Hey there! This is Grant/the dev, nice to meet you! This is a fun video and I agree with many of your points! I want to start by saying I did not know of your video when I came up with the idea, I literally had the same thought process of “parody show with similar rhyming parody name” and Mints Hints was born again lol. Also I totally agree it’s a shame that quicker and easier to make games take off so easily compared to other more passionate ones. I spent a year on my game “The Friends We Left Behind” and another year on my game “Imaginary Friend Asylum” and they got minimal attention or success. I then made Mint’s Hints in 2 months and have gotten far more attention than I had received previously. It’s a rough system, especially if you want to make a living off of it (something I have not nearly been able to achieve yet). Trust me, as someone who put their all into massive and heartfelt games only to see them get surpassed by games made in less than a month, I know where you’re coming from! I tried to make Mint’s Hints a bit more inspired than what you would typically see from the genre and I hope to succeed enough to be able to fund my other projects someday! And for what it’s worth, I also wanted to say I love your iteration of Mint’s Hints and artstyle, it’s so cute! 😆
Hey, Grant! Glad to see you here. I understand, I didn't want to be brutal with this cause I know how the grind is- god knows I don't know how to make a game ☠️ And I figured as much on the name. (promise me that Indigo’s Indications will be the sequel, though.)🥂👍 Edit: also, thank you!
@@JaneGumball Lol! That’s a great name too! 😆 I definitely noticed you focused on the problem with the mascot horror genre rather than me which I appreciate and totally agree with! I’ve also taken a jab at the mascot horror genre previously if you look up my game LOVEY DOVEY. I literally made a whole game to make fun of the problems with the genre so I totally get you 😂 Also, you totally don’t have to, but would you mind pinning my comment? I’m starting to get some hate comments on my trailer and Itch page now so I’m hoping that might stop some people from doing that lol.
Hi, I’m Anna Marrs from the credits (aka Grant’s wife.) As starving artists we completely understand the struggle of just that - being an artist, or pursuing a field in the creative at all - is a massive challenge. I wanted to hop in because Grant told me about this video. We would NEVER steal something from a fellow artist. We had not seen your video before, and we decided to give all the foxes different motifs, such as hearts, diamonds, flowers, etc. Mint ended up with the heart because I designed Mint, and I like hearts the best. After the game has released, we now realize there were several iterations of Mint’s Hints before ours, several people having come up with the same name and idea. In addition, we are not the first people to do a Blue’s Clues horror game, as Chip’s Tips and Flint’s Hints exist already. (We only found out about Flint’s Hints after Mint’s Hints released and we got comments about it.) I designed Mint, and now I wish I had seen your video first because I would have done it a bit differently, because I would never want someone to think I stole from them. That’s just awful. In the end, we are all fans of Blue’s Clues using our creativity to put a spin on something we love. I hope we can connect on this rather than have divisions. So yeah, just wanted to pitch in.. and by the way, we’ve only made around $60 off of this game so far, so yeah, we’re also not even getting rich off of it. Still starving artists. 😂
It's not fair to compare amanda, the adventurer, to ban ban, it had a lot of work and love put into it. Amanda, the adventure was something put together for a game jam, people loved it so much, they wanted more, so dread xp published it and helped out the devs. Amanda the adventurer is not a souless cash grab, its a good game, and it's fun to play and watch the characters interact. Game jams are the soul of indie games, i do believe baldi's basics came from a game jam, but obviously that game was meant to be a parody on edutainment games.
@blockotheblock5672 I never looked at amanda the adventurer, as a mascot horror. It just bleeds edutainment parody. Different eyes Different outlooks. But in terms of kid show=scary! Yeah definitely goes in that category!
After seeing the Nightmare critters, I realized MOB games just wants to see what the fans like and milk it more. Would explain why some toys like Boogie bot and Candy Cat haven’t gotten anything in Poppy Playtime. Honestly MOB games has been pretty problematic. They did make NFTs and put lore in them back in 2022.
While looking deeper into Mint's Hints (the game), I found a video from SEVEN YEARS ago with the same title, but the video being a comedic parody rather than horror like your video and the game, and also the titular "Mint" being a bulldog instead of a cat or a fox.
Might say amanda is not mascot horror. It does prey on the theme of 'kids show with an ominous history' but unlike fnaf, banban, poppy, shipwrecked, and other mascot horrors, it doesn't revolve abound running away from robotic/haunted/ mutated mascots. It's more like Candle cove in that case. Beyond that, I agree that mascot horror has become/is fairly uncreative when done by folks who arent that great. But the 'think of the children' angle feels disingenuous. Not a single artist here is trying to put their 4 - 7 year old in front of a game of poppy playtime to traumatize them. The game My friendly neighbourhood is absolutely mascot horror, but if given the chance to play it, the game asks 'when did we become so jaded?' In regards to having child-like naivety and is surprisingly wholesome. It is common for horror elements, especially ARGs that design around taking mundane and nostalgic things and twist it into something scary. Take Welcome Home by Party coffin. Technically that is more mascot horror than amanda is. But this artist is doing something creative and fun for puzzel solving and mystery behind some fanstastic art. It really becomes a discussion more on specific people who are treating the horror genre as a cashcow. Mascot horror is just another genre that, as expected, is getting absurdly overused. Similarly to forenite games, or resource farming games. They just aren't easy to make entertaining in let's plays.
** aren't that great = are just trying to ride the popularity high. Sorry wanted to correct myself. Some artists can be great, but have no creativity, and some artists can be bad, but have fantastic creative ideas. I might add, even the 'evil AU's' you made of my little pony is absolutely indicative of exactly these same themes. Some people just like taking things they loved, and making a more adult/scary twist because they enjoy presenting a more layered story than the countless corporate-hasbro- made kids show designed to market toys to boys and girls.
@@CheesyGlooner technically! Once you get deep enough into the sublayers of the game it turns into a mascot horror experience. Good overarching story, but it does kind of fall flat near the end imo. Still fun though. Not sure how much of Shipwrecked you've discovered/experienced, so I don't want to spoil anything.
@@CheesyGlooner What Morry said. technically it is, but it certainly doesn't start out that way. (feels like a cross between Fnaf and Ben Drowned with a healthy amount of fun ARG.)
