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telekinetic-electronica · 4 months

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Theft King is Wrong about Indigo Park and Here's Why

Theft King is an infamous YouTuber mainly known for the Kane Carter drama and not always having the best takes. He mainly covers Five Nights at Freddy's, and recently seems to be covering a lot more of Poppy Playtime, due to chapter 3. Recently, Theft King made a video critiquing the newest indie mascot horror game, Indigo Park.

Suffice to say, it is not good. This post will be going over why it is not good, and debunking Theft King's own points.

"Indigo Park is the least original mascot horror game ever made. Between the tired, cliched premise of returning to an abandoned children's establishment, the enemy designs, the unnervingly cute, mascot character, and multiple sequences that appear to be directly lifted from Poppy Playtime. You'd just think this was another Garten of Banban-eqsue cash in. In a lot of ways, it kind of is. But it's more complicated than that."

Through your introduction to this video, it is quite obvious that you are biased. For starters, to call Indigo Park the LEAST original mascot horror game ever made is a big claim to make. Like, seriously, out of ALL the games out there, Indigo Park is? While, yes, the concept of finding out what happened to an abandoned children's establishment isn't original, it has a unique twist to it. We have Rambley to accompany us through out the park. It actually FEELS like a place that could exist in real life. It's also obvious Geese is a fan of mascot horror and got inspired from Five Nights at Freddy's and Poppy Playtime.

Also to compare Indigo Park to Garten of Banban is literally insane to me. You are comparing the dedicated, passion, and willingly to learn with Indigo with GARTEN OF BANBAN? The POSTER child of what NOT to do with mascot horror? Also, Theft King through out the entire video compares Indigo Park to Poppy Playtime, specifically chapter 3. When Indigo Park was in production BEFORE chapter 3 came out.

Before the recent Rambley plush, Indigo Park was for free and the money came of Geese's own pocket to fund this game. To say this a "cash grab" is very dismissing the hard work and passion Geese and the Indigo Park team put into the game.

"The game begins with a really slick cinematic depicting the establishment of Indigo Park. Alongside it's founder, Isaac Indigo. Isaac Indigo?! Hold on. That's not a name that humans have. This guy's definitely a space alien. I'm calling that now"

While the last part is definitely a joke on his end, there's a lot of reasons to explain why Indigo is Isaac's last name. For one, Indigo is a REAL last name. It's just uncommon. Second, there is thing called suspension of disbelief. It is when something fantastical happens that can't happen in real life, but you suspend your disbelief because it is a work of fiction. If you can suspend your disbelief to a murderous lion and parrot, I'm pretty sure you can suspend your disbelief to this old guy's name being Indigo. And third, there is such a thing called legally changing your name. Besides, why is this even here? This is just a nitpick.

"As the game begins we find the park's main gates sealed. And upon heading into the service station next door, we encounter Rambley. The single best part of Indigo Park. Rambley is an AI, raccoon mascot that serves as our guide. Appearing on countless, conveniently placed televisions through out the game. He's fantastic. His dialogue is well written, his voice actor is great and his animation is expressive and charming. He's the single best part of the game, but, Rambley is a crutch that Indigo Park leans far too heavily on. Though, we'll get there later."

While he does say he'll get to it later, I would like to still address this point right now. Rambley is a core part of the game. Rambley is the second protagonist, and is obviously going to be very important to the plot. He's going to be accompanying us through out however many chapters there are. Chapter 1, like many introductions, are we are getting to know the characters. Rambley is in a big chunk of chapter 1 is because besides, Ed, he's our secondary protagonist, and knows the in's-and-out's of the park, and knows crucial information. This will be expanded more when Theft King gets to this part. Rambley isn't a "crutch". The game is literally setting up the characters and scene. Like, y'know, how many first chapters do.

"And enter the doors to the park and enter the Critter Corner, where we're given a Fazwatch from FNAF: Security Breach. It's useless. It's just a plot device to justify why some doors don't open until they need to."

Theft King, have you ever been to an amusement park before? Many amusement parks have bands on to indicate you are someone entering, and not sneaking in. If you did an ounce of research, the Critter Cuff is a reference to Disney's Magic Bands. Do you only get your information from indie mascot horror? Do you not think stuff like this doesn't exist in real life? While, yes it can be a reason why some doors won't open. But you clearly weren't even paying attention to the own game you are playing.

