What Went Wrong? - Hello Neighbor

[@IDONTGETTHEPOINT]

The developers of Hello Neighbor really focused too much into making it into a 'KZbin playthrough' game. You can have fun watching someone else struggle through the puzzles, but to try and play it yourself feels like a chore.

[@Ice67333]

the fact that i finish the game in 11 minutes on mobile it's wierd

[@spiired6469]

This comment sums it up .

[@bloodyhell8201]

@@spiired6469 no, it divides it up.

[@snappieboi5026]

@@bloodyhell8201 no , it subtracts it up.

[@Cheese-0001]

@@snappieboi5026 no, it squares it.

[@GreenHatter]

The fact Alpha 1 has the best shading sums up the whole game

[@zero.Identity]

had the alpha back then. liked it, hoped for the best. then alpha 2 came out. fonfused me a bit, was ok. then, i jus saw the update to alpha three, not even trying it, and never reading about it again. never playing it again or just having it on my pc

[@planescaped]

@@zero.Identity Sounds like a perfect game for the hidden folder.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

It really says something when both the announcement trailer and the very first alpha build are way scarier than everything that comes afterward.

[@HenryJr_T]

@@zero.Identity you took the right decision

[@wifieatscheese]

Ikr

[@postagestamp8365]

That early footage with the player blocking the door in a room. That was scarier than the final game.

[@malte291]

The original concept was so good. An AI that can actually outsmart the player would be pretty much revolutionary in video games and could make horror games 1000x better.

[@reiverdaemon]

@@malte291 that's why alien isolation was so good

[@peautbuttersandwich7701]

true lol

[@belkYT]

It actually terrified me and made my heart beat 6x faster. I’m unironically serious.

[@uwu-chan]

Why is this true? I skipped it cause I got way to scared “lol”

[@16Nire61]

Kinda feels like the devs saw everyone doing weird parkour in the early alpha builds and thought, “Oh, this must be how people want to play!” instead of realizing it was just folks poking around and exploring however they could in an incomplete game.

[@Omarlol3rd]

Holy shit you solved why hello neighbors full game is just parjour

[@Pairofscissorspng]

I think the best idea was to just add a parkour mode

[@gabrielguedes6166]

I simply despise games that force parkour into such a crude and bad engine. The physics in this game screams "Indie" and has the same jankiness as old Fallout games. It's just bad

[@unclebaba3463]

​@Gabriel Guedes hey, old fallouts physics engine is at least fun, I love seeing boxes flying across the Mohave like tumble weeds

[@Headspr0uter]

Probably 5% that and 95% the fact that creating and testing a parkour course requires a lot less time and talent than an AI that learns from your mistakes.

[@atrinoch7437]

literally went from "horror mystery game" like Amnesia, to "zany platformer" in a few months. The drastic shift of tone killed this game

[@williamjames7293]

can't wait to see the second game flop

[@AgeraXXX]

James there's a 2nd one???

[@kyrianbilbao9073]

@@AgeraXXX Yes there is

[@kyrianbilbao9073]

@@AgeraXXX still in beta though

[@kyrianbilbao9073]

@Gabe tottaly a suprise

[@AlexDayz]

I feel this game tried to be too many things at once. It’s a stealth game where you avoid the neighbor. It leans into horror elements. It’s a platformer. It’s a puzzle game. It’s got deep convoluted lore. While some of these could’ve worked together they should’ve just stuck with one or two. What initially drew people to the game was the AI of the neighbor learning from your previous failures (boarding up windows, checking closets, etc.). They should’ve focuses on that and stealth elements rather than try to make it a mix of everything

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Remember when Hello Neighbor actually used to be a stealth-horror game about breaking into your neighbor’s house? Yeah, me neither. It’s depressing how the developers really turned their game into a weird puzzle-platformer and desperately tried to leech off the popularity of FNAF…

[@PopIkiru]

I think they could have succeeded with all of these elements if the puzzles made sense, and they lessened their complexity. Same with the platforming. Plus if they had the neighbor be proximity based while in the house (or have a patrol mode) it would have fixed the issue. Maybe the items you’d collect would help you make less noise (quieter shoes, etc) or even have a way to disable the neighbor for a certain amount of time. In a way, I’d say that FNAF security breach’s stealth features would have also helped here (being able to throw something to get the neighbor to investigate it specifically) I loved the neighbor adapting to your choices when I watched it. I also loved how nonsensical the house became in layout. I fully agree with you though. The game tried to be too many of the popular youtuber games at once. They could have honestly separated the features into two different games.

[@marsybarz]

Honestly the house size was also so annoying

[@codym5352]

What happened was the creepy dev had a Matpat obsession and literally started screwing with the game JUST to get Game Theory to talk about it more as free publicity. Like LITERALLY started developing the game SPECIFICALLY based around Matpat playing it, it was disturbing.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

@@PopIkiru I think everything would've been far better if the developers introduced an option for procedurally-generated houses, each with its own different layouts, rooms, and puzzles. That way, it would give the game a lot more replayability and content without dragging out the pacing for too long. One reasonable explanation for this inclusion is that the Neighbor move between different houses to cover up his footsteps. I've also thought it would be cooler if there's an implementation of the AI Director from Left 4 Dead, which overlooks the progression and behavior of the player, by shaking up the difficulty to either reward or punishes them depending on their playstyle accordingly. For example, if you continue to play the game aggressively and loudly (i.e. breaking doors and windows, setting off cameras, vandalizing his property too many times, etc.), the Neighbor's AI will become more confrontational and persistent. However, if you continue to play the game cautiously and stealthily (i.e. tiptoeing carefully through the corridors, sabotaging his traps, distracting him with an alarm clock, etc), the Neighbor's AI will become a lot less suspicious of his surroundings.

[@testingphaze4853]

The early gameplay demo video is genuinely more terrifying to watch than the later alphas and even the full release. Says a lot about the downfall of the game

[@Aasha]

Right!?

[@acyde125]

Getting chased by a tposing unstoppable demon in an endless white space is infinitely more scarier than what we got

[@bobuxdoesmemes924]

Alpha 3 was terrifying though

[@averydavis5741]

@@acyde125 erase (more)

[@Unpug]

@@acyde125 haha

[@pandazzz5282]

Hell, a better ending would have been the player waking up from the dream, but they were actually stuck in the basement as the neighbour had kidnapped them as a kid. They were just dreaming of themselves rescuing themselves.

[@kydiasan21]

THIS! Every time I rewatch this video I think this would be the way to do the ‘just a dream’ ending. You never got out. You just imagined that you had, and imagined that your older self would come and save you.

[@nananakeson]

Jesus Christ that's awesome

[@lanaya3148]

Okay ngl this is good

[@simonmalmstrom9593]

Honestly this comment alone would have made the game soooo much better. Tbh I can’t even fucking remember the ending of it because all I remember is that it had amazing potential then completely dropped the ball at the end and the ending was just shite. But I can 100% see how this game being a dream fits sooo well because of how dream like and almost child like feel the world has. Hell they could even make the different betas/alphas cannon as different dreams with having the more fantastical ones being the later ones as the child loses hope and becomes more delusional with the idea of escaping.

[@MrLachapell]

Are y'all ok ?

[@dream__soda7900]

The game feels like a collection of the mobile game ads turned into a game.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Forme personally, Hello Neighbor felt like one of those cheap Roblox obby games that you would frequently find on the front page all the time.

[@dream__soda7900]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m yup

[@MrWolfSnack]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m Keep you active long enough to not notice the high memory usage and all your information being skimmed to a Russian server farm

[@slavdog3180]

That’s actually respectful to mobile games, they’re way worse than this

[@AndrewBarsky]

Can we just appreciate how we all understand EXACTLY how much of a trashing this is.

[@torgranael]

So the "deep lore" of this game is summed up very quickly? Your curiosity as a kid get's you kidnapped and you break out broken, beaten and scarred. Then 20 years later, you have a weird dream. That sounds like there was supposed to be an on the nose metaphor about childhood trauma, but hit the mark about as well as that jar of pickles entered the trolley.

[@cats1970]

It’s so painful to me because the dream is very clearly based on a type of trauma therapy. It’s where you go back to your trauma and insert your current self to help the past you. You can use words, get the police to the scene, fight off the attacker, use magic. As long as it helps you in that horrible horrible situation. I’ve gone through that type of therapy. And it honestly did help so much to process a horrific thing I’d carried with me for years. But to put it in a dream makes zero sense. The protagonist used crack to cope with the trauma because he couldn’t resolve it by himself. It would’ve been so much less shitty of a plot point if they actually put it in context of trauma therapy. Sometimes you’ll visit the site of the trauma with your therapist to “defend yourself” as if it was happening today. To chalk that sort of intense treatment as “yeah sure you can diy it in your dream” is hollow, misrepresentative and frankly disgusting. Even a site revisit to point out the neighbour’s body after you murdered him or something would be stronger than this sad mess.

[@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley]

@@cats1970 How the hell do you have a game with a character with a crack addiction that then turns into a franchise for kids? 😂 I'm surprised that wasn't brought up.

[@stingerjohnny9951]

@@cats1970 So basically it’s lucid dreaming weaponized against trauma? That’s fascinating!!!! Also like the person above me said, the fact this is treated as a kids franchise when the MC is literally having a crack fueled fever dream is hilarious to me 🤣

[@icantthinkofanything798]

Yeah but that sounds like the beginning of the story, y'know? Only after that is there some kind of therapy and maybe meeting the neighbor again and there's this police type investigation where we learned what he actually did to the main character and what happened

[@royalblanket]

@@cats1970 Holy shit. This is probably what they were going for. The game literally ends with you defending yourself ...Why make it a childrens game?

[@kriminal7009]

Imagine coming up with a killer concept for a stealth/puzzle game and then ruining it by making it a weird parkour mess. Like, the neighbor adapting to entry and distractions makes for an interesting play through each and every time. That’s what people were hooked on in addition to the mystery of the basement. The weird house additions, convoluted story, and poorly crafted puzzles really stunt this game.

[@migueeeelet]

A great stealth AI is hard to make. Parkour and nonsensical puzzles can be crapped out with your eyes closed though!

[@gamercentral2417]

@@migueeeelet but in alpha 1 the ai was actually good they just didn’t fix it

[@summergamer7650]

ngl, i feel like making the house bigger than it needed to be was one of the biggest downfalls

[@dionylescailles4409]

@@summergamer7650 seriously breaks immersion and adds too many issues. Normal inconspicuous house was the best by far.

[@jadehodge972]

@@dionylescailles4409 wouldnt even know how to beat it without youtube.... like dude who wouldve known to beat it ud need an umbrella out of everything.

[@nickname_on8725]

I like how the neighbors AI seems to get worse at every single alpha release. It is literally evolving backwards.

[@PlasticCogLiquid]

I think that's why they added "CHAPTERS." They realized they couldn't pull off a good AI without screwing it up so they needed to start from a clean slate for each chapter in Unity. As long as they have a nice level plane for a starting area the neighbor AI can at least chase you around for a part of the level but as you progress it will probably just bug out after a while and they didn't want to deal with it, so time to click "New Scene."