Off topic but I just need to say this Amanda the Adventurer was released and made before Garden of Banban. The original indi horror jam pilot episode for Amanda was released in April 8, 2022 Garden of ban ban wasn't released until January 6, 2023 (unless there was some demo released that's not been properly recorded I can't find any earlier dates listed)
To anyone who wants to make mascot horror, don’t appeal to children. Children’s horror does exist: Goosebumps, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, Courage The Cowardly Dog, Are You Afraid Of The Dark, Coraline, The Haunting Hour (speaking of that show, the episode with Big Yellow is scarier mascot horror than a lot of these games), Monster House, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Watcher In The Woods (Update: While we're at it, I'll include Flapjack. It's more of a dark comedy rather than straight up horror compared to Courage, but it's so terrifying and gross that it might as well be horror). These games feel like they want to have their cake and eat it too (it reminds me of a similar problem with a lot of certain movies, mostly blockbusters, that try to artificially make their movies PG-13 to appeal to a wider audience so that they can get more money as opposed to other movies created with that rating in mind. They can show as much violence and destruction as possible, as long as there’s no blood). If you want to appeal to 90s nostalgia, then appeal to adults who actually grew up with those and not younger children who’ve never seen, or probably heard of, what you’re referencing or homaging. Update: Also, maybe come up with monster designs that don't take inspiration from Poppy Playtime and do something more original. Maybe even a monster or character so ugly and unnerving that it would be incredibly hard for a content farmer to look appealing for kids.
As someone who wants to make a mascot horror thing… I’ll keep this in mind. (Gonna make it inspired by Ren and Stimpy, that’s pretty 90’s… honestly surprised no one has done something that inspired by it yet… I don’t want to give the whole idea cause it’s still a work in progress.)
@@InvaderBB God, that show was already nightmare fuel enough with its art style, as someone who grew up on his dad's boomer cartoons and Animaniacs and found Ren and Stimpy unhinged... All the best to your project, and try to capture the sheer unhinged style that shows like Ren and Stimpy and Courage the Cowardly Dog used at times. That was JARRING and I suspect if you use that as part of the "nostalgia uncanny valley" element you might be able to make something that'll genuinely hit people the same way FNAF hit the Rockafire and Chuck E kids with that unnerved fascination. Visceral wrongness is a powerful tool when you're aiming for nostalgia horror.
10-4, I will put in guns, blood, foul words, Resident Evil mechanics, and unapologetic low-blows to the worst of mascot horror if I make one so that it will demonitize content farm gamers like Lankybox so it screams "not kid friendly." The idea I have is something like Indigo Park but 1950's retrofuturism themed, open world like GTA with drivable cars on a map around GTA 3's size, and the poster villian is a robo-furry with a bloody sickle for one hand and has a shoulder mounted torture-inducing ray gun.
Indigo's Indications goes hard ngl My biggest issue with mascot horror is the catered to children which feels wrong and kinda icky in a way Horror has clearly become a form of brain rot and it makes me uncomfortable in a way that I don't know how to describe. The games always have really dark themes that *should not* be marketed to kids Indigo's Indications could actually a really funny parody tho like a short 10 minute little game poking lighthearted fun at all the games copying each but there's probably already a game like that too
Exactly. With Chapter 4 of poppy playtime looking cheap, I’m beginning to see MOB games doesn’t care about story, just money. They reused the Smiling Critters from chapter 3, which were popular, and made the Nightmare critters because “people love the critters.” But they refuse to do something actually unique, so other toys like Bron, Boxy Boo, Boogie bot, and Cat bee are tossed aside. And even if they had new characters, there would be so many cool ideas other than the Critters, like a Action figure series or one of those toy phones, but nope, let’s make more Critters to appease the kids and content farms. Also, I’ve been holding this in, but Huggy Wuggy has a terrible design. It looks so bland.
Yeah, and children’s horror exists (Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of The Dark, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, Coraline, The Haunting Hour, Courage The Cowardly Dog, etc.), but these games don’t fit that category, they just want to have their cake and eat it too. If you want to make something that appeals to 90s nostalgia, you should make it for that audience who actually grew up with it and do something more unnerving or darker (and I don’t mean shock value darker).
@@CubeytheawesomeChapter 3 looked like it was a good sign for the series and felt like it was a promise that the franchise would be one of the greats and not afraid to be darker… but then the crap behind the scenes happened which led to a lot of those people not being involved with the company anymore (I can’t remember if it was layoffs or something). A lot of people were concerned about the state of the franchise and judging by your comment, they still have every right to be concerned.
Your vagueness on “Can’t we do better than Mints Hints?” (6:10) Is really throwing me off because I don’t know which version you’re talking about, yours or Grant’s. Could you please clarify??😭
before today i had never heard of mints hints lol i do find it super hilarious though how your joke meant to make fun of something became the very thing it swore to destroy
See I'm not a kid and when I saw FNAF it wasn't marketed towards children. It's concerning that these have turned specifically into content that is for children, cause my impression had always been that this was for like you know, those growing up in the 90s or whatever to have a fun nostalgia trip with a twist. FNAF in particular was perfect because the place was basically abandoned which indicated that this was a thing of the past. That's the weird thing though, should those of us who grew up with these things be allowed to explore that through other mediums like horror?
This has a tendency to happen a lot sadly, specifically teen/adult targeted content being shifted to kids. Robocop was specifically a sci-fi action movie targeted towards an adult audience, yet somehow ended up becoming marketed towards children via toys and videogames. Mature content being degraded for a larger audience is an anomaly I never will understand. I guess marketing be marketing.
EXACTLY like if something references childhood past doesn’t mean it’s automatically for kids, but maybe to resonate with an older audience and remind them of their past
@@Surkk2960 The "somehow" was the film execs, and RoboCop's creator fought tooth and nail against it. The third movie was the peak of executive meddling and no one wants it to be canon. It was supposed to at most be for edgy teenagers after Verhoeven (I definitely spelled that wrong) quit because no one up there understood it was anti-consumerist and wanted to market it. Side note, it being "marketed for kids" was probably how RoboCop 1's uncensored version aired on a saturday at 5 pm on public access TV when I was 12 and I gained a traumatic fascination with trans-humanism and exploration of what it means to be human. Thanks, society, for making the 12 years old get existential through a torture scene and roboticization.
@riskingrain1560 I love Chip's Tips for never fully devolving into horror, it just carries the perfect vibe of fuzzy memories of old edutainment games.
something that particularly irks me about the whole mascot horror genre is that fnaf, the clear spearhead/origin point of the genre, didn't really feel like an explicitly child-centred game. at least not the first few games. sure, there isn't anything shown in the series that i would say explicitly harms children to see, but it was clear that children were not the originally intended target audience. they just happened to gravitate towards it and the series adjusted accordingly with time. that's where i kind of end up losing the rest of the genre. a lot of them come in with the explicit goal of marketing to children and gaining that same hit of popularity as fnaf, without any other goals in mind. the original fnaf was a cool, experimental take on a pretty simple but (at the time) untapped idea. but before it was The mascot horror game, before it was this giant media franchise, it was just a cool and fun little game made by someone who at that point had given up on making games for children. obviously with hindsight we know now it's very popular with children, but it wasn't exactly at the forefront of its goals imo. for me a lot of the mascot horror genre kind of boils down to a very cynical and annoying read on children, that being that they will fawn over anything so long as you make it "secretly" dark. there doesn't seem to be much passion for horror as an artform OR the potential of childhood ideas used in a horror setting from a lot of the devs jumping onto the genre. i'm certain some of them do, but most i see just seem to have no heart, no soul, no overlying goal or theme.
