Game Theory - Poppy Playtime's New Villain FOOLED You! (Chapter 4)

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

I know who the main villain is for Poppy Playtime Chapter 4. No, it's not the prototype. No, it's not Poppy. And no, it's not this new sheep critter from the teaser. Although, while that last one may not be the big bad, it turns out this black sheep is in fact the key to figuring out who is. Hello internet! Welcome to Game Theory, the Black Sheep of the Gaming World. While everyone else is being cute, doing let's plays, we're over here chowing down on the stories of orphans shoved into plushies. But we're not alone because we just got ourselves a brand new teaser for Poppy Playtime Chapter 4. A dog day plushy walks through a room until out of the shadows, a black clump pounces and begins chowing down.

They look up and we see a room full of toy corpses stacked high. Say Poppy and I really are a match made in heaven. Or hell, I suppose. Over the next two weeks, we learned a little bit more about this character. Their name is Barbar Chops. And apparently, their design was inspired by the YouTuber Sheep Rampage and their fan-made smiling. Critter. Good for you, man. Nice to see some theorists in this community getting recognition. Of course, theorists across the internet began theorising about this sheep and what they would do

as the primary villain of this chapter. Only for the marketing communications manager of mob games, Tyler, to make this comment on the Poppy Playtime Discord. LaMau, you'll really think the sheep is the main villain. This is some rather inconvenient lore placement. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for having the record set straight. It's more than we get from some franchises. But did you really have to mock us with it? After this, we were shown that Barbar wasn't alone, but part of a new group of toys, the nightmare critters. We've got characters like Raby Baby, Icky-licky, and... Ahem, Toey.

Oh, come on, you can't tell me they didn't know what they were doing with these names. Regardless, this was a pretty clear sign that critters like Barbar weren't going to be the primary villains of this chapter. But then, who is? Of course, we could just wait for the next teaser to find out. But, you know what? I don't actually think we need to. Because even though Baba may not be the main villain, the decision to use them in the teaser instead of any of the other new critters was intentional.

Their inclusion is incredibly important because it actually helps us figure out who the real villain is going to be. So let's start digging through the piles of decaying toys, loyal theorists to see if we can find the tiniest scraps of law to chew on. For starters, how is Baba the key to figuring all this out? Well, for that, we've actually got to go back in time a little bit and talk about another. recent development in the Poppy Playtime world. A series of videos released on Mob Entertainment's YouTube channel called The Story Sofar. Each video involves Harley Sawyer. I'm called the doctor. He was the guy that helped start the bigger body's initiative. He is narrating us through the events of chapters 1, 2 and 3. Seems pretty straightforward.

However, when the first video came out, fans were quick to notice that something wasn't quite right. At 1 minute and 28 seconds, there were hidden frames that showed the letters, IV, A, R, and G, followed by the phrase, let the game begin. Ivy is the Roman numeral for four, and the other letters, well, I'm sure you can figure that part out. This was the start of the Chapter 4 ARG, which was very exciting. Chapter 3's ARG revealed a ton of information about the poppy gas, how they made the experiments, and the human identity of catnaps. So, people began scrambling to find whatever answers they could about this thing.

Big shout out to everyone over on the Poppy Playtime Discount. By the way. While I have been trying to solve all these clues on my own, these guys were incredibly quick on the draw, solving puzzles just hours after release, including Sheep Rampage, the YouTube I mentioned earlier. So, if you want to stay on top of the latest poppy ARG stuff in the future, I highly recommend you go and check them out. There's a link in the description. Hi, Future Tom here. So I'm literally about to head out for a vacation, but I've just seen that there's potentially more to this ARG? Members of Mob's Partners in Crime Program have been receiving letters with hidden clues. At the time I'm recording, there's only been a handful of clues.

They're still missing a couple of key components. But by the time this episode comes out, the rest may have been revealed. So definitely go and check out the Poppy Playtime Discord if you want to see where that ended up. I don't believe it's going to change much about this episode, but I just wanted to let you know so you're not wondering why I'm not talking about those codes specifically. Okay, back to the ARG. Fortunately, none of us had to wait too long for our first major clue. Right at the end of that first video, we got this wall of text. At first, it looks like our old friend, Base 64.

So, I tried it and ended up with this. Yeah, not exactly what we're looking for. But, did you know that there are actually more base ciphers than just 64? Base 64 gets its name from containing 64 unique characters, a capitalized and non-capitalized alphabet, numbers 1 to 9, and a couple of symbols. However, there are a bunch of base forms that use a different amount of unique characters that we can try. We actually used Base 5 back in our That's Not My Neighbor video. But there's also stuff like base 16, base 36, base 62, base 85, and the one that came in handy today, base 32.