(Disney Magic Band)

(Indigo Park Critter Cuff)

(FNAF Fazwatch) The Critter Cuff looks NOTHING like a Fazwatch and has difference uses. Gregory can use the Fazwatch to see the map of the Pizzaplex, get emails, communicate with Glamrock Freddy, among other things. All the Critter Cuff can do is be a pedometer, heart monitor, and mood ring. The Fazwatch and Critter Cuff doesn't even have the same functions.

The Critter Cuff also just doesn't acts like this. It's hinted the Critter Cuff can keep away the mascots. When Lloyd was about to attack Ed, it let out a frequency that made Lloyd back off. Pay attention to what's happening on the screen and story, Theft King.

"Proceeding through an awkwardly placed loading zone, we find ourselves in some sort of subway, tunnel movie theater? I don't know the area's design wasn't very coherent. Look at that Poppy Playtime ass floor. Although, something is going on with the resolution or something. I don't know."

...As he says when the ride for this area is a train. Trains are often located underground. Also, apparently, according to Theft King any colorful, floor patterns is a rip off of Poppy Playtime when the ride is a reference to Mickey and Minnie's Railway. As for the "movie posters", Theft King the ride is clearly meant to introduce the park goers to the characters and other rides to this world. Please, pay attention and think before assuming something.

"After the train ride, Rambley gives us cart blanche to go wherever we want. Though, it's at this point, I noticed the game scaling. You know, the size of everything relative to your character? It's really weird. We are very short, I have to be perfectly honest. [...] When was the last time you walked up to a kiosk, a stand and your chin was like touching the table?"

This is just a nitpick. While, yes, it can look a little jarring, but out of all of things you're critiquing is the fucking counter "being too big"? Theft King, do you have spatial awareness? The counter is at Ed's chest, not eye level. Besides, you're not even fully looking up.

Also, for some reason, he genders nail polish for some reason? Either saying it was nail polish or a bad "fingernail texture"? Which. Okay? Men can wear nail polish too, Theft King. It isn't a gendered thing.

"The next area is probably the most visually striking in the game. A large fountain square with a strange clock tower and Ferris wheel in the distance. It's pretty cool. But there's a lot of empty sky box visible and it's fairly obvious that there's absolutely nothing beyond these buildings that we can see the illusion that this is actually outside is completely broken. And as a result, this area feels more like a sound stage or movie set than an actual place. It just needed a lot more low resolution buildings and rides and stuff in the distance. Because it's obvious behind this clock tower, is just an endless void."

Theft King, once again, have you ever been to a theme park? It's the entrance to the ACTUAL park. You don't get to see everything right off the bat, it's just a taste of the actual theme park. If Geese and co. added more buildings and rides, it would look VERY cluttered and jankily put in together. It would also be way overstimulating, and ruin the atmosphere of the decayed, left-to-rot theme park with all of these lights and colors. It is a horror game, Theft King. Atmosphere, setting, and lighting are important here. It just seems like if you aren't being entertained for more than 2 seconds you're crying out it's "boring and just looks like a set piece."

Besides, do you think all of the budget is going to be spent on the buildings, just so it be can be aesthetically pleasing? A problem Theft King (and the majority of the indie mascot horror critics I see) really need to stop expecting brand new, horror indie games to be AAA quality. Geese funded chapter one from his own pocket money. Geese is the only programmer. Geese is still a beginner and still in college. The fact he is still a beginner, and pulled this off shows that he's a fast learner, willingly to learn, and talented. Give him some slack.

"[...] But we find that the door [Jetstream Junction's] is locked. This fountain square station is huge, but there's really only one destination. Lloyd's Mane Stage Theater. [...] Check out the LOD's on this box. There's no bar code, bard code. No bar code, bar code. Indigo Park is made in Unreal Engine 5, and it's really pretty at times. Though, certain effects are obviously pretty janky. Yeah, the flashlight looks kind of like ass. The flashlight looming shadows are pretty janky. You can see them kind of wobbling and flickering around. I turned on all of the fancy features and while the game looks really moody and atmospheric when lights aren't moving, the flashlight doesn't really look well with it. The shadows flicker and jiggle all over the place and it just looks really bad."