I mean, they took "oh look pizza place mascot but bad and scary" and ignore the more subtle parts or.... Pretty much anything other than the instantly visible things one sees from a short gameplay video. It tends to happen, especially if people wants to cash in a new popular thing so it got reduced to simply "mascot horror".
Hey just so you know amanda the adventurer is honestly pretty unique and probably even interesting if you give it a chance its also coming out with a sequel soon So theres a good opportunity to look more into it/try it out it has a lot more effort than banban thats for sure And is a lot more well written and designed to
I think a part of it is that these things aren't really _made_ for children, but rather the adults that grew up with these things. Some of the time, anyways. It's just usually an unfortunate side effect that children will latch onto these things. There is also consideration to be had for all of the weird kids of the world who will latch onto things that are very clearly not meant for them, like Five Nights at Freddy's. That was something that was very obviously meant for a nostalgic audience, that kids for some reason glommed onto, bc somehow the monsters that didn't hurt children were appealing. (Kind of interesting that the entire conceit of Security Breach is being a child that is actively being hunted down by these guys; but they have to remain the antagonists, I guess, and it changed things significantly by making Freddy into Gregory's himbo protector sidekick.) idk for sure what drew them in, just that it ultimately shaped the future of the genre, in ways that aren't necessarily positive, as you said. Granted a little horror here and there probably isn't harmful, as long as it's comparatively mild. After all, I feel like children are capable of enjoying a wide range of genres just as much as anybody else. There might even be some that have no idea it's horror and just know it from the toy lines and merchandise, or silly parodies on RUclips... or, worse perhaps than the actual source material, soulless, frequently fetish-mining content farms...
I hear you out but there's a few things I disagree with. While I agree that horror is a fine line to walk when it's presented for kids, the "why are we showing scary stuff to kids" feels along the same lines of "video games cause violence". I feel like quite a few mascot horror games, like Bendy, Banban, FNAF, etc do, do a good job toeing that line. It's kinda like Goosebumps or Coraline to a more mass scale. Both Coraline and Goosebumps is horror media presented for kids. Do I think that they are bad or evil or bad for kids? Not at all. I think that parental guidance with these genres should be considered, which unfortunately doesn't always happen, but is it really fair to say that kids just can't experience a lightly spooky game? When I play Bendy or FNAF today, I'm kind of surprised I was scared of them as a kid. But I think that's why its good and so popular, while it may secretly explore somewhat disturbing themes, what the kids see is something that to an adult would be like a slasher movie, something mildly scary that might keep them up a bit at night, but overall doesn't cause much harm. There are some controversial things to consider, like how intense Poppy Playtime has gotten as of recently, but I still think we should consider the fact that kids should be protected, but not to the extent of essentially isolating them from the world. I'm concerned about the sloppiness and lack of substance in most mascot horror games now, of course, but I think it's healthy to slowly introduce them to more mature topics. There needs to be a balance of course, but so far I've been keeping my eye on the mascot horror genre intensely, and its been pretty mild. A lot of the games little me wouldn't even be afraid of. I agree that the substance and quality needs to be improved, but the horror itself stays. We need to supervise and manage the level of maturity, not completely eliminate the genre because some games go a little too far. Why cut off the whole leg when cleaning the wound and bandaging it will do the job better?
Hello, I bring context for this game for anyone who wants it! I saw some people mentioning game jam and other short form game making events, so I wanted to add: Marrs games are made by two people, that's all! Grant and his wife. Lovey Dovey, TFWLB, IFA and soon IFI as well as Mint's Hints are all products of two people writing, modeling and coding these games from scratch. The mascot horror genre with its established pattern and beats was chosen specifically for those reasons because MH is the result of Grant teaching himself Unreal Engine, which is what he wants to use for Imaginary Friend Institute which is much bigger and more involved than it's predecessor, Imaginary Friend Asylum. Having a usable formula helped him to understand that game engine and now he plans to expand on the next chapter as he learns. MH is 99% Grant, including the video scenes, with his wife helping with writing and voicing. The merch store was a form of passive income, and is included in all their active game series as it's currently their ONLY income. Originally it was to find the development of IFI, which is meant to be voice acted (by up and comings, not just the devs) and the IFA store has an artist share program where the profits are split between the devs and artists who submit art for merch. At the moment it's through a proxy service so there's a middle man cost to the products being sold as they don't have the space necessary to host their own inventory. As it comes, the money became more necessary for survival, as they are/were affected by Hurricane Milton which, as one can imagine, put quite a road bump into the development path of any games they have. If you don't like MH because it's "just another mascot horror" that's fine, but please don't judge them based on that alone. They do have other games! Mrs. Marrs is even planning to write some books set in the IFA universe to expand the lore and understanding of what the Friends are. 8-bit Ryan, SuperHorrorBro and GT live all have partial or full playthroughs of TFWLB and IFA that might be worth a look if you want more story and a unique tale on "asylum" horror/thriller/mystery content. Please be kind to them. They got so very lucky with this hurricane that their home wasn't destroyed but the road to recovery will be long. Thank you ❤
I want to start off by saying that I FULLY agree with your points about Mascot Horror. I want to share an idea I had is sorta "mascot horror" game but the "monstrous mascots" are your allies, the opposite of the few games where the mascots are against you. But I don't know how to flesh it out more aside from an indoor liminal space (an abandoned indoor obstacle course) and the topic of Escapism.
I do like the idea of a mascot horror game where the mascots are (or become) your allies. Games like FNAF Security Breach, Indigo Park and while not a game, Angel Hare seem to explore this idea and I'd love to see it explored further.
@@shinyneko8136 I think My Friendly Neighborhood gave options to have allies, but my idea is that despite having a horrific backstory (that involves experimentation and having to kill their creators (not the mascot designers)), they remained as friendly as the characters they are based on to the player and letting them have a fun time in a dark place and help you escape.
