Escape from Playtime, the multiplayer prequel to Poppy Playtime, is now in open beta on Steam, and the developers want your feedback. The test runs until Sunday, October 4, at 6 pm PT, giving players a full weekend to crawl through the factory’s dark halls.
A New Kind of Terror
The original Poppy Playtime introduced Huggy Wuggy, a towering blue plush toy who chases you through air vents and hallways. Escape from Playtime flips the script. Now you play as one of the cute little Playtime toys — a plush bunny, a cartoony cat, or a fluffy unicorn — and your goal is to escape the accursed factory with your friends.
To do that, you need to gather supplies in a cart. Fill it with enough useful junk and you move to the next shift. Complete all the shifts and you’re free. But the factory is not empty.
Monsters That Stop
The game introduces a new threat named Miss Delight. She is tall, towering over you, and she kills you instantly if she catches you. The trick is that Miss Delight can be stopped in her tracks. Shine a flashlight in what’s left of her face, and she freezes.
That is the core joke of the beta. A monster that stops and stares is worse than a monster that chases you. Miss Delight stands there motionless, with bright, shiny dead eyes and a gaping, hungry mouth, completely still, staring… until your flashlight battery dies.
Other Monsters Lurk
Miss Delight is not the only terror in the factory. There are toy robots that speed toward you when detected and explode on contact. If a teammate hits them in the back of the head with a thrown object first, they shut down. There is also a Cat Bee, a cat dressed like a bee that latches onto players and poisons them. Another teammate can knock it off with a thrown object.
The pattern is clear: sticking together helps. Every enemy has a weakness, and exploiting it requires cooperation.
What the Developer Says
Mob Entertainment, the developer, wants to make one thing clear. This is a playtest, not a finished product.
“We want to emphasize that this is very much a playtest looking for your feedback,” the developer says. “This build has many work-in-progress aspects, experimental features, experiments with balance, and locked away features. Your feedback from this Beta Playtest will greatly aid in the development of the launch build and beyond!”
There will be a survey after you play if you’d like to give feedback. The open beta supports up to eight players, with groups of at least four recommended.
A Long Time in the Factory
Chris has been writing about PC games since the early 2000s, and he admits he has a love-hate relationship with survival games. He also confesses an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs.
For anyone who played the original Poppy Playtime, the new prequel offers a fresh angle on the world. Instead of being chased, you are trying to escape. The terror is not just in the monsters, but in the silence.
The beta runs until Sunday, October 4, at 6 pm PT. That gives players a full weekend to test Miss Delight and the other horrors hiding in the shadows.
This is a chance to shape the final build. So grab your flashlight, find your friends, and see if you can survive the next shift.
Source material: “There's something even scarier than Huggy Wuggy in the Playtime toy factory this weekend,” PC Gamer.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.