Game Theory - The COMPLETE History of Poppy Playtime SOLVED (Chapter 3)

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he lays out the COMPLETE Poppy Playtime Timeline before Chapter 3! *Credits:* Writers: Matthew Patrick and Tom Robinson Editors: Dan "Cybert" Seibert, Lace, Alex "Sedge" Sedgwick, Jerika (NekoOnigiri), Pedro Freitas and Shannon (Bomb0i) Sound Designer: Yosi Berman

It's been two years since Poppy Playtime Chapter 1 released and took the internet by storm. It was everywhere. And so understandably, Chapter 2 was immediately put into production. Seven months later, there it was. Again, it was a huge success, so naturally Chapter 3's development was underway. And so we waited and waited. 18 months have gone by and still were waiting. That doesn't mean Mob Games has left us completely empty-handed. They've been given us little tidbits of lore in all kinds of strange places. But with all these little breadcrumbs, the lore being dropped over such a long period,

it can be hard to keep track of what we do and don't officially know. That is, until today. Today I'm giving you in one complete video the definitive Poppy Playtime Timeline. The Poppy Playtime Line. Poppy Playtime Line. Puppy Playtime Line. It feels like it doesn't work, but it works technically. Just saying.

Hello, Internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that'll stretch far and wide to find the lore. Mob Games has gone a bit insane with the lore drops for this one. It's not quite Fnaf levels of Ler Theory. Let's release 20 plus books with a single line of lore hidden in each one, but still, it's a lot to have to keep track of. Outside of the two main chapter releases, we've had a spinoff title with three phases and two VHS tapes, three found footage YouTube videos, two ARGs with dozens of tiny scraps of lore, and a partridge in a pear tree. They even hid lore in their anniversary videos.

Like, who does that? Who does that? But while their methods might seem unorthodox, it does mean that there's a lot of lore and a lot of dates getting thrown around that are pretty difficult to keep track of, especially when all the story they've been seeding out happens decades before the actual games themselves. So today, we're going to be wiping the slate clean and starting over. We're going to be putting all the evidence together. Oh, the theories we've had to create one cohesive timeline, so in Chapter 3 does release next month, we know exactly where we stand and what to expect.

Strap on those grab packs, friends, it's time to lower ourselves into the depths of this haunted toy empire's history. The story begins not with any of the games, but rather with Playtime Co's website. On this now deleted webpage, we learn about the company's found. founder Elliot Ludwig. He found it Playtime Co in 1930 as a way to quote, bring joy to children. He gave everything to his company, but sadly that work ethic would just wind up pushing his wife into divorce. Regardless, Elliot continued onward, determined to bring Playtime Co to new heights, and according to the controversial NFT collection, in 1950 the company created the toy that would put them on the map.

In the most incredible doll video on YouTube announcing the game, we find our titular toy, Poppy Playtime. Elliot had outdone himself. Poppy wasn't just a lifeless doll, she could talk to you, she could even respond to questions, make making her an instant hit with children everywhere. She was also an instant hit with the parents, because her hair smelled just like her namesake of poppies. Flower that doesn't actually have much of a scent, but does contain opium,

which was used throughout history and children's medication to relieve pain and help sleep. So you had this new toy that every child wanted, and then parents would suddenly find that their kids were much calmer and sleepier. These toys started to fly off the shelves, and the company became a household name. That said, not all poppies were created equally. All the regular poppy dolls were incredible feats of engineering,

But one was at a different level. Her conversational skills were like having a conversation with an actual person. Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. But that wasn't a coincidence, because she WAS an actual person. Hidden in the game files is an unused ending monologue for Chapter 2, where Poppy reveals a lot more about her backstory. Specifically this line right here. Terrible things have happened.

And I am the cause. Being able to exist as a doll, it has killed so many people. And when you combine that with the maintenance VHS where we saw blood dripping off her voice box, and those weirdly human-looking eyes of hers, it reveals that this Poppy was in fact a real person. Emphasis on Was. Something happened to her, and I think we have a pretty good idea of what. It all comes back around to Elliot in the next decade of the timeline, the 1960s.