I liked the concept of Mints Hints but Chapter 1 of the game felt like Garten of Ban Ban Chapter 1 where it could have been a demo or pilot instead and a mix of Poppy Playtime with what was shown at the end. ATP everyone should make their own version of Mints Hints just for the fun of it like people do with the concept of Sonic.Exe :]
@@rickanimationsnewchannelWhat? Update: Also, Garten of Banban Reincarnated led to the creation of Indigo Park, so fanmade (or anti-fanmade) remakes could lead to creators branching out and making more original content.
Indigo’s Indications sounds like it would be like that one Baldi's inspired game, advanced learning or something along those lines, could be a neat angle of approach. I'd unironically buy a Garten of Banban toy if it were like those little rubber lizards our local Zoo sells, they're so adorably squishy and the toys you showed on screen look like they'd be great to experience in such a format. Your version of Mint is so adorable, they look like you leaned pretty far into nailing the Blue's style which I find helps reinforce the gag further but also it's just generally a fun design, I do quite like the scrunkly evil version too, enough time and care put in to really push forth the gag and let's be real a lot of horror, even non-mascot, tend to get cold feet and either drag on for too long or don't commit. Congrats on the extra traction and such all the same :) I do wish you would have given your Mint the tail swishes you did in the actual animation though, you're just gonna sit there on a still frame with lens hairs adjusting and such in the background but not do the tail swishes? tsk tsk :p
Neither Grant nor his wife seem to bring this up in the comments section, so maybe I'm off base here, but I'm sort of at a loss as to what would might lead to the assumption that this game is aimed at children..? I think my most likely confusion is that everyone has a different age range in their minds when they use the word "children," but to me, a "children" is a person 10 years or younger. Which is not to say anyone over the age of 11 isn't still a 'kid,' but that they are no longer the audience demographic associated with the idea of "children's media." To be honest, I don't know of very much "horror" made with absolutely only "children" in mind, that isn't either the "Disney Channel Halloween Special where no one actually gets hurt in the end" variety or the "oooooh its gorey and scary and super super twisted, but there aren't any serious or realistic consequences in the end" stuff. the latter of which tends to be made specifically with those kids that don't Want to feel like theyre being targeted as "children," in mind. And, while I know next to nothing about this video game, my guess would be that it wasn't Actually Made for "kids" or just not with children in Mind, or, that it Is made with one or both of those things in mind, and that it falls into that aforementioned category of media that is scary but treads carefully around anything that might be "too real." Which I think is actually an important option for kids to have. Without "horror" made with children who want to step outside of that box of things being made "for children," in mind, their only option is horror that is Not made for them; horror that doesn't have any reason to tread lightly around scary subjects or depictions that are Made to seem realistic- things a kid might not have gone into having been totally prepared for, given they're only reference up to that point would've been something like a Bluey episode discussing death or a Disney movie like Mulan. Sorry this got so long, I'm very sleepy and not very succinct ^^'
In defense of the Chuck-e-Cheese part, I haven't set foot in one because my mother never wanted me to. The place didn't have the greatest reputation for starters, and money is a thing that needs to exists. Though I have seen Blue Clues, because my mother does care
i do believe there is more content for kids that's genuinely good than you're giving credit for. but none of them are the real titans popularity wise that these mascot horrors + bluey are. while i mainly know about the existence of these things through friends, there is some comfort is knowing they do exist
2:03 Only 3 of these things are actual GoBB characters (as in, actually from the games and not fanmade / bootleg ripoff / content farm originals). That, I believe, makes it worse. These kids aren't even consuming the main thing anymore, it's all just fake gameplay animated by someone 'inspired' by the main thing's popularity to get easy money from kids watching it thinking it's real Banban. While GoBB was notorious for adding in new characters every chapter, it still has a relatively small cast compared to the twenty thousand new characters these "GARTEN OF BANBAN CHAPTER 387?!" youtube videos would have you believe. And it's not like they're original characters either. They're either copies of each other, stuff from the fancharacter wiki, or characters from other media that someone lied about being the "new leaked Banban character" that they scrambled to add into their thing before the actual next game came out. These plushies and figurines you find out in the wild aren't even the actual GoBB merch, it's all a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. And they're everywhere.
Some of these comments make me sad. I was there to hear and watch the game's development grow and I can't understand how people don't get that making EVERYTHING for a game down to coding is not easy. It can take hours to understand blender if you're not the best at understanding certain techy programs. While yes, people may not know of an original that exists, it is a simple mistake. But as long as the issue is dealt with in a mature and friendly manner, you don't get people making fun of something you worked on, regardless of how long it took. I understand it can feel frustrating, but let's not normalize going after each other over our creations. This part is moreso aimed at the people who see this, it costs you nothing to be nice. Don't shit on someone's hard work. Because I bet if you were to sit down, voice act, code and make your own models from scratch without knowing how to use your programs, you'd not be having a good time, would you?
Exactly. And I'm actually a FAN of Grant Marrs' TFWLB and IFA purely because of the characters and story. Plus, and I keep saying this, NOTHING is completely original anymore. Everything has been already done. The most that you can do is put YOUR own creative twist on a concept and go from there. I'm also tired of the whole "this person plagiarized something I made YEARS ago but never mentioned until now so that means they're a copycat" argument.
And the thing about FNAF and Bendy is that Mascot Horror originally was NOT for kids!!!! But now it is because it's easier to cash grab off a periphery audience I guess!!!!
This video reminded me of something I've been thinking about for some time: the world is becoming less and less child friendly. How will we convince future generations to have kids if we're unable to provide them with the very best?
fr, I can’t imagine being a parent today. where do u go? what do u do? malls are dying, chuck e cheese is dying (p sure all the tickets are on cards anyway), mcdonalds playplaces are gone, etc. I can think of some occasional/special things like seeing a sports game or going to a theme park, but I can’t think of anything that’s like, wholly kid-friendly or kid-forward
@@rotisseriepossum I mean I can't imagine at least being a parent in America anymore. This country is seriously going downhill compared to some of the rest of the world.
I agreed until you said that "For the Garten of Banbans there will be the Amanda The Adventurers". Amanda the Adventurer is actually nothing like Banban and imo has pretty interesting puzzles and gameplay but I suppose you wouldn't know that if you never played it
dude it hurt me somewhere i didnt even know i HAD when the new kinda "protagonist" friend of blue (which i have no problem with, they had to get someone new. i get that.) but what actually got me was that they used emails instead of the mailbox. and im pretty sure they used an ipad parody instead of a notepad HELP- IM WITHERING AWAY LIKE A FLOWER IN THE SUN, BURNT TO ASH, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- DO LITTLE KIDS NOWADAYS NOT KNOW WHAT A REGULAR MAILBOX IS OR ARE THEY TRYING TO MAKE IT MORE RELATEABLE- EITHER WAY IT SCARES ME.