[@stupidclowv]

Probably because they were too lazy to update the ai

[@Where_da_cheese_at]

@@stupidclowv why you cry

[@raisinwaisin]

“evolving backwards” you mean “devolving”? 😂

[@okimightcomeback]

​@@raisinwaisinno, *evolving backwards*

[@Andorzsiac]

Markiplier was incredibly smart when deciding to drop this game, he hadn’t even touched the full release, but by the final alpha, he knew this game was gonna be shite, and lo and behold

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

"There's a lot more stuff, but I can't honestly say that the stuff is better. And that's the one thing that I'll say about it because I'm expecting as the game develops, it's going to get like more logical and sensible and, you know, it just seems even more nonsensical than it was before. So there's a lot more, but it's less refined." - Markiplier

[@3Guys1Video]

Damn

[@klol-ld8jr]

Wow he got it right on

[@Felix-Felix]

@@TuriGamer While I agree that people "would still have watched it", he's the one doing the playthrough, and I don't believe he's struggling for views at the position he's in right now, so he can choose not to play a game if he's not going to give genuine reactions about it. Imagine watching a Markiplier video where he just constantly complain about the game, just like GeneralMcBadass used to do for Payday 2 at some point he was sick of it but still doing it for views. Just trying to be fair here, Mark likes being as genuine as he can be nowadays, so it's understandable if he sees the game won't be actual entertainment for HIS channel. That said, we're all free to stream the game ourselves if we think otherwise.

[@nemtudom5074]

Did he ever say something about him dropping it, or did he just not play it anymore and moved on in silence?

[@tellmeninetails5819]

I remember the main appeal was the fact that the neighbour adapted to your attempts to break in, I don't think anyone thought moving away from that was a good idea.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Blame the developer’s incompetence or the publishers for changing the direction and making it follow the horror game trends that FNAF popularizes. I personally do believe that the publisher, TinyBuild, is the one contributing to the downfall of Hello Neighbor since they kept begging Matpat to make a theory video on the animated pilot.

[@WhoAmIHmmm]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m if tinybuild is the reason of that then that sucks because I remember watching gameplays about the first game of the Tiny build owner but remastered (no time to explain!)

[@DeathnoteBB]

@@WhoAmIHmmm The game was “No Time to Explain”, to clarify for people who never knew it

[@WhoAmIHmmm]

@@DeathnoteBB oh, yeah thank you

[@chaosinc.382]

That's how I first heard of this game, through an article about the fantastic adapting AI.

[@mellow_mallow]

Jesus Christ that demo scares the shit out of me. Something about just seeing him floating towards you in the corner of your eye is really getting to me.

[@fenudel2734]

Thank god I‘m not the only one. Literally made the hairs on my neck stand up

[@munchmongoose]

The demo is the best product. Seeing something emerge closer to those concepts would have been amazing

[@Julia-lk8jn]

you're right, it has all the ingredients: he doesn't look or move really human, you only catch short glimpses, and those background noises! Oh boy.

[@dualtahunter4043]

The early version of the neighbor was genuinely scary. Cold, emotionless, silent as a mouse but when he sees you, he was just this terminator-like beast, chasing you relentlessly. In the later versions he was just this senile old fart who was more of a nuisance than a villian

[@C.I...]

It reminds me of that Sherlock Holmes game demo, where Watson's AI wasn't finished, so he just teleported next to you while you weren't looking.

[@Stillbraixentho]

The neighbor actually learns from you,but since the game is so damn convoluted he just learns to be confused from your own confusion

[@AbanonedChannel]

Poor dude is living the existence of free guy except the game has more bugs than oogie boogie

[@Everything-Productions-Studios]

So True bro-

[@orestisgeorgatos6725]

i wouldn't call it learning. it uses basic heat maps to establish where you go and patrol there more often and set traps there. hardly learning

[@dankbonkripper2845]

​@orestisgeorgatos6725 it gives the illusion of learning, and since all video games are simply about selling an illusion, it classes as "learning".

[@orestisgeorgatos6725]

@@dankbonkripper2845 not how it works. it's still an illusion of machine learning

[@PomMoei]

i typically don't ever cringe at things, the word itself bothers me, but seeing the publisher tweet out to matpat begging to make a theory video really did it for me. i don't think that will ever leave my head, it's engrained within my soul.

[@TheHypnosBunny]

I can't cringe at that because the only thing I think is that its so pitiful

[@troyshin3924]

@@TheHypnosBunny Right. It reminds me of those one hit wonders that continuously trying to fall back into relevancy. Very sad

[@ivgorm9365]

no fucking way

[@JBD0909]

I don't normally cringe either, but weeb profile pics do it to me.

[@joaotanekosy]

I believe matpat is going to enjoy this comment 👀

[@pgbrown12084]

This developer is really focused on Let's Players and Theorists. If you look at their social media, they are desperately trying to get MatPat to make videos about their games. It's unfortunate. If they put the same amount of energy into making a quality game I feel like they could really succeed.

[@ck7993]

i remember when they directly pinged game theory 3 TIMES saying "YoU MiGhT WAnnA TaKe a PeeK a ThiS"

[@ryebreadthebread]

It feels like they care more about publicity than making a good and well rounded game

[@liesdamnlies3372]

They're Russian. It’s more likely that at this point they’re just desperate to get enough money for a ticket to leave.

[@elpenguinoofmexico1388]

Yeah. If we look at five nights at freddy’s, the game that kinda made Game Theory famous, that game started off w/ little to no lore at all. Just some animatronics u had to avoid and some sprinkles of murder surrounding the franchise. The story didnt get properly expanded until the 2nd game. Things dont happen in an instant

[@MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD]

@@ck7993 did you remember it from this video at 25:49 ?

[@mtallmen184]

The publisher desperately tweeting at MatPat to care about their game again is one of the saddest things I've ever seen

[@ayrtonjoga]

​@Levi Chicwown Did Scott Cawthon kept begging for marketing of bigger channels to make the FNAF series popular? No, because he just wanted to create a good game with detailed lore and was confident enough to just let the games grow naturally without looking desperate for attention And he didn't had a great record of creating games either

[@maybeoptify]

I feel an uncanny amount of second hand embarrassment from this

[@amsyarzero]

@@SanicConnoisseur_91 Ayrton Joga is agreeing with you. The reason they mentioned FNAF is because both FNAF and Hello Neighbor are well-known in MatPat's community

[@ayrtonjoga]

@@amsyarzero Exactly! Thanks for clarifying them

[@scarlett8782]

meanwhile MatPat is just chillin, sipping a Diet Coke not giving a f* about their games anymore

[@The-Omega-Blade]

"Act 1 has you starting out as a kid who looks about 30, kicking a ball down a street" Never has a statement been more true and baffling at the same time...

[@HealthGage0336]

"I give it too much juice and it flies over the fence of our local NASA compound. Just bare with me"

[@lunarialoonatic]

No Fr I was confused until I saw the kid

[@namename2186]

Ight, pulling the "It was all a dream move" is the real warcrime here; not only because it robs the narrative of a satisfying ending, but because it allows the developers to make shit even more cryptic by including symbology and half baked psychological facts, which I assume was the point.

[@mattbar6]

absolUTELY

[@Zeromaru42]

It pulls the same Sin that Bendy Chapter 5 does and that Sin is unforgivable. It makes the entirety of the game you spent hours playing into a Dream out of nowhere with no prior hints or anything and it leaves the player unable to enjoy the experience. Unless you explicitly or somewhat hint at it beforehand it always just comes out as a Cop out. Of course the only way to hint at it in a cool way is to plan it from the start with actual thought and foreshadowing. Something very absent from a lot of the Games and Movies that pull it. When done right it can encourage theories and encourage replayability, but more often than not people just drop it in because they weren't able to come up with anything and they wanted to seem smart for something that better Games and Movies have done before.

[@hohunch0]

@@Zeromaru42 facts when it's all just a dream, there really is no point to giving a shit about theories or the symbolism. Like you did all that just for a dream?

[@Zeromaru42]

@@hohunch0 When Evangelion and Future Diary do it better because they had actual thought put into them.

[@Hephera]

the game literally tells you youre hallucinating and then you GO TO SLEEP next to a destroyed house and "wake up" to it having magically grown to a massive skyscraper with impossible physics. if you only realised it was a dream at the end that's kindve on you...

[@alcerdemon9768]

This is the first time ever I've seen a case of a game reaching its peak during its first Alpha

[@MrBrandonStar]

alpha is better

[@dragonking528]

Have you heard about starforge?

[@CadChamberlain]

DayZ is the same thing except theyve been in the alpha stage for like 8 years

[@tobiasreiig5954]

cube world is a somewhat similar case...

[@dragonking528]

@@tobiasreiig5954 yes

[@morphstarchangeling8024]

The part that hurts the most out of all this has to be the part of it where the devs kick you in the balls by saying all the lore was just a dream and none of that theory crafting led to anything.

[@thewhompingwampa2671]

Which is pretty fucking hypocritical of them, considering that HN begs MatPat to theorise about it all on Twitter.

[@Xegethra]

Theory stuff can get a bit iffy, fan theories are head canon that people take too seriously and con themselves into believing. But that being said, that's what you get when you don't bother to write a solid story/narrative. If you're going to leave stuff unmentioned then at least have an answer in the from of figuring it out, so people can find the truth and see what's going on, then there's some pay off, instead of leaving people to make up fan theories that don't go anywhere. But then you'd have actually write something. Otherwise fans are just pulling crap out of their arses.

[@undertyped1]

Not really, i've never played it but I have a working brain, so I can tell what this game is actually about. It's obviously telling a story about trauma. The kid gets traumatised, and it screws him up as an adult. When he comes back to the house as an adult, it looks scary and larger than life, because that's how trauma works. You remember things more terrifying than they were. The things he does in act three are obviously meant to break through the trauma the character was going through. Whether the game itself was any good, I don't care, but I AM sad to see so many "paragons" of my species in the comment section. Critical thinking is well and truly dead if a simple story is too deep for so many people to figure out.

[@enriquesanchez9016]

@@undertyped1 The story is not that complicated but it was executed TERRIBLY.

[@unknownsword9042]

@-Random- How dare people try and market their product to make money so they can pay bills. I swear it is like nobody in these comment sections are adults with real problems.

[@FourDozenEggs]

"It's just a dream" is always a bad way to end a story. It objectively invalidates everything. None of the events mattered because they weren't even real. In order for a story to matter, there needs to be tangible consequences or at least threats of consequence.

[@HydragonofDeath]

There are ways to make the It's a dream ending work, but it has to be very carefully put toghether so that there still feels like a payoff for the entire experience, hello neighbor doesn't even try.

[@paulmahoney7619]

9/10 if you want to make the "it's a dream" ending work, it has to be very clearly telegraphed from the start, making it clear that this is meant to be more an exploration of the psyche.

[@Cinkodacs]

​@@paulmahoney7619Or make the dream matter in the end. Make the character do something due to the dream, maybe to avoid a tragedy. So many ways to handle it...

[@CbOt7]

Kind of reminds me of Little hope.

[@frankisnot1148]

​@@Cinkodacs they could also lean into the hopelessness of it by having the player character wake up as a child in a neighbour's basement, if they REALLY wanted the "it's just a dream" ending.

[@charleschamp9826]

I can't believe this game gives backstory to the Spy from TF2. I mean how else do you explain the three hands, who else could use the Deadringer and reload their revolver at the same time?