In the 1960s, an unfortunate family death had pushed Ludwig down to his lowest. This family loss started at all, and I believe that this was the person who became Poppy, the first of what would be many others. But Elliot didn't have any family that we know of. His wife divorced him three decades ago. And any children that he'd have had with her would be in their 30s at this point. That's why the prevailing theory is that Elliot

had a young adopted daughter. He wanted to bring joy to children, to the point that he would encourage his employees to also adopt, even going so far as to build an orphanage on factory grounds. That is why it is with enormous pleasure that I announced, Plake Care, our very own on-site orphanage. Adoption and loving children was clearly on his mind, So the idea of him adopting a young orphan feels like a natural first step.

And given that she was the only family that he had, her dying would be even more devastating to him, so he didn't let her die. Elliot took his dying daughter and preserved her inside a Poppy Playtime doll. In the most recent Ergy, we've started receiving documents that discuss using organic parts, which would explain why Poppy's eyes look so real, and why she has blood covering her voice box. Those were her real eyes.

That was her real blood, used in a last-ditch effort to save the daughter. And shockingly, it worked. Poppy came to life. His beloved daughter returned to him. He locked her away in a room of the factory that was designed to remind them of their family home, far away from everyone else preserved in a glass box, where he could visit her and keep her safe from anything else that might happen. Over the next couple of decades, the company hires more staff, like Leith Pierre as the head of innovation.

They also release all sorts of popular toys like Brom the Dinosaur, Boxy Boo, Candy Cat. And of course, the company's next massive hit, the Blue Boy himself, Huggy Wuggy. Followed quickly by Kissy Missy, because every Ken needs a Barbie. Barbie has a great day every day, but Ken only has a great day if Barbie looks at him. Despite that popularity, the company struggles to remain afloat. When I look at this company we've built, I do not feel proud. Declining profits, failed experiments, people are constantly seeing things they shouldn't.

How is that anything less than complete failure on our part? It's pathetic. Those dear theorists are the words of Harley Sawyer. I'm called the doctor. He isn't just bringing up problems, he's also the man with a solution. I'm here now with a solution. The bigger body's initiative, giant toys. We can increase our workforce and simultaneously decrease the number of lawsuits and people on our payroll if the people we have working aren't people.

And the idea is all thanks to the one living toy that told us she started it all, Poppy. This leads us to the early 90s when the doctor's plan is in full swing. It's here where we join him trying to recreate the magic that is Poppy, studying her in her little safe glass case, and trying desperately to figure out how Elliot's daughter was able to continue living inside the doll. There are hundreds of experiments, one of which we see a report of on Elliot's desk in chapter 2, Experiment 814. Based on the handwriting of this and several other notes, this appears to be a report written by the doctor himself. And by this point, it's pretty darn clear what element of Poppy he's focused on. Quote, the experiment utilized a live rat.

Rat was fed three portions daily for two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, the rat was killed and submerged into a poppy flower preservative gel mixture. One week later, an electric shock was applied to the rat in an attempt to revive it. The rat remained unresponsive. The doctor suspects that poppy flowers and living parts are the two key factors to creating more living toys, but his experiments still wind up in failure. That said, the doctor seems to have an idea as to why. Quote again, I still believe in the potential of the poppy flower.

Perhaps something larger than a rat would yield different results. And in chapter two, Mommy Long Legs reveals exactly what he meant by that. It was always so sad to see the kids go. They called me Mommy because I was the closest thing they ever had to one. But they come for games and never come back. What's the difference between Experiment 814 and Poppy? Poppy wasn't a rat. She was a human, a child, an orphan. Orphans have no parents.