I’d like to start this comment with saying that I’m pretty sure that this is just a major instance of parallel thinking but there’s an earlier use of “Mint’s Hints” as a title for something and it’s used on a really shitty drawing from sgt frog abridged episode 8 which predates both the short and the game by 13 years
If I ever have children (and that’s a VERY big “if”) I already have some shows and movies in mind that I’d want to show them! Puffin Rock, Dinotrux, Transformers (Animated, Prime, and season 1 of Earthspark), Bluey, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Hilda, Maya And The Three, Carmen Sandiego (2019), Mune: Guardian Of The Moon, Song Of The Sea, and The Secret Of Kells are some I’d be so excited to show my extremely hypothetic and unlikely children lol
After watching Dakblake played this game, imo gameplay wise, Mint's Hints would've worked better as a point and click horror game since Mint's Hints is like Blue's Clues
funnily the first game i've seen do it is chip's tips, manlybadasshero played it on his channel and i think that game has charm with it trying to replicate the old dos games to me, that and it does have charm of what blue's clues does
Honestly? I agree that kids shouldn't eat garbage, even if it's colorful. They deserve quality stuff, being it horror (as a former kid I would like to remind that some kids absolutely love spooky things) or other. So, when I got a hint that my boss's kid loves all that mascot horror stuff I started recommending him (through my boss) some actually good things from my own childhood: some soviet cartoons (region specific), spirited away, all that stuff. And he absolutely loves it! He is mostly interested in monsters, so I chose cartoons with good visual designs and good morals, preferably about different cultures so that from the young age he was aware about that. And if you have a young child in your life, I would encourage anyone reading this to do the same: don't shame them for their interests, but try to find something more healthy to be interested in. In years to come they'll understand themselves what was quality and what can be easily left behind.
I just wanna say that from the outset one thing that makes both your and the game version of Mint's Hints look infinitely better than the majority of the "mascot horror" genre is the fact that both did a good job of capturing the vibe of Blue's Clues before twisting it. Crap like Banban is just nonsensical globs, while Fnaf and Poppy keep even their "normal" designs a bit too creepy. In a way that highlights just how bad the situation is with kids media that people are infinitely more imterested in designing horror parodies of child friendly characters than actually making anything good for kids.
I want to say something and I mean nothing bad by it so you confused me when you listed games from good to bad. When you mentioned Amanda The Adventure you put as worse that BanBan. Which I don’t agree with as It has no merch and in terms of story it has one victim making it easy to sympathize and fell bad for her. And while it is inspired by Dora the Explorer it doesn’t fell like I’m watching a Dora parody. Look I’m sorry if this comes across as hate or mean spirited in any way. I’m just passionate about a game I like and genuinely want to know your opinion on the game
Ok so i just remembered this recently and this is gonna be kind of an obscure pull, on RUclips there's an abridged series for the anime Sgt Frog/Keroro Gunsou, and in Episode 8 of the abridged series the line "Mint's Hints" Is used at least two times and funny thing about that is the fact that the characters in abridged episode decide that that's what their gonna name their show in an episode where they make their own cartoon. When i first saw the mint's hints game i immediately felt like i remembered hearing the name before and just upon watching this video i finally remembered that it was from this stupid funny abridged series that came out 13 years ago.
doesn't mean that the game didn't copy or rip her off, usually people who want to get away with taking credit for other's ideas will change something up but otherwise keep everything else the same.
@@EddisdeddDoesn't change anything tbh, I just don't believe two people came up with the same idea and similar designs one to one. He had to have seen her video and probably just got a bit inspired. But it's not my creation, nor am i gonna argue in the comments over what i think. I've already said what I said and at the end of the day, the game looks like another cash grab and is disappointing based on his other games.
Dang, ur ver of Mint looks way cuter than the game ... I wanna talk abt my problem with MOST mascot horror (not all of it) Basically, the products that they are selling are usually really creepy, kids (well mostly the parents) wouldn't wanna buy a toy or watch the show if the characters look like...that. Which is why I like dandys world (boo at me if you want, I like the game lol) cause the characters look like something in a kids show, friendly and full of personality In contrast, poppy playtime... I don't know much about the game lore, but the toys look very off putting and bad in general. Sometimes, it does work, fnaf has animatronics, and animatronics before weren't exactly..the greatest in their looks. So what do I have to say for mints hints (the game) ... The colors are WAY too saturated, the characters are very off putting, even before their spooky versions, and the enviroment for the actual game look like hyperpop done wrong. Its in beta sure, but I don't have high hopes
With Poppy playtime chapter 4 apparently being just the Critters again, I have realized that they don’t care about story, just what appeals to kids and content farms. There were so many other toys they could have used for chapter 4 (Bron, Catbee, Boogie Bot, Boxy Boo), and other toy ideas that would have had so much potential (Action figure series, Furby knock off, one of those toy phones you pull, blindbox army, War propaganda product, nesting doll), but no, they chose more critters because they did well. Also I played Dandy’s world (That problematic dev, Rox, got fired, so that inclined me to play it), and it’s fun! I love their designs!
@@Cubeytheawesome Yippe another dandys world fan :D (off topic but who ur fave toon? Mine is shelly) and yea, makes sense why their using the critters, it became a super popular content farm which kids like because thats the garbage they've been exposed too =w=
Tbh I have a sort love hate relationship with mascot horror because there are some genuine fun games in it but its quickly become the Elsagate of gaming content. It also isn't helped that any game that's sorta creepy and has a potentially marketable character(s) gets lumped into that by default so even if you make a game for adults and/or with no intent to sell merch. Like not only will people assume its a lazy cash grab you WILL get kids on your page begging you to sell plushies to them (I wish the latter was a joke but that's basically what happened to currently in development mascot horror game called Indigo Park).
Yeah I JUST saw a video on the game and I was kinda urked a bit. It reminded me of garten of ban ban in the way the graphics looked. I do enjoy both of the Mints though, cats and foxes are so adorb ❤
This is a bit uh off topic but i dont like seeing amanda being lumped into mascot horror. Its a commentary on how children, especially black children are exploited in media. Anyway... This video is like super well done. I enjoyed mints a bit but its just ehhhhhh. Your art is so damn fire too
To say it doesn’t reference mascot horror would be a mistake tho, it clearly references Dora the explorer, the difference is that they actually decided to put some thought into their story and didn’t just make it a scary game for kids to make money
the only "mascot horror" I respect is the bendy franchise as its managed to make its sequal into something so different and separated its self from mascot horror and made its self into a masterpiece ... NOW ITS GETTING A FILM!!!
i think it's a lil too convenient that they went with the same name and similar color pallet even though yeah it could be a coincidence but it's too much of a looks like it was copied to be one. If you place the two mints side by side you can clearly see your idea was the inspiration, there's no way they just randomly decided to oh let's give this fox character a heart shaped nose also and strictly only use mint and white as their color choice instead of possibly different shades.