[@Dr_Dan_]

i waited for this comment

[@virtualashez]

I literally said the same thing omfg

[@Dabadi4834]

MEET THE SPY

[@cacovonluca]

Hello Fortress 2 confirmed

[@galaxymaster673]

best comment i’ve seen in a while

[@Baconator96]

The early version was deemed too scary because the neighbor t-posed while he was chasing you

[@mapleflag6518]

They were intimidated by his dominance.

[@Moshmaschine]

For some reason, that actually does creep me out quite a bit. Just so unnatural to see a person approach you with no visible signs of movement.

[@omgnoi]

Yeah it was the only scary one to me lol

[@TheMostActuallyRealDonaldTrump]

@@Moshmaschine pu-

[@GrushV2]

@@TheMostActuallyRealDonaldTrump tin

[@UltravioletNomad]

To me the biggest problem with Hello Neighbor is that it stopped being ABOUT the Neighbor. Most people will cite that the problems come when they seemed to revise the movement and took a downward spiral into a platformer, but coincided with that is the inclusion of the player model itself, and both of these signify a major negative change in the direction of the game. Mechanically it stopped being about the Neighbor and his learning AI to being about the house itself. Before the house was merely a tool for both you and the neighbor to interact with in this push and pull stealth battle, now the game lives and dies on the level design, and boy is the level design terribly loose. But then narratively, we also shift focus away from the neighbor and into the player character. Suddenly its a story about us and the neighbor is just the agent of chaos who sets the obstacles. While they definitely attempted to preserve the mystery of the neighbor, his motives and intentions are now secondary to this new story of a kidnap victim with PTSD. Its not really effective at telling this type of narrative, especially as the artstyle got more and more wacky as opposed to grim Burton-esque. The reality is, if you want to tell a mystery, then tell the mystery. The players role is just to be a new concerned neighbor, and as a video game we can fill that role, the player character doesn't need much of any backstory, just put something interesting behind that door and foreshadow it in the climb to achieve opening it. While the game wants us to dig into the motives of the neighbor, the big secret is blown in the first act, he has or was planning to hold a child hostage. It doesn't matter if hes doing it because his daughter and/or wife died, the secret is out before you even escape and hes taken care of after that. But then it gets worse with the flash backs, for one its confusing to understand what perspective any of them take, neighbor or the player, as they contain context for both characters. They use the dream thing to glance over the trippy stuff and the ridiculous final house, but that doesn't explain how the player's hallucinations elucidates us on the Neighbor's backstory. And while exact details are confusing and sparse, the big key points are right in your face with them. In fact I'd argue that between the flashbacks and cutscenes the game actually isn't cryptic enough and ruins any sense of mystery. Considering that they started to pour so much resources into the house, either for pandering to kids KZbin or a lack of ambition to actually refine what could have been really innovative stealth gameplay, they made no attempt to use the house to actually tell a compelling story, and the flashback sections are just a crutch to that affect, same as the box stacking is a crutch to any legitimate game design. The house isn't a place that is lived in and aside from that one room in the basement theres no context to who the neighbor really is hidden in the walls, its just wacky nonsense for the sake of wacky nonsense, and in that way, they failed to capture the reason why people love to dig into the lore of games like FNAF, the obvious success story they attempted to copy. Also yeah, I am now really suspect of the publisher of the game. I remember Tiny Build used to market themselves as a publisher that helps fund upstart devs with preserved creative control, but its obvious to me that you only get funding if they feel your product is marketable. Now that they have this IP that's big with children on KZbin, its become their sole focus, and the directions they are pivoting keeps turning towards this idea of shitting out content that either runs on potato pcs or on mobile keep kids buying, yet another way they are painfully attempting to copy the FNAF business model that was, until Security Breach at least, launching small but polished experiences that always brought a new mechanic to the table.

[@UltravioletNomad]

@@chronotone833 I remember when MatPat started playing the first two alphas, with the neighbor crying in the room, the Twitter post where he's reading Faust, it all seemed like we were heading somewhere really dark, but it ended up less frightening than an episode of Goosebumps. And it didn't even need to happen either. If Friday Night Funkin has taught me anything its that content does not need to be kid friendly to be marketable, they'll find it anyway and think the adult aspects are edgy and cool.

[@TheMonaamohammed]

TL;DR

[@13thKingMu]

@@UltravioletNomad sometimes kids just like things that they don't even know the actual thing which started it like Squid games. The show is very dark and basically have actual gore with very good writing but unfortunately having lackluster ending that they hinted there'll be next season which most ppl expected it would going to be ruin the show. The show is very popular so much that other countries tried to milk it as a bootleg version of Squid games just for views purposes,same as fnaf and Poppy's playtime(this game somehow popular in my country that there're bootleg shirts and toys about it). Ppl just try to milk the franchise if it popular to kids that isn't Nintendo properties because they're milking their own franchise which is why they can ruined things that you like though fandom are much worse that something like fnaf gotten downhill due to them Edit:sorry if my English bad

[@mugwithnocoffee2572]

Holy fuck, that's a lot of words

[@Penguinmanereikel]

@@13thKingMu your English was mostly fine, but it fell apart a bit near the end

[@alexgo373]

This seems to be an issue with a LOT of russian game designers - for some reason they are incredibly contrarian when it comes to feedback and tend to double down on any system that players find frustrating. I guess the logic must be "if players are complaining that means they find this too difficult, meaning I should make it more of a focus because difficulty is good".

[@r3qu0]

Do you have any other examples?

[@alexgo373]

@@r3qu0 Older games mostly - havent played any for a while - Allods (aka Rage of Mages), Evil Islands, lots of things published back in a day by 1C.

[@hardVatsuki]

literally me fr

[@terrainrecords6038]

​@@r3qu0 War Thunder

[@AC-hj9tv]

My Russian dev friends fr

[@dysn3961]

Best guess is that the original idea was a horror-like, but the publisher decided to have it more geared towards a younger audience so that they could market it out in spin off's

[@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin]

There is a movie genre equivalent for this, called 'thriller'.

[@atanaZion]

Like FNaF, but bankrupt

[@chocov1233]

@@atanaZion Creatively bankrupt.

[@ilhambrewok7860]

Unfortunately, the same thing also happened with FNAF: Security Breach, which is so rushed and unpolished that it barely even considered to be a horror game anymore. I remember when the old trailers were originally going to be darker and slightly more mature, but the development team started to tone everything down to a minimum by making it family-friendly, marketable, and colorful, therefore killing off the atmosphere and unique charm of the original predecessors. Much like Hello Neighbor, FNAF: Security Breach had so much interesting potential, if only it wasn’t squandered by terrible execution and mismanagenent. I think everyone could agree that it’s quite ironic how FNAF is generally responsible and often stigmatized by some people for popularizing the whole “child-friendly indie horror game” subgenre into the mainstream (stuff like Bendy, Hello Neighbor, Baldi’s Basics, Poppy Playtime, etc), yet somehow deteriorated into its own stereotype despite establishing some of the cliches in particular (such as the bright, colorful characters and the so-called “hidden lore”). In fact, FNAF: Security Breach just felt more like a scathing parody of itself than an actual installment within the franchise.

[@jonolas1626]

@@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin Thats not what a thriller is tho

[@alexg9155]

The story is basically Act 1, and after you get caught the kid is probably abused or something in the basement until he gets out years later at the end of Act 2, being traumatized for the rest of his life and having nightmares and whatnot. That's it. So much for deep lore and story.

[@BallsInMyCup_]

there are plenty of fan theories that logically use what the game portrays, so plot-wise i'd say there's enough to pick apart to be somewhat satisfied. the gameplay itself just isn't as compelling as it could have been.

[@aboutthegiggins4236]

@@BallsInMyCup_ lmao fan theories

[@kennypowers1945]

It was good to me 🤷‍♂️

[@kennypowers1945]

@@aboutthegiggins4236 better than the theories you have

[@aboutthegiggins4236]

@@kennypowers1945 fucking what ? Lol Did that even really make sense to you when you typed it out ,

[@dangernoodle3343]

I'm glad you mentioned the art style change because I feel like no one mentions how much that hurt the game. IDK what it is but the new art style they went for just ruined the unique style the game had in their previous alphas and really makes the game feel too cartoony

[@adriansmith6708]

I am 12 and prefer old artstyle

[@kryzzan7039]

@@adriansmith6708 ? (How the hell did this get 80 likes?)

[@kaingussky7596]

I think the reason why the old art style is better is because the new one just has really no detail.

[@valrend7374]

It reminds me a lot of the cat in the hat movie

[@engineergaming1669]

Goofy ahh art style

[@smocast738]

I remember hearing about this game near the beginning. "It gets smarter, man! The game ADAPTS to your strategies! Isn't that neat?" It was..

[@jaycob1830]

The realistic look of the game in the first 2 versions made it way more real-feely and scary, when it got cartoony it almost felt like a joke

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Personally, I really enjoyed how the atmosphere of the Neighbor's house throughout the earlier builds was very reminiscent of "liminal space" buildings. I think it would've been better if they should have expanded the whole aesthetic by transforming the basement into some Backrooms-style elaborate underground labyrinth full of surrealistic environments, reality-manipulation puzzles a la Superliminal, and geometry-defying architecture that messes up with your mind. Make it look like something from either Anemoiapolis or Stanley Parable.

[@jaycob1830]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m I agree

[@zigsteenine8650]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m that’s asking way too much from these developers lmao.

[@kennypowers1945]

@@zigsteenine8650 or asking too much at all

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

@@zigsteenine8650 That’s just a fun suggestion.

[@bellarora9478]

I like a cheesy “he was a murderer” or “he’s trying to bring back his wife and daughter in some Frankenstein fashion”. You don’t always have to be deep in order to make a good game. The AI was already fantastic. The Alpha could have been cleaned up a bit, adding small details to the environment, patch up the story, and it could have perfect.

[@unclebaba3463]

Same, a simple story can still be a good story

[@lunar_proxy]

i mean ain't that kinda deep enough anyway? having a guy turn a lil crayzee because his family died and having him keep people in his basement (either to recreate his family with his kidnapped victims or to frankenstein them idk)? that's pretty tragic. it works. having it be uncovered as you move around the house would've been neat, like maybe family photos or newspapers surrounding events, whatever. that works well enough to get youtubers to theorize and discuss the lore

[@olivercharles2930]

I would prefer some cartoonish shit with the neighbour actually trying to keep you discovering his goofy hobby or whatever. No need for a deep or dark story, and you can keep the horror up until the reveal.

[@princam_4775]

Mad Father moment

[@theoneandonlyartyom]

or like "turns out he's totally normal and you're some freak relentlessly invading his home"

[@vangoghsseveredear]

Fun fact: if the crowbar was red hot like that, it wouldn't be magnetic. It enters an austenetic phase and loses its magnetism. Therefore the puzzle was nonsensical from the start Source: I'm a welder and know metallurgy.

[@DresDEAD617]

Off topic but what type of welder do you use? I use an arc welder

[@vangoghsseveredear]

@@DresDEAD617 I'm a welder by trade. I use anything. Most of our work is stick and tig, but I held mig tickets too and worked in a shop before moving out to the field. Now I'm a boilermaker and work in power plants, refineries, shit like that.

[@cyncir]

I love your username

[@MrLego3160]

Can you confirm if a red hot crowbar stays red hot forever unless you use a watering can on it?

[@mitzuriki]

@@MrLego3160 THE FUCK?!

