Game Theory - The Never-Ending NIGHTMARE (The Bunny Graveyard)

Episode Date: November 26, 2023

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he breaks down the lore of The Bunny Graveyard! *Credits:* Writers: Matthew Patrick, and Tom Robinson Editors: Dan "Cybert" Seibert, JayskiBean, Warak, Gerardo Andrés Mejía Torres, and Shannon (Bomb0i) Sound Designer: Yosi Berman

Hello internet, welcome to game theory, the show that's hopping mad for indie horror. I think we can all agree that there's a bit of a checklist to grab an audience's attention these days. Cute visuals, harmless minigames, black goo, the color purple, evil experiments, and adorable animal mascot, extra points if it happens to be a rabbit, and even more points if it's a purple rabbit. It's a tried and true formula at this point. And it's clear that indie devs of the brand new game Bunny Graveyard saw that list and ran with it. I do not have access to it, okay? I think...

Oh, I saw a purple glow... Papa Bunny Glacetaches, baby! Check it off on the X-Y-Z Alpha Axis. In the new game, the Bunny Graveyard, we meet a cute rabbit character named Sky, as well as her subservient glove friends, the Handy Pals. We play minigames that range from gardening to fishing to punch out, of all things. Oh, this is punch-out. All the while, collecting mysterious notes as Sky begins to reveal her true colors.

She Earple. Oh, you're just a Shadow Bunny now? Shadow Bunny or Shadow. Bonnie? Turns out Sky's real name is Sylvie. She's spitting up black goo, creating monsters and trying to kill us like every good villain does. Eventually, we figure out how to escape.

We jump into a purple portal and find ourselves face-to-face with Sky. The real Sky! And then credits roll. Honestly, that could have been the end of it. A nice, fun, charming little indie horror game experience with a cute art style. But of course, of course it doesn't end there. This is peak indie horror, my friends, because just before we managed to escape,

Sylvie warns us that this world is not as it's. seems. Ah, classic indie horror 101. Leave us with a final warning that things aren't what you expect to get us to buy into the sequel and theorize about it. And just like it always does, I fell for the ploy, hook, line, and sinker. Every game is legally required to have a fishing minigame. But bad puns aside, I gotta tell you friends, Sylvie wasn't lying. The more of this bunny graveyard that I dug up, the more I realized that this thing is far from a run-of-the-mill indie game. All those tropes, those things you expect to see in indie horror games, they were just distractions. They were big misdirects. All to hide the truth. about what's really going on in this game, which is a lot deeper and a lot more interesting than you'd expect. So hop into the void with me, friends, as I reveal the truth of the Buddy Graveyard, Chapter 1, and maybe even lay out a few predictions for where I think we're going to be headed next.

When you first boot up the game, you start in front of an old computer monitor. On it, there are a few applications like internet, which there's none of, MS Paint. Brilliant! Can I print it? That was actually a trash can. Damn it! We also have what appears to be a heart monitor tracking two characters.

A bunny with a heart eye and another with a circle eye. I'm gonna put a pin in the orange guy for now, but I think it's pretty clear that the heart bunny is Sky, the one we meet at the end of the game, because, well, look at her. She's got a heart over her eye. It is not very difficult to put two and two together there, friends. On Pinching Games official website, we actually get character descriptions, and Skies tells us that she's, quote,

a young bunny who lost her eye in a traumatizing incident that she seems to have forgotten about. Maybe this system is designed to monitor her health. Maybe she's in a coma before we arrive at her door. It's possible, but we need to go a bit deeper, figure out the truth here. And as you can tell, this game does a great job of setting off the theory senses from frame one. Given that we're monitoring bunnies on this computer, it only makes sense for us to click on the last main icon on the screen. That's just that. A bunny. Except we don't seem to have access to it. But when has that ever stopped a gamer before? So I just kept on clicking until something happened when I finally had to chase a Manta Ray, I think?

It's kind of hard to tell, but regardless of what it is, after that quick chase sequence, a purple crack in the screen releases a white light. The next thing we know, our cursor looks a little different, more expressive. Less like a normal computer character and more like a character in a game. We then fall into a new world. But you'll notice just before we land, we're asked to pick a game to play. Our option is Bunny Garden, but Bunny Garden is the game we're playing. This whole time, I've been calling it the Bunny Graveyard. And that's the game that I have on Steam, so why is the title here different? Well, it's because when the purple void opened up in the computer, the cursor wasn't the only thing that got sucked in, we got sucked in with it. The white light actually passes beyond the screen filling the whole image, and now there's no screen dividing us. We're trapped in some the video game as the cursor character, a character which doesn't belong.