Which means if they go missing, there's no missing persons report, no investigations, because who would miss them? It was the perfect crime, and the perfect answer to the doctor's experiment. To facilitate this, the company creates Playcare, Playtime's own on-site orphanage, as well as the game station, a facility designed to test and improve the skills of the orphan children. In Chapter 2, we see reports that show us the improvement of one specific child's skills, and in those reports we see that they've been assigned a toy, a toy that they'll soon become. It's at this point that the Bigger Body's initiative has a breakthrough, Using pieces of organic parts and machinery, they're able to create a prototype of what they wish to create.

Experiment 1006. The prototype seems to possess an unprecedented level of intelligence, beyond that of all other test subjects, as well as an alarming willingness to commit violence. The tape goes on to describe Huggy Wuggy, Experiment 1170, as fully obedient, which led me to believe that there was something different about 1006. For him to be more intelligent means that he must have stronger cognitive function than the orphans. Children are easier to control. tell him what to do because you're an adult, an authority figure.

But what if 1006 was a fellow adult? That might make it harder to control, especially if there's someone with supreme intellect and creative building skills. The prototype seemingly disassembled the digital alarm clock within his room and utilized the battery, along with several other components, to create a laser pointer,

which he then fired into the security camera, disabling it. Who's an adult in this franchise that we know has the genius and creativity to make some of the most beloved toys in the world? None other than Elliot Ludwig himself. Now, initially, I theorized that he became 1006 because he was an adult who loved and cared for orphans. And so when he discovered that the doctor was using him for his experiments, he went to shut the whole thing down, only for the doctor to silence him. That's why 1006 is so aggressive towards the scientists in the tapes,

and why he'd later lead the charge in an uprising against Playtime Coe that he would call the Hour of Joy, reminiscent of what he always wanted to achieve, bringing joy to children. Though still missing, today's events are no doubt in relation to him. Here's the problem. Since that theory, there's been a few pieces of evidence that tell us that Elliot was fully aware of the experiments happening on the orphans. There's an email that appeared in the most recent ARG written by Elliot that says, quote, one of those dang huggy-wuggies is loose. For it to get loose, it has to be alive, meaning a child had to have been converted into a version of huggy. This email would also disprove Elliot as being

1006 because huggy-wuggy is experiment 1170. And if these people have any respect for the scientific process, 1170 should come after 1006. That said, that's That email has actually been redacted by Mob Games. It's no longer available in the ARG. The main reason? I suspect it's the date. It's labeled June 23rd, 1981. Is he Huggy Wuggy the toy?

Wasn't even created until 1984, three years after that date. In his description in Project Playtime, it specifically calls out that he's quote, a living giant version of the famous Playtime Co toy. So giant Huggy couldn't exist in 1981 if the toy he's based on didn't exist in 1981. Looks like the timeline's getting tricky to keep track of,

even for the creators of the timeline. But while the evidence may not have panned out, I still think we can say that Elliot was fully aware of what was going on. We hear Elliot Ludwig opening the playcare in the teaser for chapter 3. We owe everything to these children. This company and its toys are nothing without them. That is why it is with enormous pleasure that has the founder of late-time call I announced Playcare, our very own on-site orphanage. Did you hear that? We owe everything to these children. That to me sounds like someone who knows exactly what's about to happen to these kids. It's classic hiding the truth in plain sight kind of language. That being said, it wouldn't be so fast to say that my theory of Elliot being the prototype is totally debunked yet either. While this shows that he was fully aware of the experiments and therefore wouldn't have been angry with the doctor and what he was doing, it also doesn't stop him from being turned into the prototype. Consider this, we don't know how old Elliot is at any given point in the story.

The best we have to go off of is that he was married at some point in the 1920s and divorced in 1930. The average age of a man getting married in the 1920s was around 25. So let's say that he'd been married a few years before divorcing and was now around 28 in 1930. That would mean that by 1990, Elliot would be around 88, so pretty old but still kick in. So what if, rather than being got rid of and forced into the experiment, he was a willing participant in that experiment? We see in the VHS video restricted restoration that Playtime is okay with using adults, and specifically adults who are close to death. In Project Playtime's Phase 2 update, we hear the doctors say this, Mortality is the curse of the week.