This one uses a single alphabet and the numbers 1 to 7. So, if you see a code that looks like it should be base 64, but it lacks any symbols or the numbers 8, 9 or 0, try base 32. The more you know. Anyway, by converting the code, you get this. On felted feet and with baited breath, sleep draws ever near. Felted Feet seemed like it would be talking about a toy, and with the second line being about sleep, I immediately thought of Catnap, with their red smoke sending orphans to sleep. But why would we be reminded of him in the builder to Chapter 4?

Catnap was our last villain, and he's kind of suffering from a minor case of deadness. This is where I think Barbar's prominence in the teaser comes into play. Sheep have been associated with sleep for centuries. I'm sure you've all heard that if you're struggling to fall asleep, you can always try counting sheep. It's not entirely clear where this phrase originated, but some say it's from medieval shepherds in Britain, who would count their sheep before turning in for the night. As time went on, the idea became more about thinking of a task that's so repetitive, you'll get bored and fall asleep. So if sleep is drawing ever near in this new chapter, having a sheep character could make a lot of sense.

Maybe they should have called her Lullabar instead. Oh, come on, it's no worse than Barbar Chops, and you know it. This connection to counting sheep could also imply that we need to keep track. of Bar-bar throughout this chapter, counting them, if you will, either in order to survive or to lead us into a deep sleep. A deep sleep that's a little deeper and a little more permanent according to our next code. In the very first frame of chapter two story so far video, we find this code. This is a hexadecimal code and translating it gives us the message 11 words, good luck.

To find these 11 words, we have to go frame by frame through the video. Sometimes there's just one jumbled up word hiding out, sometimes there's two, but in total there are eight codes giving us the full 11 words. Now, we just need to figure out what they mean. Because these codes were made up of only letters, my gut told me it was probably a Caesar cipher, and that hunch turned out to be correct. Mm, kinder.

It was a Caesar cipher, but not the same one for the entire code. A Caesar cipher works by shifting the phrase backwards or forwards a certain number of letters. However, each of these eight codes has been shifted by different amounts. You can't just plug them all into one code breaker and call it a day. So after playing around with it for a while, you end up with this assortment of 11 words. Amnots, paths, turning, of death, but I over, afraid, and clear. Obviously, this doesn't make a lot of sense right now. We need to find the correct order.

And this is where the puzzle goes from a little bit tedious to actually quite genius. If you take a closer look at the solution, the eight codes have been shifted by a number between 1 and 8. PFSW is shifted by 1, RCVJU is shifted by 2, and so on. And if you then place all of these words in the order of the shift values, you get the final phrase. I gotta tip my hat to you, Mob Games. At first I thought you were just drawing out the solution to make it seem bigger, but that's a level of thought through puzzle solving that would make a grown animatronic cry. Combining this with our previous code, we end up with this.

On felted feet and with bated breath, sleep draws ever near, over paths turning clear, but I am not afraid of death. Unlike the sleep and nightmares that were caused by the red smoke in Chapter 3, sleep that is coming for us in chapter 4 is simply death. But that's not actually what stood out to me. For the first time, we have got the use of a pronoun I. Up until this point, this could have just been a cryptic poem for the sake of an ARG. But this shows us that's not the case. It's about a specific character. Interestingly, all of the stories so far videos have started with a date, 2005. That's 10 years after the hour of joy, the event that killed all the employees in the factory. And around the

same time that we came back to try and find anyone who remained. At the end of chapter 3, Poppy told us that everyone was killed, but we know this isn't the full truth. Leith Pierre seems to still be around able to run Project Playtime, and the writer of the Orientation Notebook, P.W. is also still alive to write in the book. Now, we seem to have another character that has survived the Hour of Joy. However, unlike P.W. and Leith, who seemed to be free, I don't think this one is. And that's because of the way the poem is written. It follows an ABBA rhyming scheme. The first line rhymes with the fourth line and the second line rhymes with the third. This evokes a feeling of claustrophobia or entrapment because you have the B-B rhyme enclosed by the

two A rhymes. This is telling us that the character it's about is likely trapped. And with that line about felted feet and sleep drawing near, it's telling us that they are actually trapped down in the facility being hunted by the toys. Although I will say this character doesn't seem particularly scared. Despite this sleep drawing near, they see an open path before them and they're not afraid of death. Weirdly, this line sparked a memory from my time going to a church of England high school. One of the common passages from the Bible that we had to read out in assemblies was Psalm 23, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Just like in the ARG poem, there is a path ahead that is full of death, but the writer of the

Psalm King David isn't afraid of it. He goes on to say that the Lord's rod and staff comfort him, tying it back to the beginning of the Psalm where he refers to the Lord as his shepherd. David is not afraid of death because he has something much stronger on his side. God. That might seem like a completely unrelated tangent, but if you think back to Chapter 3, it was full of religious implications with characters like Catnaw. Chapter 3 confirmed that he used to be the orphan Theodore. But when he got injured trying to help 1006 escape, the prototype took him to Playtime co-scientists in order to save him. Catnap was the result.