Everyone seems to comment on the fact that we don't look like the other handy pals, which means that everyone is unaware that this is a computer game. Everyone that is, except for our evil purple bunny friend, Sylvie. While she's shocked when we're first introduced to her, she never once brings up the fact that we're different. In fact, she actively treats us like we're perfectly normal. That's great. Makes me so happy to see little hands like you hanging out around here. Not only that, but during the fishing mini game, Sylvie slips,

and almost spills the beans on who we truly are. Nelson, you go with the cursor? Didn't know? Yeah, cursor. Does the guy know that we're in a video game? I mean, the white glove. Yeah, you go with the white gloves. And when we do get into her house, we learn that she isn't just aware of who we are,

but she's actively converting people that come into this world into our little handy pals, stopping them from ever reaching the portal that we use at the end of the game to escape, which is why she's able to tell us that this world isn't what you think it is. When we do go through the portal at the end of the game, though, we find ourselves in a new location, but we're still a cursor, which at first confused me, because, Aren't we in the real world now? Didn't we escape from the game?

But then I thought back to that opening menu. We were asked to pick a game, and we chose Bunny Garden. But if you look, you can actually scroll to the side and pick other options. Or you would if the DLC was out. But what then's behind that game selection screen? A Purple Void, just like the one that we traveled through to get to the new world at the end of the game. We may have escaped the Bunny Garden, but all we did was manage to travel to another game. We're still stuck inside the computer system.

We're not out in the real world yet. Wait, if we're still stuck in the game world, then why is Sky here? We were monitoring her heart rate at the start of the game. I assume that this was because of her tragic accident, but if she's here, that would mean that she's also inside of this game? Why? Well, for that, I had to start looking even deeper into the game. And I really do mean into the game,

because the answer is actually hidden inside the game's files. Inside, there seems to be almost an entire game's worth of dialogue that just doesn't appear in chapter one. It almost looks like dialogue that a player character would say when interacting with the world around them. But we're just a glove. We can't speak. So who's this dialogue coming from?

Well, if you look at some of the earliest trailers for the money graveyard, it looked like originally we were going to be playing a Sky herself within a place called Carrot Town, which then makes cut lines like, remember to consume your carrots responsibly, way more realistic than normal. But the main thing that I found within these cut lines that tells us exactly what's going on here is this one right here.

Quote, simulation theory, Secrets of the Afterlight. Now, for context, there were some data miners that managed to get this build of the game working, and it was shown that this line was being said by Sky after finding some books in her house. Sadly, those videos were taken down because they infringed copyright, which, you know, completely justified there, but it just means that I can't show you, so you're just going to have to take my word for this evidence point.

Anyway, what these data miners were able to produce looked identical to some of the trailers that we've seen from before Chapter 1's release. And given that the dialogue is in the game's files, and in that game we play a sky inside the house from the end of Chapter 1, have a feeling this might be early hints as to what's going to be happening in Chapter 2. Now, for those of you who aren't aware, simulation theories the idea that our universe, including all planets, galaxies, and life forms, part of a simulation. It's like the matrix, except with rabbits. Someone in Sky's world has become suspicious of the same thing that we figured out, that they might be living inside a computer. But it's that second bit that really stood out to me. Secrets of the afterlife. Why would whoever's looking into them being inside of a simulation also be looking into what happens when

we die? Unless, that's exactly why they're in the simulation to begin with. What if Sky isn't in a coma, or recovering from some tragic accident, but instead she died in that accident? and her remaining consciousness was uploaded into this system in order to keep her alive in some form. Suddenly, the name of this game makes complete sense. Bunny Graveyard. We're sucked into a computer that is literally the graveyard for dead bunnies like sky, being kept alive in a new digital form. And thanks to the teaser released by Pichon Games a year before its release, titled 4-1, 1992,

think we have ourselves a date for when this incident began. Uh, April 1st, 1992. Although, I suppose it could be the 4th of January 1992, because the developers are Cuban, and in Cuba they actually do day-month year, for their calendar dates, but either way, it is 1992 for certain, which was over two decades ago at this point, which itself might explain why there are so many cobwebs around. This cobwebs, we've got to clean this off.

But this incident didn't just involve one rabbit, remember? At the start of the game, we saw two heart monitors, one for Sky and one for someone else. If we want to get the full picture here, we're gonna need to figure out who this other bunny is. Throughout the course of the game, you find a handful of notes written by a mysterious character called C. The notes themselves don't really tell us anything important.

It's just someone like us exploring this place for the first time and noting down everything they witness. Rabbit-like creatures gardening, the amazing architecture of the maze, the giant fish that tries to kill us later on, but it's not the contents of the notes that are the most interesting, it's the numbers on the top of those notes. These notes are numbered 13 to 16, which is odd since, you know, typically you'd want to start with number 1.

But what's strange is that the lowest number 13 is found just outside of the void. While the other higher number notes are found much earlier in the game, further away from the void. 14 is at the start of the labyrinth, 15 is outside Sylvie's Garden, and 6,000. is deep in the forest. It's clear that C is exploring this new world, but unlike us, he didn't arrive from the outside. Instead, I proposed that C actually came from within the computer, from within the void. That's why all the notes are in reverse order, and why note 13 says, quote, just arrived at code name flower.