Okay, if it certain effects are janky, how are they janky? What could they improve on to not make it less janky? For the flashlight bit, you are holding a flashlight and how it's meant to be done is suppose to be more realistic, according to Geese. Also, this is just really nitpicky. If anything, it's a a subtle thing and you get used to the flashlight feature pretty quickly. It kind of just sounds like you're picking this game apart, if it was an AAA game. The game is not perfect, by any means. But tearing and shredding to bit little, tiny, things when this project has ONE coder, who spent all of us OWN money, is still a beginner, and IS STILL in college.

When someone is a beginner and showing a willingly to learn, you have to take a different approach. It'd be one thing if Geese was doing programming for years, but he's not. You have to redirect your criticism and maybe, I don't know, give suggestions? You haven't really gone into what he could do to improve, and give examples to help him out. This is like treating someone who's a beginner drawer and expecting Michelangelo perfect details. They're drawing is still good, there's noticeable mistakes, but there's room to improve and grow. Also, Theft King, you literally have your settings maxed out. Maybe trying lowering them.

"Earlier, Rambley asked us where we wanted to go first. Implying, that we had a choice. [...] We don't. We go where exactly where Rambley says, always. That's the name of the game. Rambley tells you to go somewhere and you do it. Honestly, until the theater just now, every area in this game has been walk in, talk to Rambley, and walk out."

Theft King, asking a small, indie team to program a BUNCH of stuff you can do within an entire SECTION of an area is... a lot to ask, don't you think? Like, yes. I will admit I will agree there should be a lot more interactable with the items around that Ed can explore, I think that's a good point to bring up. But those would just be side things to do. You still have to progress the main story of chapter one. You can be patient for one minute. They are clearly building up to something. Besides, it's an abandoned theme park, I doubt any of the items inside would work. It's "walk in and walk out" to set the atmosphere of what's about to come, and let your guard down. It's not that hard to put two and two together.

Also, as I said before, to put pressure on one programmer to program so many things all at once is just not a cool thing to do. It sounds like you have to be entertained 24/7. Be patient, and wait. They're building up to something. Just wait.

"[...] Like I said before, the whole game is just kind of just walking into an area, having Rambley talk to you for a bit, and tell you where to go next. We find ourselves in Mollie's Landing Pad, which is a play pen highly reminiscent of DogDays from Poppy Playtime Chapter 3 or The Daycare from FNAF: Security Breach. This section presents itself as a puzzle, but it's really not. It's another fetch quest. Embedded in the walls, are five-colored that each can be set to one of four symbols. And throughout the area, we find paintings of shapes that correspond to the code. Again, it's not really a puzzle. It's just a slightly, contrived justification to make you wonder through this area and experience all of the scripted sequences." Rambley "tells you where to go" is because it is establishing how his game mechanic works, expanding on his personality, and him finding out the horrors of the park and what happened to everything. It's setting up how things are going to go down. Rambley is an AI park, GUIDE. Rambley is LITERALLY doing his job, GUIDING us around the park. Pay attention to what's going on.

Last time I checked, play pins are a big part of children's entertainment. Your local Chuck E. Cheese has this exact same, ball pit. Poppy Playtime and FNAF doesn't owe the rights to a colorful, play pit. See, through out his review Theft King calls Indigo Park a rip off of Poppy Playtime Chapter 3, and of Security Breach. But never goes into detail as to WHY and HOW it is. Sure, he shows via visuals, but never expands fully on his point on itself. Also, "fetch quest"? Fetch quests are something you get and return to an NPC. This, by definition is a puzzle. What are we exactly fetching, here? We're solving a puzzle to open the door. Also, wow! Scripted horror events in tight closed spaces! What a twist! Sarcasm.

"Unfortunately, by this point, the game had all but telegraphed that I wasn't in any danger and thus, I wasn't really scared."

...You literally have shown insistences of being scared? Through out when you were walking through Lloyd's maze thing, and when Mollie was peeking around the corners in the slides. You HAVE shown you were scared, or at least startled. Thus, it did it's job of being a horror game. Theft King, something doesn't need to be happening 24/7 to do it's job. Sometimes horror works better in subtle ways than just blaring red, warning signs all over the place, or having a scary chase scene.