I mean to be fair mint is one Color lmaoo but it is very sus there’s also the coincidence that there is another mint fox in media rn and that’s slushie from the chikin nugget series
@@RotheAlien True about Slushie but comparing her with these two isn't really a comparison since if her design was placed next to these two, you can see that she stands out on her own.
@ the youtuber/artist- Disclaimer! I love your art, ideas, and amazing character design skills very much- Your style is one that I adore so much so no hate @ all‼️You keep doing you 🫰🫰 BUT- 😭😭 If y'all (this is probably just moreso towards the people in this comments section but if you wanted to read it then ye🫰) think "Mint's Hints" is original then it might be time to take a good look around 😭😭 That's prob one of the most unoriginal/WAY too easily thought up ideas I've heard & it's wild people think it's something so "never done before" so much?? Sorry if it sounds harsh/rude- But the amount of specifically CAT OCs that are mint&white colored (even I've made some YEARS ago) is literally endless let alone other animals being the exact same colors and also probably being named Mint 😭 +The Blue's Clues themed horror game has definitely been done before _repeatedly_. So it was only a matter of time that people combined the two and they probably still will even after your's & this guy's game! Seeing as how "Mints Hints" specifically has also ALREADY been thought of _& done_ before BOTH of y'all did em is pretty proof enough 😭🪦 The character design definitely isn't anything new but I'd like to think the simplicity & generic-ness is the point of the parody Jane made & the game that this guy made (after reading the pinned comment & seeing how they purposely didn't work too hard on it/wasn't passionate abt it(?)). Not to make any1 feel unoriginal or lacking in their own skills ofc but yeah-If it was easily thought of/took little to no effort in thinking of for you then I can almost guarantee it was probably thought up by at LEAST 30+ other people 😭😭 (Seeing how there's biLLIons out there-isn't uncommon for more than a couple people to have the same idea) It's probably just moreso a matter of who DOES it first/gets seen DOING it first probably?? Unsure but yeah- Definitely shouldn't immediately go accusing people of "stealing ideas" or designs when there's no very evident clear signs of it/of course when the ideas & designs are SO,,,,,s o,,, easily thought up,,,🪦 "Their design looks jUst like mine & they have same name" is definitely valid and all!! & Don't be afraid to confront people/question things ofc- But good lord probably not for the very generic pastel colored animal character named after the color they are in a game about them 😭 If that makes sense🫰 Again no hate‼️Just thought this for some reason needed to be pointed out 🫰😭 Hope I didn't come off as too rude or smth- Much support & love still to y'all, my fellow artists💞🥹 (PS just a note-please don't lump in games like Amanda The Adventurer with high-key low effort, souless, 100% lost-plot, "just an endless cash grab" type games like GARDEN OF BANBAN again bc dkHdj wTh,,, Uncalled for,,,😭 I've watched both be played & gOodness-Ik Amanda ain't some master piece ofc but at least they actually put work & care into it🪦🪦)
Oh yeah! Let's just spit into game devs and writers hard work because "ooOOoh this is just like a FNAF rip off!!" Talking about Amanda the Adventurer here. I'm not saying your video doesn't make sense but you literally picked any half-famous indie game and kicked it under the curb with snarky comments and passive-aggressive pessimism. That's really bold of you to try to criticize something you didn't even give a chance to. Just a little add-on after reading Grant's comment that you didn't even give yourself the TROUBLE to actually play the game and said it was a copy of your 2-second effort video even though you yourself pointed out that it was not a very original or hard to come up idea when trying to parody Blue's Clues. BRUH. It's just like if you made a video essay talking about a book you saw in the book store once and never even opened. Yikes.
@JaneGumball nah bro i agree yikes, especially for putting Amanda under Banban 💀💀💀 I agree looking more into things if your gonna make such a sweeping statement when it comes to games you have allegedly looked into. But maybe my standards are set too high when looking at people who actually research before yapping.
From what I’m comprehending you imply lowered quality. At (1:30), you say copies of copies of copies of RUclips horror games exist, then you compare fnaf to poppy playtime, and garten of Banban to Amanda the adventurer. Which besides the genre, are games that are too different to list like that. Also, you are saying they’re the same by literally calling them copies. Am I misunderstanding??
You’re taking this surprisingly well 💀 while yes two people can come to the same conclusion there ain’t no way bro didn’t at least see your vid and have the idea in the back of his mind when he made the dumpster fire game.
Oh the joy of convergent ideas :3 Coincidence aside, yes, kids deserve better stuff than the brainrot being fed to them nowadays by lazy corpos out to make a quick buck. Not to say all the devs who make the "mascot horror" genre are bad, but the ones who are you can at least see the major telltale signs * -banban- *
''brainrot content'' (mostly creators like lankybox and generally content farms) have led me to reach a breaking point of sorts where i now want to try writing a hypothetical kids show just to be something better for kids to watch. im not the best at writing and im still pretty bad at dialogue especially but i do have the ideas for the characters and premise that i think could genuinely work. i think the fact that i as a 16 year old am able to genuinely make work with more passion and effort put into it than a lot of content farms on youtube today really says something (btw this comment is not directed at mints hints or the creators of it, i read the pinned comment and dont have anything against the creators of the game)
This thing somehow uses 80 to 90 percent of my RTX 4070, what the actual fuck is going on? No LoD system, that's legit. If it's trying to mine crypto, run a botnet for something, or just doing it to look like it's a "demanding game," let the 34th rule of the internet go to town on Mint's Hints.
Things like Poppy Playtime to me feel very "horror slop first" rather than like media that actually feels like its era. Like no, Huggy Wuggy does not look like a "Tickle Me Elmo", he looks like he was designed for horror first. Poppy looks more like a 2010s minidoll like LOL Surprise or a blindbox figure than a 50s plaything. Unlike the FNAF ones that seem more unintentionally scary, especially the more toylike takes.
God that yellow room destroyed my eyes 😭 Also the look of mint and fusha ruin the vibe both for the blues clues rippff vibe and horror vibe in general. They look more like littlest pet shop or bratz characters than mascots for a children's I spy show. Or y'know V tubers considering that one drawing on the wall in one of room shows them i think so its easy to see that as an inspo. They're just not scary and they feel so out of place IN THEIR OWN GAME.