[@Buckets50]

I think the main issue they had was the concept for the AI is extremely ambitious and difficult to program. So I don’t think they necessarily chose the parkour route, it’s more that they reached their level of programming competency. It’s why most games like this have some sort of supernatural element so that the character chasing you can disappear and reorient without it looking janky.

[@hilvystewy7298]

Oh, I didn't know fnaf SB animatronically were magic

[@Buckets50]

@@hilvystewy7298 you mean the animatronics that don’t move on screen, have pre-determined patterns and basically just teleport from one spot to another on a 2d image? Are you still confused by what my comment means?

[@memewarranty]

@@Buckets50 Security Breach(FNAF 9) is a 3D free-roam game, my friend. And they disappear in thin air. Even here.

[@Buckets50]

@@memewarranty FNAF has a supernatural element to its story so disappearing and reappearing works within the game as far as lore is concerned. The neighbor however is just some dude. If he disappeared it would immediately kill immersion and they’d have to change aspects of the lore in order to accommodate it. Are you still not understanding, my friend?

[@sodakuwun0707]

the devs have never heard the phrase "less is more" they just kept adding on tons of useless stuff until the game collapsed in on itself

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

The developers of this game should've listened to this quote: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges, and come up with elegant solutions. It's not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential." - Steve Jobs

[@bobuxdoesmemes924]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m Yes

[@NamelessDragon21]

This is basically opm

[@docplays6508]

Well like MatPat said in most recent theory, this game changed a lot lore wise cause some fan theories were able to guess the plot of the game but then they changed it just so people couldn’t guess how it was going to end

[@bignerd3783]

no that was security breach this one got shit because the devs chose theory bait/youtuber bait instead of making good gameplay

[@Williamwillow_]

@@bignerd3783 it was also the case for hello neighbor, the lore changed constantly with hello neighbor.

[@testerwulf3357]

@@bignerd3783 I think it was mostly hello neighbor that did that..I mean after hello neighbor changed they started spamming mat for theories to get more attention.

[@behindthecookie8653]

I think the story and game has changed because of the audiences full of children.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

@@behindthecookie8653 I remember when Hello Neighbor's setting was originally going to be a little bit disturbing and was targeted at a mature audience (from the information I've gathered about the older storyline, it was supposed to involve kidnapped children trapped inside the Neighbor's basement and satanic symbolism, both of which had already been foreshadowed by the Bible verses, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust book), but they somehow decided to scrap everything about it.

[@spenserdavis788]

The perfect case study of "Quit while you're ahead." I still remember getting hooked on this game watching Let's Play vids of the Alpha and Beta versions... only to buy the finished version and realize five minutes in that the new nonsensical puzzles and mechanics made it downright unplayable.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Again, this is why I've always highly appreciated some cartoons like Gravity Falls. When it became critically acclaimed and reached astronomical heights of popularity, Alex Hirsch intentionally ended Gravity Falls sooner after two seasons to likewise avoid falling into the problematic demands of surpassing the series past what he originally intended and preventing the show from overstaying its welcome. Everyone likely questioned his decision and really wanted a third season, but because he prioritized his ability over the franchise he was able to create memorable quality works. And because of this, Gravity Falls doesn’t suffer from a “seasonal rot” and everyone still fondly remembers this series in good memory ten years after its official premiere. Same thing goes with Invader Zim and Avatar: The Last Airbender, although the former’s cancellation was because of different reasons alone (low ratings and expensive production budget).

[@ilhambrewok7860]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m Agreed. I honestly respect Alex Hirsch’s decision to intentionally end Gravity Falls after 2 seasons. It doesn’t really need a third season at all because it wrapped up almost everything on a satisfyingly high note. If the show didn’t get cancelled, however, its quality would’ve quickly plummeted down into the abyss and that franchise may get milked to death.

[@Tony_Cardoza]

​​@@HankJWimbleton-v1m He got that idea from Jerry Seinfeld, who had probably the original show that ended earlier than it could have (despite having 9 seasons), even after being offered something like several million an episode. (could have been a mil an episode, I cannot remember right now)

[@TheBreakingBenny]

That's part of why I never wound up buying Hello Neighbor.

[@salsatheone]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m or you can simply call it "avoid jumping the shark".

[@cutealiens]

Literally incredible that it went from that awesome, fun little tech demo to this giant, bloated, steaming pile of everything-but-what-was-in-the-tech-demo. Imagine if Hitman turned into a surrealist dreamworld platformer with puzzles that effectively require you to look up solutions.

[@dysphoria_1.040]

Imagine if we'd gone from original Hitman STRAIGHT to Absolution.

[@aliencafe]

@@dysphoria_1.040Absolution was my first Hitman game and man. I was SO confused.

[@viralium104]

I remember being so hyped to find out what was in the basement, but when the game came out and it was this weird linear story, I lost interest. Finding out all these years later that the full game doesn't provide any actual answers is just so disappointing.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Yeah, all of that foreshadowing in the previous alphas (the Bible verses, Wolfgang Von Goethe's Faust book lying on the couch, the candles and pentagrams on the basement in Alpha 2, the painting of the Neighbor kissing somebody we haven't seen them yet, etc) turned out to be nothing.

[@quinn799]

Saaaame

[@ilikebunnies7633]

​@Noelle_Holiday Noelle, how is your dad doing? (Deltarune)

[@cylerinque8354]

When you start the game it's so exciting but when you finish it. It's just like, alright cool.

[@PrimmsHoodCinema]

When they changed the chase music, I knew it was over lol. The first chase song was perfect. It was scary asf!!

[@Lucas_OBrien]

True shit

[@silentecho92able]

@@Lucas_OBrien i still get a heart attack when that song hits my ears.

[@CorruptTypes]

they really ruined the gam after taking that music away thern going to cartoony looks :/

[@TalkativeGoofball]

Yep. Man it used to be so nostalgic and it was sometimes pretty scary. Not all too scary but creepy for sure. Man i loved it

[@silentecho92able]

@@TalkativeGoofball its a shame this game went to hell cause off a lot of stupid additions later on. In fact this game could have been similar to an Alien isolation game.

[@LadyTeaBlossom]

I think it would've been interesting if they twisted the story. At first you think your neighbour is hiding a terrible secret (keeping people in his basement, murderer, etc.) And you try to find proof/release the victims. But when the game ends you're actually the antagonist, YOU are the nightmare neighbour breaking into the house because you're either crazy or a massive nosy Karen. Multiple endings would be great too like you either get arrested, the neighbour kills you in self defence, you can frame your neighbour oooooorrrr... You actually were right about him and you become his next victim.

[@kakyoindonut3213]

your plot twist is great, but I didn't buy it. It's just to me that the original story could've worked if they did a better way at telling it, not by pursuing game theorist or big youtuber, just tell the damn story, and make good games

[@thisperson345]

In the time you wrote this you already came up with a better story than the devs, congratulations

[@pajwubx1809]

This sounds legitimately better

[@MervinXavier]

@@thisperson345 fax

[@joel9104]

That sounds really good, you made a better plot in probably 10 mins than the devs did in about 2 years

[@Morgannin]

20:00 "We're now much older and struggling from a crack habit, leaving us-" Okay slow down. I think we missed some plot development here, writers.

[@bobthebadbucket9061]

They ended it in the worst way possible for a story. "And then he woke up"

[@thorgidogofthunder]

i mean, you _can_ make that work. they just didn't.

[@RIPraian]

@@thorgidogofthunder you can make it work but it’s one of if not the most basic and boring endings

[@amunago080]

@@RIPraian agreed, I just skip shit that "just a dream now" its played out and cheap now.

[@GeorgeDCowley]

They also only did it for part of the story, leaving us with questions about the rest.

[@timmyreobed5043]

@@thorgidogofthunder It can work, but not as an ending. Omori did the "just a dream" thing perfectly, because the dream still has a ton of relevance to the plot instead of being a last minute cop-out.

[@noirlavender6409]

the true problem with this is that the premise seemed okay innocent enough and fun, just a kid spying on his neighboor, that's all it should have been. Act 1 should have ended with something shockingly sad or creepy, like the Neighbor was just being overly protective because in that room he had his super ill wife or child, ending with a fun game and a short good experience. But they wanted to milk it as much as they could so instead of making a good cake they keep adding shit on top until it tasted, well, like shit.

[@videoms1271]

IIRC the "lore" was he killed his kid in a car accident, that's why he's so reclusive and wierd

[@EonTheAien]

@@videoms1271 His wife was killed in a car accident he had a part in, and his son pushed his daughter off his roof

[@EonTheAien]

@@videoms1271 And yeah nah, lore's still shit

[@videoms1271]

@@EonTheAien exactly why I said "lore"

[@jiggycalzone8585]

I figured at most you go into the basement and its a larger than expected maze that reveals itself to be a secret backdoor to all the houses in the neighborhood including your own. You open the final door and find a clone of yourself. And information that says you were programmed to test his home defense system prototype so he can sell it to... lets say.. Black Mesa. Right before he sneaks up behind you and hits your off switch like every other time you get caught

[@corkplane3408]

The problem wasn't so much the narrative evolving or art style changing slightly. It was definitely the inconsistency of the puzzles, the game design directions with the platforming and the buggy gameplay surrounding those design choices. This is also a testament that you should do a closed-beta/alpha because people may like the early stages more and think that this is what the entire game should be. Then when you start taking things the direction you had originally planned, the public may resent these changes.

[@QueSeraSeraaaa]

They went from interesting ideas and concept to a nonsensical "horror" game with broken gameplay and frustrating puzzles.. They catered to the younger audience instead of the audience (regardless the ages), as a whole. Plus, they begged MatPat to make theories of their game..

[@Infomaniac_Moment]

Half Life 2 Beta anyone?

[@ilhambrewok7860]

@@QueSeraSeraaaa Personally, I find the direction where they start appealing to the younger demographic to be a rather idiotic move and alienated their mature audience. It restricts the freedom to do whatever they want with their initial concepts and forcing them to tone everything down. Originally, the game wasn’t always had an overcomplicated story told through fragments, you just have to break into the Neighbor’s basement and that’s all about it.

[@QueSeraSeraaaa]

@@ilhambrewok7860 I agree with you, when they catered to the younger audience, hell i’m sure a kid can’t complete the game alone.. This game is based on stealth, i don’t see the horror.. nor i understand how this is labeled as such.

[@MetroidChild]

It went from a 3d take on clock tower (snes) to breath of the wild parkour, but vastly more scuffed. Add to that money grubbing (which was there from the start) and you got a recipe for disaster.

[@timesnewlogan2032]

Here's a better idea for the game: you get into the basement, and find out it's a sort of shrine to his dead son, centered around his grave. When the Neighbor finds you, you attempt to escape but nearly fall to your death, prompting him to save your life. After which, he sits down and reveals his son died in an accident while the house was being built, and he was never able to move on from it. The bizarre architecture was a means of coping, where each of the out of place puzzles was based on something his son enjoyed, or a moment they shared. You apologize, and he does the same, while smiling and thanking you, as the whole game made it feel like he got to play with his son one last time, and he feels like he can move on now. You return home, and out of your window, you see his house burning to the ground, as he smiles and waves goodbye before leaving the neighborhood for good, symbolically moving on from his past. It took me thirty seconds to come up with that.