Which lines up pretty well with the Chapter 2 death screen, may we forget death. Being in his late 80s, Elliot may have seen the writing on the wall. And while the playcare was still being set up, he decided to offer himself to the experiment to prove the concept to help him live forever and to continue seeing Playtime Co thrive. But something happens that neither him nor the doctor expected. You see, there's an adult that's turned into Braun, known as Experiment 1199. And a key factor is that he isn't able to remember who he is, or what happened to him. Whereas the other converted toys, the ones made from children, they seem to be able to remember at least something of who they were. They recognize that this character isn't a tortured child like them, and the other converted child like them, and

so they attack him. What if that's exactly what happened to 1006? An adult brain might just be unable to truly keep all its memories. Elliot doesn't remember exactly who he is. He's essentially back to his base mindset and instincts. And using his intellect, he's able to put together the pieces, seeing the pain of all the children as they were converted, leading him to lash out and become the evil mastermind that we know today. Despite all the violence and murder, the prototype is essentially a success. The concept of bringing inanimate objects to life using the life of another worked. And so they pressed on with the bigger body's initiative, with their first major-stranded success coming in the form of an old toy from 1966, Boxy Boo.

They said it was impossible, yet you defied all odds. The first of May, naturally, you have proven my bigger body's initiative a success. And just in time, too, the doctor always wanted these bigger bodies to fulfill jobs around the factory, and there was a very specific job that he needed resolved and fast. Now, we need to start tailoring that appetite of yours to flush. Where to start? Get me an update on the situation of Roan Stoll. Rowan Stole was the IT guy for Playtime Co.

And for a long time, that's all he was. In 1988, he fixed the puzzle pillars, those mini-game towers that you find in Project Playtime. And in 1990, he fixed the phone service provider, nothing major. That was, until he started to notice something in early 1991. Look, I know you don't want to hear any more about this. I get it. Sounds like a bad joke, hugging wuggy-waggy staring at children.

If some creep is hiding nanny cams, in our mascot's eyeballs, then something that needs to be taken seriously. What Rowan was seeing wasn't nanny cams. It was the latest of the Bigger Bodies Initiative, 1170, and he was watching kids. That was his job. He was the newest security hire. While we pride ourselves primarily on our high-quality toys and excellent child care, we also pride ourselves on our security.

Naturally, Playtime Coe wasn't a fan of Rowan figuring this out, and so they shut him down. I just want to apologize. I was wrong. But intimidation wasn't enough. He was an IT guy after all, so he began to build an FTP server with all the information that he'd gathered Even after they sabotaged his car to try and make it seem like it was an accident They've been using all the money they've made to experiment with people I have proof of it all while security is out

I'm gonna release everything and run But Playtime Co couldn't allow that the doctor couldn't allow that and this is where Boxi boo came in When Rowan went to investigate Boxi was waiting when the moment was right sprung out and swallowed him whole However, this wouldn't be the fate for all employees who defied Playtime Co. In the most recent ARG, we've received an email from the head of security about a dead staff member with puncture wounds in his abdomen, and likely hidden for weeks before being found. This seems to be referencing Rowan, who, even after death, continued to be a nuisance. Now they needed some sort of cover-up story for the police.

So going forward, the doctor would correct his mistake. He would try a different approach, one that would make bad employees disappear permanently. In that final FTP dump from Rowan, we got a disciplinary notice for Patty Hall. This name has only come up once before, as an employee who sabotaged the paint machines causing toys to be recalled and the company to lose profits. We see that for her disciplinary action, she was sent to Storage B by none other than the doctor. And the next time we see Storage B is in the restricted relocation video from 1995, a room filled with the bloodied and dead toys, except for a giant Kissy Missy in the middle of the room. In that final FTP dump, Rowan specifically calls out that people are being experimented on.

