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Playbox looks like a very Xmassy game, but then you watch the trailer, and you realize it’s not very Xmassy at all. Macab is a free visual novel with a puzzle element. The setup is that you are a puppeteer working for a jovial grand puppeteer whose face is hidden above the top of the screen. Your task is to disperse the dolls – five in total – according to his eldritch written instructions, and “save” them or “sentence” to the burning room.
The dolls can be “judged” because they seem to be alive. They will talk to you and share their memories as you snap them. The obvious thing to do is save them all – after all, who would throw a small-talking ballerina into the furnace? But the toys are not good. Their talk is misery and evil, darkness and blood. Some have glowing eyes and teeth. And then there’s the Great Toy Maker puzzle, which returns periodically to evaluate your choices. “It’s extremely important that inspectors capture the image of the maker,” he explains. Steam pagenot very reassuring.
I haven’t played the entire arcade because, to be honest, it’s too much for me. I mean, look at the content warnings. There is no “explicit imagery of sexual activity”, but everything else, including “blood, body horror, gore, death, surrealism, child abuse, mock-jumpscares, motion sickness, flashy imagery. Religious themes, profanity, (and) violence.
From what I’ve played, Toybox’s ugliness is partly the toys’ basic dysfunction, the gray zone they inhabit between objects and companions, though the eventual and more direct twist is that these glorious jewels are contained. When the game deals with the aforementioned themes, it doesn’t feel like an excuse or a depiction of vulgarity, but it’s certainly disturbing: Pinocchio’s badass with a generous helping of FNAF and Thomas Ligotti.
Developers DEADline Studios are a small POC and queer-owned studio dedicated to “passing stories about what it means to be human and delve into the good, the bad, and the ugly.” There’s plenty of the latter here. Their other projects include A fool’s paradisea satellite horror visual novel with romantic elements.
I’m writing about Toybox partly because it’s been a while since I’ve stopped playing a horror game, and partly because I think the premise of telling a story by breaking things up is fantastic and I’d like to see more of it. . It doesn’t have to involve horror – that’s the closest parallel I can think of right now. Hardspace: Shipwreck. Which is, I guess, a pretty horrible game when it comes to neutral servitude and self-cloning, but at least those spaceships aren’t begging for mercy when you tear them apart.