[@Foxhood]

Oh many where hoping for something along those lines. The real result being that the villian of the story, is revealed to be the player who simply wouldn't leave a clearly troubled person in peace, subverting the at the time popular and rapidly tiring "speculation bait" trope by showing there actually wasn't one. If only...

[@Strafprozessordnung]

Sorry but also reads like something that you came up with in 30 seconds

[@gabrielguedes6166]

​@@Strafprozessordnung and still sounds better than the current story

[@Strafprozessordnung]

@@gabrielguedes6166 yup

[@Epic-ft2bg]

@@gabrielguedes6166 true

[@bradleysmith9352]

This game is the definition of identity crisis. It doesn’t know what it wanted to be: A scary hide-go-seek game to a platform with non-sensible, out of worldly assets. I saw the ending coming, but I don’t understand how it could be the dream about the neighbour’s “lore/backstory” considering he never knew the neighbour personally. What made it worse is the second game made it Canon. Edit: No way: 1K? Thanks guys

[@akuroashginishbav1943]

I think you were supposed to be his child in the story or something, and the dreams were just memories

[@CadgerChristmasLightShow]

There's a second hello neighbor?!

[@testerwulf3357]

I think most of it was a dream..which makes it worse. They put you through all those bs puzzels and stuff you didn't want only to be like "lol just a dream everything you did doesn't matter" till the last chapter.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

@@testerwulf3357 This is why I’ve always hated the whole “it was all just dream” ending in video games. It’s so anticlimactic, done to death, and a shallow attempt for the developers to not bother answering all of the questions. That is, unless if it’s properly executed and felt rewarding to the player.

[@bradleysmith9352]

@@CadgerChristmasLightShow An actual game dedicated to hide and go seek with kids surprisingly enough

[@panqueque445]

Honestly, the simpler this game was, the better it was. I never cared for the lore, it just kept getting more and more in the way. The lore is garbage and they bloated the hell out of an interesting game.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

I personally don't really care about Hello Neighbor's lore that much. The explanations regarding the lore stuff just felt not fully accountable and extremely shallow, as all we got were told in half-assed symbolisms about childhood trauma, the Neighbor's background story being a metaphorical roller-coaster ride, and something about overcoming your fears? What? I've always just wanted a stealth horror experience about breaking into your neighbor's basement, nothing else.

[@panqueque445]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m Yeah. I was interested in the game when the story was just "your neighbor looks sketchy and is hiding something in his basement". The more they tried to complicate things, the more boring it got.

[@jonathanpilcher337]

Now I'm just waiting for a developer to come along and make a serious stealth horror game that takes influence from alpha 1

[@ilhambrewok7860]

@@panqueque445 Hello Neighbor’s lore just felt pretentious and lazy to me, as it constantly shoves obvious "symbolism" down the player and never does anything with it while acting "deep and serious" without any real effort. I don't think any of the elements they added in the final release, like the house on the neighbor's back or the childhood trauma stuff were truly symbolic. They basically wanted to slap everything together to make sure the game had enough content for $30 and to get it out as quickly as possible so it doesn't become obsolete. I was bored of the fucking vistas of plain white emptiness and bizarre stuff in the backdrop throughout the entire game. It was so amateurish and unintelligible. The rollercoaster cutscene was an extremely sloppy exposition dump, attempting to feed you the “plot” about the Neighbor’s background while putting no effort to the lore whatsoever. The minigames serves absolutely no purpose beyond either dragging out the game’s pacing, or providing us with poorly-told, blatant symbolisms about the main character’s childhood (such as frequently bullied in school by his classmates, being locked inside a pantry and starving for several days, and almost getting kidnapped by strangers while trapped in a supermarket).

[@beansworth5694]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m It's possible to do that kind of thing well, and they dropped the ball with it. You can include intrigue with an actual meaning behind it in the stealth game, but you have to actually make it intriguing and not railroad the player into it while pretending to be profound with a half-assed product trying to do too many things at once without the proper development necessary to make any of them really work.

[@Otakupatriot117]

It seems to me the biggest problem was there was a huge map full of items, but only one way to solve every puzzle. For example, if I needed to cool down a crowbar, I might think to stick it in the freezer. The fact there's only one way to do things is what always takes me out of games with "crafting" systems, and it seems like even the people who normally like those kind of games got fed up with how it was taken to the extreme here.

[@ZorotheGallade]

Yeah, Raft has the same problem. You can craft pretty much everything, but when you have to solve puzzles on the islands you need to find the fuses, crowbars, and other tools you could definitely make yourself (heck, you can craft a fully functional radar but not a crowbar? Do you have to find the one and only remaining crowbar in the world?) but you can't because the game wants you to find them in very specific places.

[@frozenfoxgames5300]

Or just do what Matpat did, and spend so much time trying to find a way to cool down the crowbar that when you do find a way its already cooled itself down.

[@elvickRULES]

It’s like a game with boards on a door, and having you need to chop it with an axe specifically and it won’t let you use a crowbar or hammer to pull out nails. One way only even though logically you could accomplish the goal already.

[@VGamingJunkieVT]

@@elvickRULES That's one thing I loved about Zelda Breath of the Wild. To some extent, it was a sandbox. They gave you the basic tools and said have at it.

[@thesupergamer5894]

Literally taking a writing course right now and one of the big things was that you should (almost) never end with your character waking up or realizing it was all fake

[@superzockertvyt9630]

It probably works better if the world looks kinds weird or if they make sure you know theres nothing you havent seen before in this world(everything has a memory attached to it because thats how dreams work)

[@cynicalia]

why not

[@thesupergamer5894]

@@cynicalia because it means the entire book, story, movie, etc. was pointless... none of it happened, and none of it mattered

[@cynicalia]

@@thesupergamer5894the friends we made along the way :)

[@aaaaaaaaaaaaa-b6w]

I saw an interesting variation where the events of the story are all real but in the end the main character thinks it was all a dream But the events of said dream positively influence their life

[@PastelWorldDolls]

They really took the "kid friendly horror game" thing to heart and it hurt the game. Unlike FNAF, which manages to be scary and still not super inappropriate, they just changed this from being creepy to kooky, for no good reason.

[@dunsun6395]

Look at security breach though

[@_-Lx-_]

No FNAF is still definitely a huge offender, the series had jumped the shark and become trash by 3 and that was only months after the first game. And security breach is an absolute unfinished abomination desperate for the audience of small children and furries.

[@dunsun6395]

@@_-Lx-_ i don't think it became trash after 3. Fnaf 4 was a pretty good game Of course it wasn't the same fnaf but what you had to do was still the same. You had to protect yourself from animatronics by checking out places But unfortunately in sister location everything went down

[@Unknown-rm8zp]

@@_-Lx-_ I think FNAF security breach might have a good game in paper but when you give your mature audience a 5 yo type of game, than obviously they are going to hate it. Not to mention Scott leaving the company after being called for his support of republican. Also, after seeing the game being hyped a lot, playing it for yourself might be unscary considering you have seen on animation 6900 times.

[@CallForGrandPappy]

Fnaf went just as if even more off the rails, they turned a horrifying and intriguing premise into a convoluted mess which makes the Cod zombies storyline seem “simple” in comparison. Fnaf just sold very well.

[@thesyndrome43]

Wait, so the whole time the story was basically: As a kid you see your neighbour acting weird, so decide to break into his house for some reason, only to find a bedroom in the basement, revealing him to be a kidnapper, then he captures you and locks you up, you escape and run away. Years later you go back home, the neighbour is long gone, you fall asleep on a couch and have a convoluted dream sequence about getting over your fears from that traumatic childhood event. that's it? I never played or watched much of the game but I remember seeing the hype and the "mystery" behind it, so for that mystery to be fairly common (albeit dark) and everything else just be LITERALLY made up nonsense because it's a dream must have been really disappointing for people looking forward to it. Also "it was a dream all along" was a trope that was tired 20 years ago, I remember watching shows in the early 2000's making fun of it, so for a writer to willingly choose to do that in this day and age is baffling, because I don't think I've ever once seen someone like that as an ending

[@troodon1096]

"It was a dram all along" was already a tired trope when Wizard of Oz did that in 1939. It's a lot older than a 20 year old cliche.

[@barryfraser831]

I've read that officially, nothing that happened was a dream. Everything really happened.

[@GiubileiFernando]

Never played the game, when he mentioned it seemed like the basement opened up to a street and I saw the Exit sign over the door I assumed it was a door to parallel universes. The different houses could have been explained that way too.

[@valletas]

"Its all a dream" only really works into serialised series where one episode can be as crazy as the director wants without breaking cannon When a fully fledge story ends with "its all a dream" not only do the viewer end up being let down but it also kills any potential the series has Why would you play a hello neighbor 2 if the first one already stablished that there are no consequences since its a dream? Like even if the gameplay was good i doubt many would want to play the sequel

[@Hammerhead0276]

It's exactly that, plus each time you get caught you have dreams that will indirectly tell you the trauma that made your neighbor a kidnapper. However, in a hilarious twist that I'm guessing they wanted to do for more game theories - They insist that despite going to sleep before Act 3 and waking up at the end of Act 4 - there is no dreaming in the game.

[@mastergecko1178]

I feel like the devs of this game was just like: “Let’s make the wackiest nonsensical story possible, have some KZbinr and Redditer come up with some theories and lore for the game and pretend that’s actually what we’ve meant to do the whole time.”

[@Nonesens8557]

I think its cuz the developers doesn't want to be not lazy to make the story good

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

You could literally say the same comment to the developers of other indie horror games such as Bendy and Poppy Playtime.

[@Gabe413]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m because thats exactly what they did too

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

@@Gabe413 According to Chris Portal's explanation video about the controversy surrounding Bendy itself, developers of that game openly acknowledged in one interview that they only wrote the beginning and the end, with the middle being developed as they went along.

[@LeviandTominHD]

Proof Redditors ruin everything

[@judyh3707]

I can't believe they went with that last act with a straight face, thinking it would be something besides a painful attempt at sentimentality

[@roonkolos]

This game really could have spearheaded a "break & enter" sort of subgenre to Stealth games but they were way too busy trying to make a puddle appear deep rather than iron out the actual game itself

[@ilhambrewok7860]

I remember watching Cr1TiKaL's playthrough of a Hello Neighbor knockoff in which you’re breaking into Adolf Hitler’s house (no, seriously). There’s also a crappy mobile game ripoff where you’re sneaking into SpongeBob’s house to steal all of his belongings. It’s amazing how both of them were somehow better than the original game itself.

[@roonkolos]

@@ilhambrewok7860 yep. It's a strange sort of idea overall but it does have potential. At least I think it has potential. Just a shame one of the bigger potentials ended so poorly

[@OtakuUnitedStudio]

Sad thing is, the mobile phone knockoffs that came out during the Alpha build days killed the possibility. Especially since none of those had actual endings. The genre was oversaturated with crap before the original was ever even finished.

[@ZorotheGallade]

I generally hate "simulator" games since they all appear samey and lazy, but Thief Simulator actually looks like what you would end up with if you went with that.

[@anap1680]

Mattpat did that

[@Pers0n97]

A combo of the two good ol pitfalls that plague most indy games: - trying to put parkour in your game when the controls are just not good enough to pull it off - rely on a lot of object manipulation with clunky physics It even hit the other grand classic : Puzzle with only ONE solution despite the environment offering a lot of obvious alternative.