And then we find Patty Hall being sent to the place where we see a bigger bodies initiative experiment. Coincidence? I think not. I think this was the fate of Patty Hall. She defied Playtime Coen the doctor, and so he turned her into Kissy Missy, where there would be no more trace of her for police. Not all these experiments were complete successes, though. In a report from the newest ARG, we learn of experiments 1186 and 1187. And when we don't know exactly what went wrong, we do know that there were, quote, shortcomings. So it may not be that there are almost 200 living toys active in the factory, but rather that there are around 200 attempts, some of which were successful like Huggy Wuggy and others that were less so.

Regardless, that is a lot of victims. And given that Rowan's report started in early 1991, and the latest experiment number we have is 1-2-2-2 for Mommy Long Legs, who was invented before her toy was released in 1991, it means that all of this happened in a single year, 1991. You gotta appreciate the efficiency of these guys. And so they needed to develop a more effective way to infuse the orphans they'd acquired

with the poppy mixture that was vital to the transformation process. So they invented something that we've seen throughout the teasers for chapter 3, poppy gas. Like I mentioned earlier, poppies have been used throughout history help kids sleep. And so converting it into a gas is the perfect way to not only get poppies into their bloodstream, but also to sedate them, get them to listen, obey, to sleep, not putting up any kind of fight. All you gotta do is give your staff members fun gas masks like the Mickey Mouse masks from World War II, colored in Playtime Co's signature

red-yellow so they appear less scary to kids. But they still needed a delivery method, a way to administer the gas to the kids, and this is where the newest ARG once again comes in with the answer. We've received a couple of reports from staff members of the playcare that tell us a little bit more about the operations that was going on there. The one child that keeps coming up in multiple reports is Theodore Gramble, who apparently was caught sneaking around the playcare looking for files that a quote-unquote friend told him to find.

Quote from the report. I don't know his name. Nobody else knows he exists. Naturally, the counselor suspicious of this, as the requests for files seem way too specific to be made by just a 7-year-old. Huh. A mysterious figure hiding in the shadows that kids don't know exist and is looking for files about the inner workings of playcare?

Sounds to me like Theodore is getting a visit from 1006. And that's exactly what's happening. Literally, as I'm writing this episode, we got another load of images from the ARG, and one of them is a drawing of Theodore sitting on his bed with a familiar black arm reaching out from under it. The prototype is used in Theodore to try and stop the entire operation, to free the kids. But sadly, Theodore doesn't work out quite as intended. According to a transcript, he tried to escape, but something malfunctioned and he got electrocuted,

stopping his heart and badly burning him. Fortunately, and unfortunately, there's a way to save him. At the same time, all this was going on, Playtime was developing Experiment 1-1-18. based on one of their newest toy lines, The Smiling Critters, specifically the Purple Cat Catnap. This experiment would have massive claws, be able to change its size and be fitted with, quote, a gas delivery apparatus at the back of the esophagus.

This toy was gonna be the perfect way to administer the poppy gas to the kids at the playcare. They just hug and play with their new favorite toy while it slowly released its hallucinogenic gas. And right at the bottom of the document, on the name of potential candidates for conversion, who do we find, none other than Theodore? He had a horrible accident, maybe even close to death,

So they gave him eternal life by turning him into the new villain for Chapter 3. In the chapter 3 teaser, we see phrases like, The Original Saved Me, I rejoice in him, which are heavily implied to have been written by Catnap. He worships the original creation. He wishes to do nothing but serve him. Sound familiar? It's just like how the prototype, the original creation,

spoke to Theodore, asking him to do things like finding files. Theodore and his new gas powers were put to good use by Playtime Co. No child would ever step out a line like he did again. We see drawings from children about their new giant purple friend, But not all of them are happy. Some kids seem to have nightmares thanks to the red gas that comes out of their new friend's mouth. The worst case that we see is that of Marie Payne, who sedation thanks to the poppy gas is so severe that she can't even wake up from the nightmares anymore.