First thoughts, it's too happy looking for my taste. C has been planning on getting here. It has a code name for it and everything. If he's exploring the void, maybe he's in something like a central hub. He can see different cracks like the one that we fell through, or maybe doors, like the one that we see in the original demo. And so he's given each one a different code name, which means that notes 1 through 12 are likely see exploring some of the other worlds. Worlds that I'm assume we're likely to see in future chapters of this game. So who then is this mysterious C? Why are they traveling through the void to the other game world? Are they actually our missing second rabbit? Well, I believe the answer to that last one is a decided yes. Well, there isn't a single character in the game with a name beginning with C. We do have one character that's currently nameless. When you manage to unlock the game's secret ending, he'll be treated to a new clip of a blindfolded bunny, just sitting in the void. Now, just because this is a rabbit in the void doesn't make him see,

that would be pretty shallow evidence. So, I decided to look outside of the games. And let me tell you, I hit the jackpot. If you go back to Pichon Games' YouTube channel and scroll all the way back to their very first video, you'll find a reveal trailer that gives us everything that we're looking for. In it, we're introduced to Sky's brother. A grumpy looking rabbit whose eyes are being hidden, sounds pretty familiar, right? But then we get the linchpin. Sky calls out his name Claudio, a name that starts with that all-important letter C. Claudio is our mysterious missing bunny, and the one who's traveling from game to game, leaving notes behind for us to find. The trailer even reveals how he ended up in the void to begin with.

Let's just say he's not exactly the kindest of brothers, going so far as to call his sister Sky a one-eyed freak, which, as we learned earlier, happened during a tragic accident, so way to kick someone while they're down there, dude. But after he does this, while he lies in the bed sleeping, a familiar black goo makes its way up his bed, grabs him, and then Claudio vanishes. And it was this moment where suddenly everything clicked into place. This single clip told me everything that I needed to know about Sylvie, and our motivations. All the villainous things that Sylvie's been doing, making Skye's mean brother disappear, sucking people that come looking for Sky into the game and trapping them there, even dressing up as Sky and killing anyone that gets too close, it's all to do one thing. Protect Sky. That's right, in classic game theory fashion, the villain is the good guy all along. If you were trying to keep some really valuable on your computer, would you leave it completely unprotected? No, you'd set up firewalls, safety protocols, passwords.

Something to make sure that no one could get to it, mess with it, or delete it entirely. Come me crazy, but I think that that would be doubly true for keeping a digital consciousness alive. And that is what I believe Sylvie to be. Because while I've been calling her Sylvie this entire time, in the credits, we see something slightly different. It's definitely still Sylvie, but it's written as S1LV13. That, my friends, is elite speak, and very reminiscent of computer code. She is a safety protocol, a program that's only job is to protect Sky's consciousness.

However, clearly she's gone full Ultron on us and decided that everyone and anyone is a potential threat to Sky. That's why in the demo, she says, quote, you're here for her, aren't you? aren't you? And we follow a black bunny through the forest to the void where we get sucked in. She's leading us into a trap so we can't possibly hurt sky. It's why she dresses a sky. So when people come into her world looking for the real sky, they're given a false sense of security. They found who they're looking for. It also allows Sylvie to remove any potential threats from the picture easily, converting all the cursors into handy pals using her corrupted code and getting them to obey her. And if they don't, well, she could just bump them off. But the detail that

really seals the deal here, the one that supports this theory more than anything else, In her character profile on Pishong Games' website, it asks us this. Quote, why did she pretend to be Sky? And is she really all that bad? Well, given everything else we've seen from her in the game, yeah, she would seem pretty bad. Unless, of course, she's doing it for reasons that she believes are good, protecting a poor, helpless rabbit with only one eye.

I guess I shouldn't be too quick to judge purple bunnies. But then again, can you blame me? So, there you have it. The real story of the bunny graveyard. A tragic tale of two bunnies fighting for their lives inside a simulated reality, Only for the system designed to protect them to go rogue, killing anyone that comes near and sending one of them hurdling through the void to fend for themselves.

But now that we've escaped and woken up sky, I have a feeling Sylvia is going to be pretty mad about that. Given how crazy she already was, things are only going to get more dangerous from here. In some sneak peeks, we've already seen more black bunny creatures, much bigger and more terrifying than Sylvie appeared in Chapter 1. But there's also, what I can only imagine is the evolved version of the Glove Spider-monsters from Chapter 1,

now having tied up other bunnies from this world. Presumably everyone that Sylvie saw is a threat to Sky. And maybe, just maybe, when we, the brave little cursor, find our way out of the simulation and back to reality, we can take Sky and Claudio with us, allowing them to live the lives that they never got to have. I just gotta hope that their overprotective security program doesn't manage to follow us through. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory! Thanks for watching!