bendy and the ink machine
review
this year, my halloween was spent playing bendy and the ink machine with a couple of my roommates. the plan was to play a bad horror game, and bendy seemed to fit the bill, given its shaky reputation. since it was free on epic, i decided that it would be our game of the night.
fortunately, bendy is a bad horror game. unfortunately, bendy is a flavor of bad horror game that’s not really that fun to laugh at. it’s got a ton of promise; the great sound design, intriguing visual style and fantastic setting build a really cool atmosphere, and you can tell passionate people were behind this game… to start.
it’s clear, though, that what bendy became is a far cry from what bendy was. bendy’s origins were from a simple passion project: a short horror experience released on gamejolt by a 3D-modeler and a programmer, fully made and released within a week.
by the end of its release, though, bendy was a media juggernaut. 5 chapters, a large youtube following, merchandise, crossovers, a mobile game. it became a staple in the youtube-horror sphere, alongside games like amnesia and five nights at freddy’s.
the problem is, this game was never really intended to be a big thing. the development team, even by chapter 5’s release, was less than 10 people. there wasn’t a plan for a larger-scale story, because there was never a plan for bendy to be anything other than a bite-sized horror experience made by people who just wanted to make something, and the game suffers because of that.
i’m not blaming the team for not having the foresight to see that their game was going to blow up; quite the contrary, actually. i’m saying that no matter who you put in that situation, it’s hard to make a game of any meaningful quality without losing your relevance. if you take too much time to develop a game that builds off what you have in an interesting and memorable way, you’ve probably lost your window of popularity. if you continue to push out content quickly with insufficient planning time and a small team, well… you get bendy and the ink machine.
~
the first chapter of this game is really solid. you’re alone, in this hazy, yellowed, abandoned studio filled with old memorabilia of a time long passed. there’s wonderfully built tension, and the lack of any real mechanics, alongside your slow walking speed, further this feeling of helplessness once things start to go awry. the titular ink machine is extremely unnerving, and the jumpscare and subsequent chase scene at the end of the chapter feel earned. it’s surprisingly well done, for a chapter made in just 5 days.
but after the first 20 minutes, it loses a lot of what made the game so unnerving. new characters are introduced, removing the feeling of isolation you once had. there’s light stealth mechanics and combat introduced, both of which feel like artificial obstacles stopping the game from being played as intended. but, regardless of the worsened tone, there was still a really interesting core here.
then chapter 3 starts, and you’re tasked with 6 fetch quests in a row. they kill any momentum this game had, and it never comes back. more terrible characters get introduced, there’s bossfights that are so anti-climactic and easy, it’s almost sad. a maze where you have to dodge an unkillable enemy using the game’s shallow stealth mechanics, except there’s no consequence to dying so you may as well just run around and pick up all of the items.
it became what games like this dread: a slog.
by the end of the game, you’ve been introduced to 3 characters, none of whom felt relevant for anything outside of their plot purposes. the stealth mechanics have heavily worn their welcome. any semblance of unease the game left you with at the start is gone, and in its stead is sheer boredom. the ending insinuates a larger scheme at play, but… who cares. you’re just tired, and you want everything to end.
~
i haven’t brought up the lore yet, and there’s a reason for that. the entire game centers around joey drew studios, a fictional, disney-like company who made the original bendy cartoons, who went under as the fleischer era of animation began to die out. there’s mentions of workplace abuse, burnout, and terrible working conditions. employees are pushed to their limits, pushing out new content as fast as they can, all so that joey drew studios, and by proxy, joey drew, can remain relevant and rich.
the lore makes one thing clear: joey drew is the villain of this story. some embodiment of capitalist greed, who only cares about maintaining his power at any cost necessary.
i think the game knows what it is. it knows it turned into exactly what it hated. it’s shockingly self-aware that it’s become a shell of its former self. and, while that self-awareness is admirable, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.
they even changed their company’s name to joey drew studios after this game’s release. how ironic.
score
3/10
notes
- developed by Joey Drew Studios
- published by Joey Drew Studios
- released in 2017
- played on pc
- crossposted to backloggd