But while the employees caring for her seem concerned, clearly Playtime Co got exactly what they wanted. On a transfer request we find in the water treatment control room of Chapter 2, we see the name of the child that would eventually become Mommy Long Legs, Marie Payne. Mommy was eventually moved to the game station, mainly because her trauma at the hands of Playtime led her to be violent towards adults. but motherly and caring towards the children, which made her the perfect fit.

Mommy is the last experiment that we know of at this time, Experiment 1-222, but I suspect that there are many more based on this photo that we got in the lead-up to Chapter 2's release showing the company in its heyday May of 1992, a year after Mommy Long Legs' creation. But there's still plenty of kids playing around at the game station, more kids to be trained up and taken to play care for sedation and conversion. But this is where the tides turn for Playtime Co. Later that year, Huggy Wuggy escapes the facility in the first of many incidents where the bigger bodies, monsters start rebelling against the company under the command of 1006.

This would come to a climax in 1995 with an event known as the Hour of Joy, a combined effort of all the toys united against the Playtime Co staff. So far, all we've seen of this event is an analog video of Kissy Missy going missing with blood splatter and claw marks everywhere, but we know it doesn't just involve her. In the background of the tape, we can hear screaming from staff members in the factory. The same screams that are heard in the back of the final VHS tape from chapter one. and cooperation is evidently within his skill set, as well as the skill set of all other experiments of his type, though still missing. Today's events are no doubt in relation to him. 1006 orchestrated the entire event, the hour of joy, bringing joy and freedom to the children that he failed all those years ago. But the Playtime staff now either entirely killed or kicked out of the facility, business essentially stops.

However, the company tried to remain open in an unusual way. The spinoff title Project Playtime has us take control of extraction specialists, gathering toy parts, to be extracted and turned into parts of the bigger bodies initiative. Here's the job. You need to collect toy parts to make a giant toy. Get that giant toy on the train, then leave. At this point in history, the bigger bodies, toys are running the factory and hunting us down, trying to feed the many toys that remain, while also stopping us from making more monstrosities like themselves.

They are trying. It's not entirely clear how this part of the timeline ends. The game's still releasing phases with new VHS tapes and secret messages from 1006, all with the theme of, hey, we're the ones to blame for this. We wonder who we are, but why? You should know. It was your doing that made us... Oh, we said that!

Which leads us all to today and the main game. You know, the game that we actually play. Ten years after the factory closed, we show up. A former employee determined to make things right. But you... You worked here. Regular employees like Rowan weren't aware of what was going on. So for Mommy to know us, we had to have been working at the game station,

running experiments on these kids. We were some form of an executive here. Supporting this theory is the fact that there are five executive down to the game station in chapter 2. We know all four of these characters. And the last one, well, the last one's missing a name. I believe that was our slide. If you take the letters on the floor and rearrange them, you don't really get any sort of clear-cut name. In a previous episode, I landed on Jamie B. Honey, only to realize after the fact that I'd accidentally swapped an A for an E! Plus, if you look closely, there are spaces for five letters on top and six letters on the bottom.

The best I can come up with based on those new criteria is Ebony Jimaia. It's not great, so clearly it's still up for grabs. Regardless, I still maintain that we were the head of production for playtime, the only department on this chapter 2 floor that's left unaccounted for, with Eddie being the head of research, Stella being the head of play, and Leith Pierre being the head of innovation. We were directly involved in the production of these toys, and so we've come back to undo the sins of the past, or probably more likely to bury them once and for all. We show up, we knock out huggy, we free Poppy from her case, we split Mommy and Two and get her dragged away by 1006,

escaping the game station only for something to derail us outside of playcare. And there you have it, folks, the complete timeline of Poppy Playtime so far. Almost entirely based on fact, with a couple of theories thrown in there that are very well supported at this point. How will Chapter 3 affect all this? Will we see Theodore the cat? Will the smiling critters be able to be saved? Or is it too late for them? We're only a few weeks away, so time will tell.

In the meantime, remember, it's all just a theory. A game theory! Thanks for watching!