[@seancrosby6837]

Sometimes physics manipulation works perfectly fine, like in Amnesia or Penumbra, both made by Frictional Games

[@Pers0n97]

@@seancrosby6837 because their physic wasnt clunky.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

@@Pers0n97 Half-Life 2 has better physics manipulation and platforming than Hello Neighbor and that game is 18 years old. How did the developers screw up what’s already been perfected in the past?

[@migueeeelet]

@@Pers0n97 No, because Amnesia didn't rely on physics as a crutch to make its game interesting (same as Half Life 2).

[@Pers0n97]

@@migueeeelet That too.

[@powdereyes2210]

I think the game mechanics in the 2014 version was way more interesting It made Neighbor seem more like he had much more control over your surroundings and would even freak you out by doing something unexpected And how the player could just block the door by pushing something in front of the door

[@bloonsfamily2066]

also when you open a door in alpha 1 and the neighbor is standing there as if he knew you were there, oh and when you block a door with a chair and the neighbor just breaks the door off

[@shadowsbane3]

you could lock the neighbor out in the first version by making him board up all the windows and then blocking the doors with him outside.

[@forrestmacleod7848]

@@shadowsbane3 yes but that seems more like an exploit/cheese rather than an intended game mechanic. It probably took a while to set up and you most likely had to finesse the AI a bit, where as now you can just take two seconds to push a box in front of a door and he can’t get to you.

[@HydragonofDeath]

@@nemo1716 I dont think he intended that as saying he preferred the updated gameplay but moreso explaining how in the older versions you had to go out of your way to cheese and break the AI but in the newer versions you can do it without even trying. Meaning he meant the older versions were better.

[@forrestmacleod7848]

@@HydragonofDeath thank you this is exactly what i meant lol

[@jj48]

When I first saw this game, I figured the ending was going to be that there was nothing sinister with the neighbor, and it turned out you've been harassing this poor guy over nothing, when all he wants is for people to stop breaking into his house. I still think that would have made a more fun twist.

[@orangexlightning]

It started out as a unique "horror" game with a good premise, but then it devolved into random junk for the sake of being random junk.

[@jcoolguy1548]

I'd say it's more of a thriller than horror

[@ilhambrewok7860]

The only reason it's categorized as "horror" is that when the Neighbor approaches you within a certain distance, there's an obvious thumping noise in the background and screen distortion (it was supposed to build tension but even then, they somehow bafflingly failed at that), and when you do get caught, being stared at by a guy staring right at your soul is more laughable than creepy, killing off all tension from the experience. They couldn't even do cheesy jumpscares right! It should’ve been considered to be a parody of horror games instead lol.

[@justabearbrowsingyoutube4968]

I don’t think you were being “petty” when you mentioned the design change. It is strange to change the visual design of a game drastically that sudden between betas. From a somewhat neutral environment designed consistent with the overall game theme, to Loony Toon style without plot reasons would catch anyone off gaurd lol!

[@DeathProductions200]

However it is good to note that if a design change does happen, its better to do so during the development stages rather than after you upload the full release

[@JustWowNick]

You can tell this was one of the devs personal project, and the company they worked for hijacked it because they saw it could make money.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Executive meddling at it’s finest.

[@WhoAmIHmmm]

I don't think the publisher was connected to how shit hello neighbor is

[@ilhambrewok7860]

@@WhoAmIHmmm Seeing how the publishers kept milking this franchise and kept bothering Matpat to make an analysis video on the animated series, I think it could be a possibility.

[@WhoAmIHmmm]

@@ilhambrewok7860 apparently the guy who tried to make matpat check out the game was someone joking around That's what I found in another comment

[@ilhambrewok7860]

@@WhoAmIHmmm But I’ve also heard that apparently, the tinyBuild employee who is responsible for tweeting those tweets in question, was (allegedly) a MatPat fanboy. They were reprimanded and got fired from the company according to a public statement. Or, you know, that's what they want us to believe.

[@Hunkonly6678]

It’s sad how the pre alpha was literally the best version it was the most realistic it was just a creepy man doing suspicious things in his basement and it would send chills down my spine when he would chase me

[@TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

I remember this game quite well, I still remember watching Dashie struggle through this game

[@WickedWiz]

There was a moment where Markiplier basically gave up on the whole hype due to how nonsensical everything is.

[@romanfuchs1932]

Its the legendary man that does not have a Moustache. When will you get interviewed by Wicked Wiz?

[@PatrickBergersen]

Oh it’s you

[@harlanjames8398]

@@WickedWiz that guys a bot he’s in practically every comment section

[@Saftevand4]

@@harlanjames8398 He's not a bot just somebody who is a verified commenter because youtube forced them to be one 🤓

[@Luke-pt2qf]

To me, the whole Hello Neighbor thing fell apart when they started adding tons of weird shit to the house, like a security shark, train tracks, win turbines, etc. It kind of ruined the atmosphere of hiding away from the neighbour in his house, and changed it into a sort of looney toons feel. I would have left parkour out of the equation for sure, and fix all the major bugs it has. I seen a video on Hello Neighbour 2 and it's AI is super janky, and you can skip right to the end cutscene by breaking a window and climbing in.

[@ethanlivemere1162]

The shark and tracks were in it from alpha 1 (though the tracks weren't accessible)

[@spiffyavatar3611]

hello neighbor 2 is still unfinished and their taking feedback now so these glaring issues have been made aware and probably already fixed. The game has been continuously going through lots of reworks based on the feedback and it seems pretty fun now

[@SharkPool_SP]

To me it was the change of textures, alpha 1 had realistic textures and it felts more realistic, then after the textures got more and more cartoonish

[@thesimpostor6251]

lmao you can jump to the ending cutscene in FNaF: Security Breach, too, but just stratting and clipping through assets a few times

[@Luke-pt2qf]

@@thesimpostor6251 Yeah, so?

[@todtrash7799]

This has a “you don’t understand this masterpiece” aura from the developers.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

My reaction: "This game is the biggest load of hoohaa I've seen. Why do you insist we play this stupid thing?" A 9-year-old Hello Neighbor fanboy: "Am I the only one who understands the complexity of this cinematically ambitious masterpiece?"

[@TheBonkleFox]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m Bruh I don't even remember kids having "hello neighbor" phases like we had with fnaf.

[@pawnstarrickharrison7225]

stop eating mah gawt dam corn

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

@@TheBonkleFox Yeah, me too.

[@Fallensabre-uw7hb]

​@@HankJWimbleton-v1m a fellow GAOBAM fan I see. This GAME isn't stupid! YOU'RE stupid!!

[@DreadlyKnight]

When I was playing this, I remember the absolute worst part of the game after alpha 3 was that it was just nonsense. There was no rhyme or reason to the puzzles. It made no sense, none of it was even possible without outside knowledge or just throwing yourself at impossibilities nonstop until something worked or you stumbled upon the solution by accident. This game is exactly what a puzzle game should NOT be.

[@falloutfanfam9734]

Alpha 1/Pre alpha was so much fun. I wish they sticked with the less “stylised” mysterious stuff. I way preferred breaking into a house and being genuinely scared with a good adaptive AI rather than being chased by a big squiggly thing.

[@connordorman117]

Saiko No Sutoka at least seems to be delivering on the premise of an adaptive A.I

[@danitho]

Genuinely just being helpful here: stuck not sticked.

[@NiffisWorld]

The problem with creating a game with a focus on an AI is, that the AI has to be good or better amazing. And thats hard to achieve. The first build in white with just the red neighbour could for all we know be a scripted event instead of an AI reacting to the player blocking the door or trying to run through different passages. Still, the first builds (alpha 1 and 2) seem to be pretty good and a lot of fun. But alpha 1 and 2 are builds where the AI works in a pretty small environment, so while thats good for the ai it also means theres only so much content. So they made the decision to create more content and the AI couldnt keep up with that (and they probably didnt manage to fix it in a way it could because the bigger the world and the more stuff to interact the harder it is to make a decent AI). With the AI as a focus gone because of the scope of the world, they needed a new focus which was platforming. While platforming isnt anything bad it took away from the premise that got people interested in the first place.

[@wormsign2637]

Why not multiple small houses with different puzzles and clones of Mr. Neighbor?

[@NYKevin100]

Or one big house, but there's two (or three) neighbors, each patrolling a different floor. Or cheat and use rubber banding to make the one neighbor seem smarter than he actually is (i.e. the hunt state has a higher speed when the neighbor is further away and out of line of sight, the idle state has a chance to "randomly" bring the neighbor to the same room as the player, the neighbor can teleport if he gets really far away, etc.). For that matter, I feel like you could just steal Left 4 Dead's "AI director" idea, tweak it a bit to fit the stealth gameplay, and it would still work fine. Of course, you'd first need to design a house that doesn't look like it popped out of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, because you want the neighbor to semi-realistically pantomime "normal" behavior, and there's no such thing as "normal" when your floor is a shark-infested moat.

[@TheSharkkyy]

I agree with you. The only AI I've seen pull this off is Alien: Isolation

[@pineforest1442]

@@NYKevin100 I would’ve scaled down.

[@pineforest1442]

@@wormsign2637 I’m not sure I like the idea of neighbor clones.

[@TheBappin]

I love this concept of "big hyped game that disappeared almost instantly without anyone even noticing". How many games have I forgotten about that I was once hyped up about? How can i remember if i don't know what i need to remember? will you remember for me?

[@Unknown-rm8zp]

I have seen the same with every bad game of today, for eg Cyberpunk 2077 or else cyberbug 2077

[@avenged-khaos]

@@Unknown-rm8zp except everyone still remembers cyberpunk

[@dainyvick8262]

More like subnatica 2.

[@williamrhea-banker3005]

You remember a year or two ago when everyone was talking about that game "New World" and they claimed that it was the next step in gaming and everything? Like they made this game seem like it was going to change how developers made games, completely... and then it just disappeared... As far as I know, it still came out and everything, but it's really just another lackluster open-world RPG

[@standardhuman8675]

idk if it made it big at all, but what about tattletail?

[@blyat79]

0:28 The Concept. 5:16 PreAlpha. 8:30 Alpha II. 9:37 Alpha III. 11:53 Alpha IV. 16:44 Full Release. 20:42 Minigames. 22:49 Story.

[@-xiirusthetwat-5481]

10 points to gryffindor mate

[@wafeeisntavailable]

there are literally timestamps given already

[@thebatmanofneo-gotham5667]

I find it quite odd how the game took a focus towards parkour in its gameplay, when in truth, the way the house itself is modeled doesn't properly facilitate the necessity of parkour. Like, there are parts of the house that require nonsensical moves you need to perform in order to reach certain places, which only leads to moments of unfettered frustration. What makes the parkour even worse are the abundance of puzzles, which, as is stated in this video, are convoluted. You come across a certain section of the Neighbor's house you need to enter, but you can't do that unless you have a certain item, and you can't get that certain item unless you do this set of parkour moves. That gameplay cycle repeats over and over until you just become annoyed and fed up with the confusion. Simply put, the design of the house actively works against the implemented parkour system, which is further exacerbated by the mishmash of confusing puzzles. It's because of this that getting to where you need to go becomes a downright unenjoyable practice in trial and error, and when you're making a game, the very last thing you want for it is to be unenjoyable.