And so he worshipped the prototype, saying things like, The Prototype will save us and I live to serve our angel of salvation. Religious inspiration is all over Poppy Playtime, especially when it comes to the prototype and his role as a god or savior to these orphans. He is their god, their good shepherd, the one that has promised to. to save them from death. Could this mean that this poem isn't about another human employee, but the newest toy to be put front and center? Barbar. Are we dealing with another orphan turned toy turned one zero zero six cultist?

I don't think so, because Barbar isn't just any sheep. She's specifically a black sheep. These days if you're called a black sheep, it means that you're kind of the odd one out, the outcast, you just don't quite fit in. But originally, the phrase came from literal sheep. Black sheep were considered undeserved, because their black wool couldn't be died, and so it became hard to sell. So, when you got a surprise black sheep in your flock of only white sheep, it was considered a bad omen. By the 18th and 19th century, the colour black even started to be associated with the devil himself, the one who was opposing god. And so, with Baba being a black sheep, she would likely be considered undesirable to the shepherd and opposed to the god we've been introduced to 1006. She's not going to be working with him like the other toys are. Instead, this solidifies my hunt from earlier that she is going to be helping us. She is going to want to take him down. On chapter 4's scene page, it does say we'll be meeting new characters and allies after all. And you know what they say? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. But if this poem isn't about Barbar, then who is it about?

Well, you've probably figured out that we still haven't talked about Chapter 3's video. And in it, there is one more code to find, which really is the final piece we need. At 3 minutes and 58, seconds, you'll find the very obvious wall of binary text. However, this code doesn't seem to work when plugged into a normal binary decoder. There is a second binary code a few frames later that does work, but it only gives us the phrase 25x25. This is where I've got to give another shout out to the Poppy Playtime Discord. I was scratching my head for a good while with this one, but in less than two hours, they had figured out that this original code was actually an image converted into binary, and the 25x25 was an aspect ratio that you needed to use to get the final image.

Once again, mob games just killing it with these puzzles. The earliest person I could find suggesting this solution was a user called Claccino, so massive props to figuring this out, and thank you for helping me with this one. By converting the binary back into an image and setting the aspect ratio to 25 by 25, we end up with a familiar site, a QR code. Scanning the code gives you a string of letters, which when reversed, gives you the final phrase, for we have already met. That final line is fascinating. On its own, it's telling us that this character the poem is about is literally someone we've already met. A new account on the Poppy

Playtime Discord called Playtime Co seemed to confirm this idea when users asked them if they were the ones sending the messages, and they responded with the same line, for we have already met. These tapes came out before the teaser, so it can't be Barbar or any of the nightmare critters, and Most of the other toys we know are dead. So it would need to be one of the human characters we've been introduced to. We've got a lot of characters unaccounted for, like Eddie Ritterman, Johnny Roth and Stella Graber. Although only one of them speaks about overcoming death in similar poetic language, and we hear them during the intro of Project Playtime Season 2.

Mortality is the curse of the weak. The fire that incinerates the flesh. I strive to stuff that they call me a monster. But I have consideration, I do brace the indigenous. Ding, ding, ding, we have a match. It's the same character that has been guiding us through the story so far videos this entire time. Harley Sawyer. It feels so obvious now.

The guy speaking to us in the tapes is also the one the poem is referring to. The one character who speaks in well-structured, very poetic sentences, and whose only desire is to overcome his own mortality. And now, according to this poem, it seems like he did just that. When you take the final phrase and put it with the rest, it reads like this. On felted feet and with bated breath, sleep draws ever near. Over paths turning clear, but I am not afraid of death. For we have already met. For we have already met, isn't just about us having met this person.

It's about the person, Harley, meeting death, but still being around to talk about it. He isn't afraid of death because he overcame it. And there's only one way that happens in this franchise. You have to be turned into a toy. During Catnaps VHS tape in Chapter 3, we hear Leith Pierre leading the session instead of Harley. Because, in his own words... Normally I'd have Dr. Sawyer do this, but he's out, let's say.