"After pressing a button, with no visible indication of what it does."

...Look down. The fact that you couldn't even pay attention to something as something simple as this, tells me you weren't even doing a fraction or even cared to actually pay attention to what was happening, gameplay or lore wise. That's how much care was put into "reviewing" this game.

"As the leader of the FNAF community and for the former, top five greatest FNAF player in the world, I shouldn't have died to that."

Why are you running directly towards Mollie? You only died because you ran straight into the obvious "RUN NOW" part of the game.

"Yeah, it's literally the DogDays sequence from Poppy Playtime. It's literally the same thing. I criticized the DogDays chase in Chapter 3 for being boring, so, naturally, this cheap, knockoff is... even more boring. Normally, in my videos, the chase sequence is like a free 30 to 60 seconds of watch time. I just let it play because it's exciting. However, as I edit this video, I realized I have to cut this chase down, it's so boring. And I think that says a lot. [...] Then we see ourselves being chased through vents, just like Poppy Playtime Chapter 1."

Theft King, being chased down closed, liminal spaces isn't something Poppy Playtime owns. There are MANY differences. For one, in the DogsDays chase, you have to avoid the smaller creatures trying to get you, on top of the possessed DogDays chasing you, which is quite fast in the decrepit area. In Indigo Park, you're still the Landing Pad, going down slides, and jumping on things to get away from Mollie. Which leads into the Ranglers' room area. The areas look ENTIRELY different, and so do the vents in Chapter 1 of Poppy Playtime and here.

Also, you're not suppose to wait 30-60 seconds. You're suppose to be actively running away from the monsters. Y'know, the whole point of a chase sequence, and y'know, playing the game. It's "boring" because Indigo Park lets your guard down, when the chase is STILL happening until you see Rambley again.

"That was when it hit me. Despite Indigo Park being the definition of a shallow, walking simulator that that is in many ways, even less original than Garten of BanBan, I was still enjoying it. But, only thanks to Rambley. Rambley carries this game. Without him and his great dialogue and acting, Indigio Park would be entirely forgettable. For all of BanBan's faults, the game has this at least has this unique, bizarre, liminal style to it. Even if it's completely incoherent. Indigo Park's environments are generic. They're boring. There are some cool rooms and set pieces, but this doesn't really feel like an abandoned theme park. Like I said before, it feels like a sound stage. This is the video game equivalent to those haunted house rides that shepherd you through a series of rooms as scripted sequences play predictably each time. Rambley is the only thing keeps you playing because he's great. But, the longer Indigo Park goes on, the more and more obvious it becomes that he's a massive crutch that it leans on to mask the lack of any real subsite gameplay, interesting environments, or even compelling narrative.

We know that something bad happened here and it caused the park to be evacuated and closed down but once we get inside, we just see that place is trashed. There isn't much in the environment that hints at what actually happened. And without those breadcrumbs of mystery, the only real reason to keep moving forward is because Rambley tells us to. And HE IS, quite entertaining. However, I am skeptical, that this trick will work twice. Rambley kept me going for the roughly 1 hour it takes to beat Indigo Park Chapter 1, but it had started getting old. Fellow YouTuber, UniqueGeese is crowdfunding for chapter 2 right now and I think that's awesome. But they're going have to do more to have to do more for the follow up game and because chapter 1 has ZERO gameplay with which to build on, it's not really clear what a more ambitious sequel would even look like. Poppy ran into the same problem. Prior to chapter 3, the gameplay was just like... puzzles, scripted sequences and freaking Simon Says. With the latest entry, they added real gameplay mechanics and some would argue that Poppy suffered as a result. By failing to establish any actual, gameplay in chapter 1, Indigo Park either needs to introduce something totally new in chapter 2 or continue with the shallow scripted, walking simulator approach but just turn up the spectacle and fidelity." Out of all the points in this video, this one made me sigh the most.

To even COMPARE Indigo Park to Garten of BanBan is a huge insult. Garten of BanBan pumps out game after game, merch after merch, to make a quick buck and splash because right now indie, mascot horror is still popular. This game took over a YEAR to make, and had love and time, and passion, and giving a fresh, twist on it and to even say BanBan offered something better is just... really gross, in my opinion.