[@migueeeelet]

Parkour is a cheap gameplay thing to add. Just add jumps. Puzzles too. A proper puzzle, mind you, can be hard to make, but "roam around and find the button"? Now that's cheap. Oh also forcing hte player to suddenly use your physics engine for their puzzles/parkour is also another cheap gameplay trick.

[@Contactdecline]

comment spoke nothing but facts your comment gets a like from me

[@Sushi-447]

Bro this comment reminded me that mishmash is a word 💀

[@jacoblineberry1788]

If I had to take a guess, I'd say they initially hoped they'd be able to surprise people by making the A.I. even better. If I were developing this game and took this direction, that would be the main thing driving my decisions. To put it into perspective, imagine if, first off, the parkor was better. Imagine if, once you figured out the physics, you could consistently do it. Now, imagine if the neighbor too could figure out parkor, and/or, he could potentially do it better than the average player who didn't have experience with Parkor. Now imagine that there are multiple ways to parkor your way to different goals, and the neighbor can figure out which way would work best to cut you off from whatever way you're currently using, and the more habitual you get in using this way, the better he gets at cutting you off. With that in mind, it would make sense to make things in a more fantastical tim-burton style world which also follows laws of physics and logic that would make more sense in a Tim Burton Movie. Now, also imagine you want to really sell this... what will scare away less people? Actually, let me rephrase that. What would... be the most friendly to merchandising and spreading? Tim Burton Style? Or, cartooney style. Now imagine you want to pump out updates on a monthly basis and you learn making an AI as good as the one defined is going to be even more difficult than the one you already designed, and you have to actually put care into the platforming to make it work. I honestly think they just gave up on their initial concept to a point because i turned out to be either too much work, or they couldn't figure out a way to actually do it. Or, something went wrong with something that was initially integral to doing it, and they could no longer rely on it. I don't think parkor on its own is bad. I don't think making your own solutions to parkor is bad... but the way this game did it feels less like an exciting version of that, like: "Oh, yeah! I get to figure this out myself! I see a lot of ways that might work or that I want to at least try and alter as I learn what works and what doesn't." and more like: "Oh, they provided a lot of boxes and stuff to stack and climb.... and the physics aren't consistent or smooth... and this is going to be a mess that is more relient on luck than a mix of planning, skill, and some luck."

[@Flaris]

In some ways they weren't wrong. It was certainly fun to a degree watching people delve into this game before release and trying to piece things together. It's a shame the game itself never lived up to it. If only it was closer to the original concept and the earliest pre-alpha builds. But...such is.

[@samsamsamuelsamsamsamtheio8445]

Keeping the realistic artstyle alone would’ve made it 100 times better

[@skeletoninyourbody9896]

@@samsamsamuelsamsamsamtheio8445 no. It never had a realistic style idk what r u on

[@loafstudios847]

@@skeletoninyourbody9896 It did kind of. Let me explain simpleton, the effects doesn’t looks that goofy looks more realistic compared to the goofy style that the later alphas had

[@peterjohnson11655]

@@skeletoninyourbody9896 It wasn't photo-realistic or anything, but aside from the neighbor, everything in the house looked fairly lifelike. The Tim Burton-esque art style gave the game a more serious/intense feel, and contributed to the horror, imo. The new cartoonish art style really doesn't work for me. I feel like the original style hit the perfect balance between realistic and stylized, but the new one goes way overboard and takes away from the horror since everything looks so goofy looking. The removal of the original chase music also knocked the game's spookiness down a lot.

[@jonathanpilcher337]

@@skeletoninyourbody9896 it obviously wasn't realistic but it was more realistic/darker than the very on-the-nose cartoony art style they opted for after, that's what they're saying

[@notmegaming9038]

The puzzles reminded me of the older Sierra games where sometimes a completely illogical combination of items was needed or in some instances of the older ace attorney games where multiple items could prove something but only 1 was acceptable

[@hei7846]

But the thing is no matter what happened Ace Attorney was a fuckin phenomenal game. The music the wacky characters and the designs. It never felt like they are milking the fanbase

[@Mickael_Mineo]

@@hei7846 I love AA, really do. But there are times where you have to show X character ONE item in order to trigger a dialogue or action from them and certain chapters have like three to four rows of evidence to show.

[@Trinthegay]

Literally they could've made multiple options with the tons of evidence that u had but nooo it has to be a specific one.

[@davidkanengieter]

Leisure Suit Larry series had a lot of item combos that made no sense and some you figured out by accident. Led to just walking around Spam clicking everything.

[@KamenNepper]

@A Catalan Liam yeah, but that one is great because it has batshit insane things that are only possible in ace attorney. crazy laws like attorneys getting sentenced to death if they lose the case or just (spoilers) being held at gunpoint for the duration of the trial. also the divination seance is imo one of the best mechanics in the game. dual destinies, on the other hand... but if we're talking about milking in the series, i feel like the second investigations game fits the definition better lol

[@HECKproductions]

it feels like a little child is trying to make up a sotry "and then un... uhhh... this happened... and then uh..... that happened and and and... and then there was a super big man uhhh... and uh you had to uhh... like jump or something?"

[@usm1le]

I remember back when this game just started blowing up. It was mysterious, looking like a colorful childrens game outside but was actually scary on the inside. It had you thinking where to move and what to do. But the devs decided to make it too complex, especially the story.

[@SomeRandomUserrr1r23.]

Israel

[@gordinfreshman]

@@SomeRandomUserrr1r23.i agree

[@judithsandoval8289]

The first version seemed so good. Having the AI get smarter every time he found you while you try to solve puzzles. If they kept that the main focus it would’ve been soooo much better.

[@kitkatty52211]

Some people are theorizing that it was a script and not actual AI but either way it was cool.

[@lemons1559]

@@kitkatty52211 That's what AI is.

[@kitkatty52211]

@@lemons1559 i mean that it wasnt an ai that adapts, that it was more of an animation of sorts.

[@lemons1559]

@@kitkatty52211 Oh the trailer specifically? Yeah it looks more like a theatrical script.

[@LavenderCorpses]

When you think about it, they did achieve their message with the story about getting over the horrors of your past - Nobody cares about this train wreck of a game anymore and that has made all of our lives better.

[@__lasevix_]

Making a dead game into a statement is a good move tbh

[@FAVOURITEBRO]

Train wreck that has a sequel releasing soon.

[@PapyrusTheRoyalGuard1]

i think it would be cool if they made the neighbour move faster if the player is looking at him. like a 100 - 200% boost to movement but only if hes in the player's vision. woulda been so much scarier :P

[@Lenape_Lady]

Nothing makes me more infuriated and want to immediately drop a game than convoluted, nonsensical, non-intuitive puzzles.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Puzzles, or at least well-designed ones, don't necessarily have to abide by the laws of physics to feel grounded in reality, but they do need to construct their own designated set of rules for the world to functionally operate. The player should be aware of the sandbox restrictions as well as whether the principal foundation they build upon is highly realistic to some degree, or slightly override conventional laws with more leniency and employs the whimsical level design for humorous effect, a la Looney Tunes or Tom & Jerry. However, Hello Neighbor is utterly lacking in internal consistency and self-contradicts itself when it comes to establishing its own rules, almost as if they desperately attempt to improvise everything as they went along.

[@Lenape_Lady]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m Agreed. If the player can’t rely on information and experience they gained from completing previous puzzles in the game, or if the game physics/laws/rules constantly contradict themselves…it creates nothing but confusion and aggravation.

[@bretttttttttttt]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m so are you saying im not actually dumb for not ever being able to finish the rest of the games because of not knowing what to do for the puzzles?

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

@@bretttttttttttt Don’t blame yourself for not knowing the solutions to the puzzles unless you’ve already watched some of those walkthroughs. Blame the developers for this questionable game design. It’s not the playerbase’s fault, by the way.

[@MissPoplarLeaf]

This is what made Portal so great - the earlier puzzles teach you all the basic concepts. Then the later puzzles get more complex, but they always use the same principles that the earlier puzzles used, just in new configurations, and sometimes requiring the player to combine those principles to solve the puzzles. When you figure out the next step, it's incredibly satisfying, because you naturally figured it out using the principles you learned before. I feel like this is one of the best design philosophies that you can use when designing puzzle focused games. It seems like Hello Neighbor just doesn't design its puzzles in intuitive ways like that at all. It's more like a blind guessing game.

[@WantSomeWhiskey818]

This game went from promising to cynical within months. I was on the hype train until either Alpha 3 or 4, I forget which one specifically but it just felt like the devs were phoning it in because of how popular it was. The moment I knew it was a failure was when tinyBuild on twitter kept BEGGING MatPat to do a Game Theory on it which was just sad. It may have been financially successful but man, it flopped hard with what it tried to actually do. Its a damn shame, its such a good idea.

[@SpellboundSpectre]

It tried to be AAA game, but just couldn’t accept it never would be past a b tier one

[@Haurent]

People even made songs about the damn thing, so you can guess the hype was reaaaal

[@scottbecker4367]

@@SpellboundSpectre no, it tried to be FNAF. The problem is that FNAF actually had a decent gameplay loop. The lore was secondary.

[@ciindyylouwho]

The concept of this game was so good I am so sad it didn't go well for them, they focused on the wrong things. I loved this game before it got too confusing and didn't really understand why suddenly no one mentioned or played it.

[@dannytheman1313]

I remember the original story being about how the neighbor was actually your estranged father and how you were responsible for the death of your sister. That was where the whole thing with the coffin originally came in. Unfortunately once the hype machine started the game got too ambitious and thats where the downfall started.

[@ilhambrewok7860]

Isn't that the whole story of Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek, if I remember correctly? I mean, the difference is that you're playing as the Neighbor's daughter instead of his son.

[@novustalks7525]

That's what the story is nowadays though

[@ticklemedaddy]

​@@novustalks7525 Nay, that was a last minute retcon, the final achievement even alludes to this

[@novustalks7525]

@@ticklemedaddy what is the final achievement?

[@ticklemedaddy]

@@novustalks7525 I believe it is "Like Father Like Son" which is earned after beating the giant Neighbor, maybe you have to do something to get it or if you get it either way... I wouldn't know

[@gerbius]

hello neighbor is such a fun case to look back on of people trying to ride the coattails of FNAF in the most desperate ways possible the moment they dropped those alpha keys it was likely the publisher that saw dollar signs in their eyes; and almost immediately shifted the project to bank completely on youtubers for any success of the game. over the course of the alphas they dumbed down or just dropped any actually decent gameplay elements in favor of goofy physics and quick tension for a lets player to yell at and in the process expose HN to hundreds of thousands of people (mainly kids). then they made the lore as cryptic and mysterious as possible (bonus points for having the characters speak a made up language) so all the theory channels ate it up, exposing the game to even more people. the game came out and critically it was utter garbage, with a lot of youtubers dropping it at part 1 instead of doing a full playthrough, but the kid audience latched on, netting the publisher a cash cow to milk through spinoffs and other media. the main highlight of all the other hello neighbor stuff is the social media promotion for the animated series, where they stooped to the franchises biggest lowpoint by publicly BEGGING matpat to analyse it frame by frame, answer their DMs, etc. at the end of the day, it truly is a shame that HN ended up a crappy, overhyped kids game. maybe the upcoming sequel can be a groundbreaking and tense showcase of AI and fun physics puzzles that the first game should have been.

