to be Henry’s “original design”, nor do I think the little concept sketch on his desk is either. It strikes me more like Henry messing around with expressions or even coming up with an art piece but Joey of course does NOT want Bendy without the signature grin.

I’m pretty sure Henry designed Bendy with the grin since the grin only looks fake an unnatural with Joey’s outside material but not in the shorts Henry likely had a hand in animating.

As for the incomplete texture, I agree that theMeatly probably had intended it to be the player’s model. However, I think it’s more because he probably had a different idea for the game initially. Maybe originally we were straight up supposed to play as cartoon Bendy running around but somewhere in production he decided to not start with that. It’s highly unlikely to be meant for Ink Bendy considering the very innocuous and not horrifying design. Who’d be scared of a cutesy toon like that chasing them anyway?

Pretty sure the reason Sammy thinks Henry looks familiar is because they were co-workers and Sammy’s memory is just too damaged to actually recognize him (since he was heavily implied in his twitter event that he has trouble remembering things thanks to the ink and one of his recordings seems to imply the Ink Machine was messing with his mind).

Basically, I agree with SuperHorrorBro on most of his points, but I see it as hinting that Henry will become Bendy not that he’s already Bendy.