So you got me until they find his replacement. The way Leith says Harley is out feels incredibly uncertain. He's clearly not able to perform his duties anymore, hence the need for a replacement. but it's not as definitive as saying he was fired or no longer with us. And these stories so far videos prove that he definitely isn't dead. Right at the end of the Chapter 3 video, the camera pulls back to reveal a bunch of security camera feeds.

As we pull back, Harley's narration audio changes slightly. It's no longer on the VHS tape. It's being spoken from within the security room. This is not a pre-recorded message. He's been down here physically watching us throughout our journey, which makes Leith's use of the word out feel even more odd. It's almost as if Leith doesn't really know what to call Harley anymore, because Harley isn't who he once was.

Harley has done what he set out to do in his incineration monologue. He overcame death and became a living toy. This is what the bigger body's initiative was always for. He initially framed it as a way to save the company, but in reality, it was to further his own twisted goals of living forever. And unlike the writer of Psalm 23, Harley didn't wait for a god to help him. He used science and became a god himself. He now has power over life and death. He has been helping others to beat death. He has almost become a Jesus-like character. Harley sees himself as a god, a savior, a shepherd. He is here to lead the flock to eternal life. That grace, however, doesn't seem to apply to us. He ends the video by saying, we are being led like lambs to the slaughter, and then he laughs maniacally. Again, it's more shepherd. imagery, but it's not the response of a good shepherd that's going to take care of us,

it's a threat. The response of a power-hungry madman that's going to lead us to the slaughterhouse. Which leads me to believe that Harley, or the toy he has become, is going to be the real villain of Chapter 4. He's never been afraid of killing people that he sees as a problem. He created Boxibu and taught him to desire human flesh in order to get rid of people like Rowan Stoll who were going to expose the entire operation. If we survive this trip to the factory, we would likely be doing the same thing.

all of the quote unquote good things he did would be undone. And he can't have that. But you know what? I'm going to do you one better. It's all well and good knowing the human identity of our upcoming villain. But let's be honest, the thing we all really care about is what toy Harley is going to appear as. At the time of recording, a trailer hasn't been released revealing this new toy. However, I think I've already figured out what it's going to be.

And it's all thanks to a little thing called trademarks. A trademark basically shows a person's or businesses ownership over a word, phrase, logo, character, that sort of thing. People file for trademarks so that other businesses can't then use those recognisable ideas to help sell their own products. Mob Entertainment has a bunch of trademarks mainly for the names of their characters, across video games, merchandise and of course stuffed toys. For example, all the Nightmare Critters had their names trademarked back in September.

However, when you look at Mob's trademark list, there are two names that haven't been used, both of which were registered in May, long before the Nightmare Critters. them to have been registered so long ago but remain unused, they have to be key characters to this upcoming chapter. Each chapter has introduced us to multiple monsters after all. In chapter three alongside catnap, we got Mr. Light. In chapter two, we had Bunzo and PJ Pugapela alongside Mummy. So with there being two unused names, it's more than likely that's what we're seeing here. One of these guys is going to be the scary but secondary villain, while the other one takes the role of our big bad and Harley's new toy body. The question is, which one? Well, the name,

are as follows. Yarnaby and Doey the Do-Man. No, I'm not joking, that is the real trademark. Yarnaby is most likely going to be made of yarn. Would be a bit weird to call him that if he wasn't, right? But Yarn could be an interesting choice for Harley's new body, mainly for thematic reasons. He has been pulling the strings of Playtime Code since his introduction, starting the whole bigger body's initiative under false pretenses. That being said, Doey the Do-Man, as silly as that name seems, also made. makes a surprising amount of sense when it comes to the theme. At first, I thought this was going to be a Pillsbury type character. Nothing's more frightening than the Pillsbury Swoleboy.

But food feels like a strange choice for a toy. Unless, of course, you're talking about the non-edible kind of dough. Play-Doh. Play-dow is so versatile you can make anything with it. You can mould and shape things as you see fit. You can combine different pieces together or tear them apart. Whatever perfect vision you have, Play-Doh can help bring it to life.

It fits so perfectly with Harley. He was playing God, molding and shaping the world to his vision, combining humans and toys together to create his perfect reality. Play-Doh would also give mob games a chance to try a different kind of material to show off their animation skills, something that's detachable, malleable. Harley could literally take whatever form he wanted at any given time, making him an even more frightening, all-powerful god. So personally, my money's on Dowie, but who do you think it is?

Regardless, whichever one it turns out to be, I feel pretty confident that Harley is going to be the one driving it. I guess we'll just have to wait for Chapter 4 to see if I'm right. But in the meantime, remember, that's just a theory. A game theory! Thanks for watching.