[@spiffyavatar3611]

the sequel in its beta phase is taking feedback directly so nows there's less jank

[@motivatedman9730]

@@spiffyavatar3611Say that to me again will you ?

[@x3j505]

funny thing about them begging for MatPat is that apparently the employee responsible for tweeting those tweets were a MatPat fanboy. They were reprimanded according to a public statement. Or, you know, that's what they want us to believe

[@Anekamaru]

it honestly feels like they tried to speedrun fnaf's 3-ish years worth of lore all at once. sister location was was the last game folks working on hello neighbor would have played and still had time to be inspired by, and by then the weirder, esoteric stuff had started filtering through. if hello neighbor had just stuck to "hide from weird dude while you break into his house" they could have worked up to their version of "the main antagonist was an evil zombie killed by possessed machines all along" in later games but they blew their load too early by chasing dollar signs

[@alenmack3471]

Take a shot whenever you see an essay in the comment section.

[@nikumaeda]

I completely forgot granny was inspired by this. This game was just completely wiped from my memory until this video You're telling me THIS had a series???? The last thing this game needs is more lore I think the first version that blew up was the best one, the concept was very simple then the game and the plot became overcomplicated for no reason

[@pkmntrainerred4247]

Granny was inspired by THIS?! I remember watching my younger cousin play it once, IDK why I didn`t recognize the similarities.... LOL I even helped him even tho I had literally no experience of playing it

[@crystalgoddess4085]

The thing is, one other game did what Hello Neighbor tried to do initially with its A.I. and did a far better job of it, and that was Alien Isolation, the Xenomorph would learn the player's common hiding spots, try pinpoint the location of noises it heard and even try cut the player off, this made it the unsettling and imposing threat that Dynamic Pixels tried to make the Neighbor into.

[@JagoShogun]

I knew something felt weird seeing it become all "kid friendly" and very diabetically lurid, round, and not as you put it "Tim Burton"-y where it looks quirky but still has ELEMENTS of horror, like music, and the idea of a monster being in a room, without knowing where it is. Anticipation is fear. And even though he's just a human, his house is unsettling, the mystery made the game creepy, and the odd architecture. But it then got cranked to 11 and they neglected the antagonist in favor of puzzle and parkour elements and Muh story. Instead of just having the story be an after thought and much, MUCH more vague.

[@SStupendous]

Up until Alpha 4 it was all good. Actually scary, actually living up to what it originally was.

[@lordrathut]

@@SStupendous I mean Alpha 4 was at least interesting. The huge stinker was Alpha 3, which is why I liked the beta more, since it was like Alpha 3 but had a day cycle and you could see where you were going

[@SStupendous]

@@lordrathut Got to agree, between all the alphas, the ones prior to Alpha 3 are also my favorite. People didn't like Alpha 3, and it was also buggy, but realistically I think it's way better than any beyond it, including the final results.

[@doubleaabattery7562]

I’d like a version of the neighbor that maybe at first seems normal and kind but the more secrets you find in his house the more creepy and strange the house gets as he chases you with that emotionless expression he had in the alpha builds

[@doubleaabattery7562]

They also could’ve maybe even kept the original lore they were building (If I remember correctly, the lore was about his family dying in a car crash) to explain why he had no remorse for you trying to find out his personal life and have him not even trying to kill you, just more so have his methods get more extreme to hammer in the point that you aren’t welcome in his house.

[@frythechip7930]

If I remember correctly, apparently all the lore, all the theories that were done on the early alpha versions of the game, the developers decided to throw most of that lore away and change it. So, MatPat's early theory video of Hello Neighbour was pointless. All the pictures they did a while back, where they hid lore in them, all pointless

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Remember all the cool "hidden lore" stuff like the Bible verses, Wolfgang Von Goethe's Faust book lying on the couch, the candles and pentagrams on the basement in Alpha 2, the painting of the Neighbor kissing somebody, weird children's drawings scattered throughout the house, and the mysterious silhouette-like figure standing behind the Neighbor in one screenshot? Yeah, none of the stuff I've mentioned actually meant anything.

[@frythechip7930]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m yea, a big disappointment. This game had so much potential and the developers nerfed it

[@joel9104]

They threw it all away so the matpat would make a new video to guess the new story

[@queennamirivythorn2040]

Exactly this. Like, why even make a story and hint about it if you’re going to throw a tantrum about people following and figuring out your hints? That and the game just plain being boring was such a drag.

[@Thor-Orion]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m BATIM?

[@ThePacMiner]

The game Granny kinda fulfilled that promise of being followed while sneaking around someones house, even though youre not trying to break in, but break out.

[@ThePacMiner]

@The ultimate, one and only KZbin cooking channel in Granny, the titular antagonist does lay down bear traps and i think she even locks some doors. But its definetely not very fleshed out, nothing like the boarded windows or cameras.

[@ThePacMiner]

@The ultimate, one and only KZbin cooking channel ah right, mustve misremembered how they worked.

[@Breakaway-ic5gj]

I have heard there is a fangame called Hello Neibhour Alternate Reality which preserves alpha 1's spirit

[@speedforce8970]

I think even granny fell out after 1. The house in granny 1 is the best in the series imo and it also looks the best graphically to my eyes. Granny 2 and 3 just look worse I think and are way less scary too with way too many unfair feeling deaths.

[@Contactdecline]

your comment is nothing but complete facts. you got my like

[@valentinemiller8680]

The way this game went from "hey, your neighbor is a little weird and has something super secret in his basement, wonder what it is?" to this absolute fever dream is dumbfounding to me. If they just stuck to the way they had in the first alpha it would have been an interesting game that could have had a lot of interesting lore, but it seems with all of the later alphas and the final release, they forgot what the point of the damn game was. What does a giant Neighbor in an endless white void have anything to do with just seeing what weird crap your neighbor has in his basement?

[@TheNasaOK]

I have a feeling the developer misunderstood the genre they originally had. Instead of going a wacky linear story route, they should have more made this like a semi endless / roguelike. Have the game be in the state where the Neighbour AI adapts, places traps etc and everytime you get caught the game becomes a bit harder until its game over. Then have something like multiple sets of multiple objectives, and at the start of a run the set gets chosen either by the player or at random. E.g. the base szenario is hes hiding something an you want to collect evidence / find out what, e.g. you find a bloddy hammer in the trashbin -> letters of a wife wanting a divorse -> blood on the floor in the attik and then a dead body in the freezer in the basement or so. Your goal is to take pictures from all the evidence once you found it and then escape. If you mess up to many times "Game over" and you start all over or a different szenario. Have it be everything from murder to kidnapping to organizing a surprise birthday party. they could even make multiple mid sized houses or even make the house modular and generate it, you have tons of replayability, can still put "deeper lore" hints with a low spawn chance that would be fodder for theorys etc. Have the player find random items that help him out for even more replayability. The bread and butter for this game, is the Enemy AI making it less predictable, and adapting to your playstyle, build the game around that and not around some lore

[@ilhambrewok7860]

You've literally made a better Hello Neighbor game than the developers in under 14 minutes. Congrats!

[@unclebaba3463]

​@Nasser doesn't matter, still better then the game we got

[@skeletonbuyingpealts7134]

I feel like 2 modes would be best, Roguelike and Story

[@quentinhans4755]

This is a really awesome idea and I would love to see this in a game. Nice Monokuma Profile Picture btw.

[@MiętaNaPoduszce]

I remember me and my friend playing alpha 2 when it came out and we we’re really trying to find some bugs. At one point we haven’t restarted the game for like 2-3 hours and we noticed that the neighbor where nowhere to be found. He just disappeard. So we did what anything responsible kids would do… rob him of everything.

[@marigalante944]

Correct. That's what you do! When I was playing the official release, I didn't understand the objective so I just robbed random things lol

[@VossMarionette]

The ending should have had the player become the next “neighbor” and build his own ultimate house after that nightmare and years later had the player spy on a new kid on the block to show a perpetual cycle of insanity. Missed opportunity right there.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Perhaps for the second playthrough, they should have reversed the entire formula upside down, where you’re playing as the Neighbor stopping whoever is trying to break into your property.

[@behindthecookie8653]

This gave me Little Nightmares vibes.

[@absolutesonic4266]

Holy shit that's actually fucking genius

[@quacker1008]

That feels so unoriginal

[@raadalsalehy9223]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m maybe it would unlock a co op mode where one players the neighbor try to stop the other player

[@mindergrewal6015]

THEN I WOKE UP IT WAS ALL A DREAM is how you end a story in a exam when you are running out of time . HAHAHA

[@WhatTheFnu]

"You need to cool down this crowbar." Normally, time would sort that problem out.

[@SomeRandomUserrr1r23.]

Ok

[@tomaszzalewski4541]

I give it 10 minutes max

[@DaMightyHuuma]

Gab

[@Reth_Hard]

When I was young many NES games had this kind of puzzles almost impossible to solve, except you couldn't just look on the internet for the solution so you would just waste hours trying every non-sense you could think of. If you were lucky a friend would know the solution or you would find it in a Nintendo magazine but most of the time you just had to give up...

[@bastiansorenson521]

This literally the only game I've ever regretted buying, which says a lot. I never even played past act two.

[@adners1175]

And why didn't you asked for a refund?

[@bees_churger6876]

@@adners1175 Im pretty sure steam doesnt allow refunds if you have played for more than an hour.

[@MelodicTurtleMetal]

Ehh i liked it. It was weird in a good way. Better platforming than many sonic games

[@hei7846]

@@MelodicTurtleMetal Sonic games come with the most banger soundtracks which make the game just super fun

[@MelodicTurtleMetal]

@@hei7846 can't argue that

[@stressedpeach7749]

Whenever i saw this game evolve it'd remind me of a chef who puts too many decorations on a cake, or a model who wears too many accessories. It feels like they believed in "bigger is better" and never cared to see if jt was too much.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

Moral of the story: "You can put as much tasty frosting on a cake as you want, but if the cake is poorly baked, no amount of toppings can fix it."

[@Emlek22334]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m ehhhh if the topping is good it can fix the cake.

[@NormalHumanLikeYou]

​@@Emlek22334 ehhhh no

[@Emlek22334]

@@NormalHumanLikeYou ehhhhh depends which topping

[@thejaded]

Very interesting way of thinking 😅

[@TheGaslightDistrict]

Pre alpha-alpha 3 was a huge part of my childhood like I was insanely obsessed with them so playing the actual release was quite depressing

[@funkyfranklin]

Same

[@unicornman147]

That footage from the very early build of the neighbor chasing the player and trying to break into the room was way scarier than anything the company put out since, and it's just a poor quality model flying around in an untextured mass. It's true primal fear. Developers really dropped the ball by leaning into the childish mascot horror genre instead of expanding the potential this game originally had. A bunch of convoluted lore and nonsensical dream sequence sucks all the scary out.

[@HankJWimbleton-v1m]

It kinda reminds me of those NextBot servers on Garry's Mod, in which you're running away from either a static PNG or some t-posing character without animations. Yeah it may looked stupid at first glance, but they somehow managed to be genuinely terrifying.

[@unicornman147]

@@HankJWimbleton-v1m You know, it's funny. I was just talking about those on forum the other day. The one with the player running away from the Selene Delgado png is genuinely terrifying. I found the video at night and had to wait until the next morning to watch it.