For the environments bit, you can see clearly where nature takes it's course through out the land with bushes and grass, and the decay of food in one of the cafes taking place. It's setting up the atmosphere of being decayed, left to rot, and feels like something's in the shadows. It's to make you unnerved that happiness used to be here, but now it's gone.

And YES! The lore IS there! You actively have to PAY ATTENTION as to what's going on. The problem with this point is that Theft King expects the game to paint the entire picture of what happened. When part of Indigo Park is it's mystery. Mollie repeats words of the workers abusing her, or the fact that Lloyd used to be the face of the brand, or the hidden cage within the arcade game, and Mollie saying "Get back in your cage, bird." Something Salem says within game. Or showing us the mascots got corrupted by something, and implying this isn't their original selves, but the actual cartoony mascots. You just have to wait, it's giving intrigue, but not painting the entire picture because it's just chapter 1. You'll probably see more of what happened later on. Be patient. A big part of Indigo Park's horror is how TERRIBLE the mascots were treated, and the abuse they suffered via the workers and people attending the park. That is interlinked with what happened to the park, 8 years ago.

With this point, it just seems like if nothing is happening 24/7, you're just bored. The phrase "walking simulator" has been done to death. We're being introduced to the basic game mechanics. Of course chapter 2 is going to be better than chapter 1. Literally all I have to say for this entire nothing burger of critique is "pay attention and let the devs cook".

"We encounter another information kiosk. Which lets us hear the dialogue for the remaining secret items we found. The mask during the chase sequence reveals a secret audio tape with objectively worse voice acting within the entire game."

How are you a FNAFTuber and not know what Dayshift at Freddy's is? It's one of the most popular parody FNAF games out there. The voice acting is bad on purpose because a.) it's mocking the text-to-voice speech the game uses b.) it's a joke.

Then near the end he says how his critiques were fair, and then states he likes the game, and says it's fun? Even though he spent the entirety of the game saying it's a boring, cheap knock off of Poppy Playtime and FNAF? I'm getting mixed signals here. All of this review was not expanding on any of his points, or if he did, it was something already within the game, and he clearly wasn't paying attention and actually looking around for secrets. You're suppose to be looking for clues, not getting handed to you.

This review was just "meh it's bad", and doesn't give any helpful criticism on how said game can improve, and even just downright insults the game multiple times. For the majority of the review, he just narrates what's going on, with spliced clips of him playing this on a stream. If anything, this just pads out the entire review, and waiting to get to an actual part of where he has a point. It, frankly, gets annoying after awhile, until he basically just sums up what he thought about the game just all at the end. It seems like Theft King really only made this video was to get clicks and views.

Now, everyone on YouTube wants this, obviously. But he really just seems likes poking the bear and making fun of people getting mad at him. Even if his critiques were not good. At all. Indigo Park isn't the best game ever or even the best indie mascot game made ever. It was entirely made out of bad faith, just to get a quick buck. A big problem I have with the video is the only harping on the "lack of gameplay."

I think people forget the games "feels sameish to Poppy Playtime and FNAF" is because they are horror games, who are first person and exploration games. Yes, you can tell there is inspiration but it does NOT copy the games at all, and just does homages to them and pays respects to them. Geese is a fan of mascot horror, and clearly respects them. It's not a "walking simulator", it's doing it's job as an EXPLORATION horror game. People have been using "walking simulator" as a critique and just have beaten that horse to DEATH. Give an actual, substance criticism or move on. Not to mention, he literally says that "they copied Fnaf Jr's death screen" when it was made by the same artist.

Also, for the obvious gotcha,

For him claiming it's "unoriginal" and a "ripoff", is coming from the guy who's VTuber avatar is just a white recolor of CatNap.

Just wanna add:

Listen. I know it's Theft King and he just does this to piss people off at this point but to just shame, put down, and put baseless claims of Indigo Park being a rip off, when it's inspired, not a rip off, of a passion project from a team that put so much love and time into it, is just really gross and needs to be called out.

Thanks for reading!

#indigo park #indigo park analysis #indie horror #indie mascot horror #rambley raccoon #anti theft king #theft king rant #tl;dr this entire video sucked ass and it was so hard to keep it all like professional #i watched this shitty review so y'all didn't have to hate it here

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