My First Horror Game Stream: Poppy Playtime
What the hell was this “horror game penalty” nonsense? “You all know how brutal it is to stream without a single break, right?”
The viewers smelled blood and immediately dogpiled on me, trusting that their sheer numbers would win. Nope. Time to remind them who’s in charge.
“If you keep spouting that punishment crap, I can always go back to my roots and stream just two hours a day.”
The chat instantly switched to witch-hunt mode. Exactly. You have to remind them who’s the boss every once in a while, or they’ll walk all over you.
“Hmm. I don’t have anything planned. Any games trending right now?”
Dozens of game titles flooded the chat. One in particular caught my eye.
“Poppy Playtime?”
I’d never heard of it. The name alone made it sound like some cute little kids’ game…
“Five years ago?”
From what the chat was saying, it used to be a massive hit in the horror genre. Apparently the final chapter, Chapter 6, had just dropped and the whole series was blowing up again.
“Hmm… should I give it a shot?”
Everyone seemed shocked that I was willing to play a horror game. Why?
“Is it that weird for me to play horror?”
“What do you take me for? I was planning to play horror games anyway.”
After all, if I wanted to become a real pro streamer, horror games were a hurdle I had to clear eventually. I opened Steam, typed in Poppy Playtime, and hit search. Six entries popped up. Now which one to pick…
“Since I’m doing this, should I just play through all of them from 1 to 6?”
Despite how I might look, I’m the type who cares about story. If I don’t understand the plot, the game just doesn’t hit right. That meant starting from Chapter 1.
The download finished in under five minutes. I clicked Play. The moment the game launched, a dark background appeared with a desk holding a single letter and a videotape. Something was written on the letter in red ink.
The words were scrawled in crimson, almost like blood.
Flower, huh… I had no idea what it meant, but it seemed the main objective was to find one.
According to the narration, the protagonist was a former employee of Playtime Co., a once-successful toy company. The videotape started playing, and a man appeared. He began introducing the dolls.
"This doll’s name is Poppy. She’s the first doll capable of having a conversation with a child. Hard to believe? See for yourself."
The man showed footage of Poppy. Red hair in twin tails, porcelain skin, bright blue eyes. A perfectly ordinary doll that children from that era would have loved. When he pulled the string on her neck, she spoke.
"Hi, my name is Poppy."
The early part of the video was just a normal toy commercial. But toward the end the footage began to glitch and distort. The screen cut to black, and the game logo burst onto the screen.
So this is the vibe.
It was my first horror game, so I was actually a little excited. Heart pounding, I stepped into the abandoned toy factory.
An old desk held a green videotape. I played it, but it was nothing important—just a vague “go back” message. I ignored it and moved deeper into the factory. After grabbing the items I’d need to escape, I pressed on.
Crying? These people must have weak hearts. I ventured deeper. In the center of the main hall stood a massive doll. Long limbs, blue fur, and a wide, smiling red mouth. It left quite an impression.
As I approached, a little song began to play. But that wasn’t important right now. The factory was pitch black. I needed to restore power first, which meant finding the key to the electrical room. No matter how much I searched, I couldn’t see it anywhere.
I checked Poppy’s status again. There it was—in her hand. It wasn’t there before, was it? Maybe I just hadn’t noticed. I grabbed the key, opened the electrical room, and restored power.
“Wow, the graphics are actually pretty good for an old game.”
After looking around a bit, I left the hall and entered the warehouse. A yellow tape was inside. The moment I picked it up, another video played. From what I could tell, the toy company had brought in orphans, and one of the employees treated them like garbage.
This is actually pretty interesting.
After the tape ended I scanned the area and spotted an escape item high up. I quickly operated the machine, grabbed the item, and pushed deeper in search of the flower. Along the way I found a pink videotape. It didn’t seem important, so I skipped it and kept going.
This time the hallway was covered in drawings of a pink, feminine version of the doll I’d seen earlier. Step. Step.
“……!”
The second I tried to go farther, the blue doll from before suddenly lunged out.
“Whoa, shit! You scared me!”
It was the same doll, except now it was baring a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.
I ducked into the conveyor belt. There was no way that huge thing could fit in this narrow—
BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Something was sprinting behind me. I glanced back. It was the blue doll.
“Fuck, it’s way too flexible!”
How could it move that fast? The swear slipped out before I could stop it.
Just like the chat said, the cotton stuffing let it bend and twist in ways that should’ve been impossible. I ran at full speed, but the doll hunched over and chased me with everything it had.
BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!
I ran desperately, but the conveyor belt was a complete maze. Damn, this path feels like the right one…! My divination ability was screaming that this was the correct route. But that wasn’t what the viewers wanted, so I closed my eyes and stumbled through the maze on purpose.
I peeked at the chat with one eye. They were loving how lost I looked. I kept my eyes shut and continued fumbling through the maze—hitting dead ends, suddenly blocked by walls. And eventually…
[GRRRAAAAAHH!!!]
The doll grabbed my head and tore into it with those razor teeth. Only after the sound effect played did I open my eyes.
“Hmm. Too bad.”
“Freak out more? If that’s what you want, go watch a different female streamer.”
The chat was clearly let down by my reaction. But what was I supposed to do? It genuinely wasn’t scary. The screen returned to the lobby. Time to start over.
“This shouldn’t take long. Let’s just finish it.”
The game restarted. I played through the same sections as before. Time passed, and I reached the conveyor belt again.
BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!
The doll was chasing me once more. I closed my eyes again. Since I remembered the keys I’d pressed last time, I just needed to go the opposite way whenever I hit a wall.
“I think I get the layout now.”
I escaped the conveyor belt quickly and locked the door, but another dead end blocked my path. What now…! I looked around for anything useful and spotted a huge wooden crate on the ceiling.
BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!
The doll was smashing the conveyor door. It broke through in seconds and charged at me like a demon. I used the escape item to drop the crate, smashing the doll’s legs.
CRASH!
The doll plummeted into the bottomless basement below. I stared down into the darkness where it had fallen.
“Is it over?”
I couldn’t fully trust the chat. I looked around and finally spotted the flower drawn on the letter. On the way to it I found a black tape. When I played it, the male narrator’s voice returned.
"Final record regarding the Prototype."
The footage showed a long, sharp mechanical arm. Looked like that thing was the final mastermind.
“The story’s surprisingly solid.”
Like I always say, any game needs a good story to be truly enjoyable. I returned to the flower. A passage led somewhere inside it. I felt a bit hesitant to enter. The walls around the door were covered in warnings: Danger. Do not enter.
“This is the right way, yeah?”
The chat urging me forward felt a little suspicious, but I went in anyway. The passage opened into a room with yellow wallpaper covered in red flowers. It looks like a normal family home.
Deeper inside was a suspicious room. When I opened the door, red lights bathed everything in a crimson glow. The most striking thing was a doll trapped inside a glass case.
“Why is Poppy here…?”
Following the chat’s advice, I opened the case. The lights suddenly went out. The player character lost consciousness. Then I heard the voice from the very first video.
"You opened my box."
After Poppy’s line, another tape played. It showed a pink doll and explained that its limbs could stretch wildly. Looked like this one would be the boss of Chapter 2.
When the video ended, the screen returned to the lobby. Guess that really was the end of Chapter 1.
“Shall we jump into Chapter 2 then?”
I pressed the play button for Chapter 2, which I had already downloaded.