That's what I thought too when looking at the foxes, they reminded me more of littlest pet shop rather the actual show it's parodying off of, funny enough all the other talking objects do actually seem to have some actual inspo off of Blue's Clues, it's just the foxes. But my guess it's probably of the character designer's actual style being used that may be inspired of things like Littlest Pet Shop or Bratz that just happened to leak through I guess. :/
To be completely fair there are ways to arrive at having a concept called “mints hints” based on blues clues, but that was kinda the point. I think its just funny that I predicted it ☠️
Me make own horror game analog horror My game name Incident and me know you think you think is mascot horror games my game not mascot horror games really my Nightmares my Nightmares me make game About my Nightmares is old Lady skin Blue white hair Deer eyes black
No as there’s way more different shows. The only shows you know are family guy replica ones. There’s some that already are finished and nothing like family guy so I recommend you to watch non family guy replicas if you don’t like them.
Hey there! This is Grant/the dev, nice to meet you! This is a fun video and I agree with many of your points! I want to start by saying I did not know of your video when I came up with the idea, I literally had the same thought process of “parody show with similar rhyming parody name” and Mints Hints was born again lol. Also I totally agree it’s a shame that quicker and easier to make games take off so easily compared to other more passionate ones. I spent a year on my game “The Friends We Left Behind” and another year on my game “Imaginary Friend Asylum” and they got minimal attention or success. I then made Mint’s Hints in 2 months and have gotten far more attention than I had received previously. It’s a rough system, especially if you want to make a living off of it (something I have not nearly been able to achieve yet). Trust me, as someone who put their all into massive and heartfelt games only to see them get surpassed by games made in less than a month, I know where you’re coming from! I tried to make Mint’s Hints a bit more inspired than what you would typically see from the genre and I hope to succeed enough to be able to fund my other projects someday! And for what it’s worth, I also wanted to say I love your iteration of Mint’s Hints and artstyle, it’s so cute! 😆
Hey, Grant! Glad to see you here.
I understand, I didn't want to be brutal with this cause I know how the grind is- god knows I don't know how to make a game ☠️
And I figured as much on the name. (promise me that Indigo’s Indications will be the sequel, though.)🥂👍
Edit: also, thank you!
@@JaneGumball Lol! That’s a great name too! 😆 I definitely noticed you focused on the problem with the mascot horror genre rather than me which I appreciate and totally agree with! I’ve also taken a jab at the mascot horror genre previously if you look up my game LOVEY DOVEY. I literally made a whole game to make fun of the problems with the genre so I totally get you 😂 Also, you totally don’t have to, but would you mind pinning my comment? I’m starting to get some hate comments on my trailer and Itch page now so I’m hoping that might stop some people from doing that lol.
Hi, I’m Anna Marrs from the credits (aka Grant’s wife.) As starving artists we completely understand the struggle of just that - being an artist, or pursuing a field in the creative at all - is a massive challenge. I wanted to hop in because Grant told me about this video.
We would NEVER steal something from a fellow artist. We had not seen your video before, and we decided to give all the foxes different motifs, such as hearts, diamonds, flowers, etc. Mint ended up with the heart because I designed Mint, and I like hearts the best.
After the game has released, we now realize there were several iterations of Mint’s Hints before ours, several people having come up with the same name and idea. In addition, we are not the first people to do a Blue’s Clues horror game, as Chip’s Tips and Flint’s Hints exist already. (We only found out about Flint’s Hints after Mint’s Hints released and we got comments about it.)
I designed Mint, and now I wish I had seen your video first because I would have done it a bit differently, because I would never want someone to think I stole from them. That’s just awful.
In the end, we are all fans of Blue’s Clues using our creativity to put a spin on something we love. I hope we can connect on this rather than have divisions.
So yeah, just wanted to pitch in.. and by the way, we’ve only made around $60 off of this game so far, so yeah, we’re also not even getting rich off of it. Still starving artists. 😂
@@JaneGumball You should pin this so more people can see it!
@@GrantMarrs-h6t oh sure! Pinned 👍
It's not fair to compare amanda, the adventurer, to ban ban, it had a lot of work and love put into it. Amanda, the adventure was something put together for a game jam, people loved it so much, they wanted more, so dread xp published it and helped out the devs.
Amanda the adventurer is not a souless cash grab, its a good game, and it's fun to play and watch the characters interact. Game jams are the soul of indie games, i do believe baldi's basics came from a game jam, but obviously that game was meant to be a parody on edutainment games.
It also obviously isn't a cash grab with the fact it barely has any merch and the only stuff that was available is online and not in stores.
Just because it isn’t a gash grab doesn’t mean it doesn’t fall under that category (this isn’t necessarily a bad thing btw)
@blockotheblock5672 I never looked at amanda the adventurer, as a mascot horror. It just bleeds edutainment parody. Different eyes Different outlooks. But in terms of kid show=scary! Yeah definitely goes in that category!
Same@@Owi-zotl
@blockotheblock5672 Yeah but it definitely isn't after BANBAN-
That felt like a slap in the face
Even the game looks like something that would be forgotten until realizing that it will have *_CHAPTERS._*
After seeing the Nightmare critters, I realized MOB games just wants to see what the fans like and milk it more. Would explain why some toys like Boogie bot and Candy Cat haven’t gotten anything in Poppy Playtime.
Honestly MOB games has been pretty problematic. They did make NFTs and put lore in them back in 2022.
While looking deeper into Mint's Hints (the game), I found a video from SEVEN YEARS ago with the same title, but the video being a comedic parody rather than horror like your video and the game, and also the titular "Mint" being a bulldog instead of a cat or a fox.
Apparently, there’s been so many parodies with the same name before.
Isn’t that supposed to be the “Clint’s Hints” Segment from FOP’s Channel Chasers
@@RealZerenaFan No, it was called Mint's Hints and it was done by a channel known as Stephen Lee.
Might say amanda is not mascot horror. It does prey on the theme of 'kids show with an ominous history' but unlike fnaf, banban, poppy, shipwrecked, and other mascot horrors, it doesn't revolve abound running away from robotic/haunted/ mutated mascots. It's more like Candle cove in that case.
Beyond that, I agree that mascot horror has become/is fairly uncreative when done by folks who arent that great. But the 'think of the children' angle feels disingenuous. Not a single artist here is trying to put their 4 - 7 year old in front of a game of poppy playtime to traumatize them.
The game My friendly neighbourhood is absolutely mascot horror, but if given the chance to play it, the game asks 'when did we become so jaded?' In regards to having child-like naivety and is surprisingly wholesome.
It is common for horror elements, especially ARGs that design around taking mundane and nostalgic things and twist it into something scary. Take Welcome Home by Party coffin. Technically that is more mascot horror than amanda is. But this artist is doing something creative and fun for puzzel solving and mystery behind some fanstastic art. It really becomes a discussion more on specific people who are treating the horror genre as a cashcow.
Mascot horror is just another genre that, as expected, is getting absurdly overused. Similarly to forenite games, or resource farming games. They just aren't easy to make entertaining in let's plays.
** aren't that great = are just trying to ride the popularity high.
Sorry wanted to correct myself. Some artists can be great, but have no creativity, and some artists can be bad, but have fantastic creative ideas.
I might add, even the 'evil AU's' you made of my little pony is absolutely indicative of exactly these same themes. Some people just like taking things they loved, and making a more adult/scary twist because they enjoy presenting a more layered story than the countless corporate-hasbro- made kids show designed to market toys to boys and girls.
Wait, shipwrecked 64 is a mascot horror game?
@@CheesyGlooner technically! Once you get deep enough into the sublayers of the game it turns into a mascot horror experience. Good overarching story, but it does kind of fall flat near the end imo. Still fun though. Not sure how much of Shipwrecked you've discovered/experienced, so I don't want to spoil anything.
@@CheesyGlooner What Morry said. technically it is, but it certainly doesn't start out that way. (feels like a cross between Fnaf and Ben Drowned with a healthy amount of fun ARG.)
Off topic but I just need to say this Amanda the Adventurer was released and made before Garden of Banban. The original indi horror jam pilot episode for Amanda was released in April 8, 2022 Garden of ban ban wasn't released until January 6, 2023 (unless there was some demo released that's not been properly recorded I can't find any earlier dates listed)
To anyone who wants to make mascot horror, don’t appeal to children. Children’s horror does exist: Goosebumps, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, Courage The Cowardly Dog, Are You Afraid Of The Dark, Coraline, The Haunting Hour (speaking of that show, the episode with Big Yellow is scarier mascot horror than a lot of these games), Monster House, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Watcher In The Woods (Update: While we're at it, I'll include Flapjack. It's more of a dark comedy rather than straight up horror compared to Courage, but it's so terrifying and gross that it might as well be horror). These games feel like they want to have their cake and eat it too (it reminds me of a similar problem with a lot of certain movies, mostly blockbusters, that try to artificially make their movies PG-13 to appeal to a wider audience so that they can get more money as opposed to other movies created with that rating in mind. They can show as much violence and destruction as possible, as long as there’s no blood). If you want to appeal to 90s nostalgia, then appeal to adults who actually grew up with those and not younger children who’ve never seen, or probably heard of, what you’re referencing or homaging.
Update: Also, maybe come up with monster designs that don't take inspiration from Poppy Playtime and do something more original. Maybe even a monster or character so ugly and unnerving that it would be incredibly hard for a content farmer to look appealing for kids.
As someone who wants to make a mascot horror thing… I’ll keep this in mind.
(Gonna make it inspired by Ren and Stimpy, that’s pretty 90’s… honestly surprised no one has done something that inspired by it yet… I don’t want to give the whole idea cause it’s still a work in progress.)
@@InvaderBB God, that show was already nightmare fuel enough with its art style, as someone who grew up on his dad's boomer cartoons and Animaniacs and found Ren and Stimpy unhinged...
All the best to your project, and try to capture the sheer unhinged style that shows like Ren and Stimpy and Courage the Cowardly Dog used at times.
That was JARRING and I suspect if you use that as part of the "nostalgia uncanny valley" element you might be able to make something that'll genuinely hit people the same way FNAF hit the Rockafire and Chuck E kids with that unnerved fascination. Visceral wrongness is a powerful tool when you're aiming for nostalgia horror.
@@neoqwerty Pretty much, I’m planning on doing my best to capture the essence of those types of shows into it.
10-4, I will put in guns, blood, foul words, Resident Evil mechanics, and unapologetic low-blows to the worst of mascot horror if I make one so that it will demonitize content farm gamers like Lankybox so it screams "not kid friendly." The idea I have is something like Indigo Park but 1950's retrofuturism themed, open world like GTA with drivable cars on a map around GTA 3's size, and the poster villian is a robo-furry with a bloody sickle for one hand and has a shoulder mounted torture-inducing ray gun.
@@InvaderBBOH MY GOD SAME HERE! I legit thought I was the only one who wanted to make a ren and stimpy esqe horror game!
Indigo's Indications goes hard ngl
My biggest issue with mascot horror is the catered to children which feels wrong and kinda icky in a way
Horror has clearly become a form of brain rot and it makes me uncomfortable in a way that I don't know how to describe. The games always have really dark themes that *should not* be marketed to kids
Indigo's Indications could actually a really funny parody tho like a short 10 minute little game poking lighthearted fun at all the games copying each but there's probably already a game like that too
Exactly. With Chapter 4 of poppy playtime looking cheap, I’m beginning to see MOB games doesn’t care about story, just money.
They reused the Smiling Critters from chapter 3, which were popular, and made the Nightmare critters because “people love the critters.”
But they refuse to do something actually unique, so other toys like Bron, Boxy Boo, Boogie bot, and Cat bee are tossed aside.
And even if they had new characters, there would be so many cool ideas other than the Critters, like a Action figure series or one of those toy phones, but nope, let’s make more Critters to appease the kids and content farms.
Also, I’ve been holding this in, but Huggy Wuggy has a terrible design. It looks so bland.
Yeah, and children’s horror exists (Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of The Dark, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, Coraline, The Haunting Hour, Courage The Cowardly Dog, etc.), but these games don’t fit that category, they just want to have their cake and eat it too. If you want to make something that appeals to 90s nostalgia, you should make it for that audience who actually grew up with it and do something more unnerving or darker (and I don’t mean shock value darker).
@@CubeytheawesomeChapter 3 looked like it was a good sign for the series and felt like it was a promise that the franchise would be one of the greats and not afraid to be darker… but then the crap behind the scenes happened which led to a lot of those people not being involved with the company anymore (I can’t remember if it was layoffs or something). A lot of people were concerned about the state of the franchise and judging by your comment, they still have every right to be concerned.
@@troin3925 I’m pretty sure Catnap was stolen from someone’s oc made back in chapter 1, so the devs probably don’t have an original bone in their body
@@Cubeytheawesomeimma need to see sir poops a lot comeback
Your vagueness on “Can’t we do better than Mints Hints?” (6:10) Is really throwing me off because I don’t know which version you’re talking about, yours or Grant’s. Could you please clarify??😭
before today i had never heard of mints hints lol
i do find it super hilarious though how your joke meant to make fun of something became the very thing it swore to destroy
5:13 This line hit. To think there are kids who haven’t actually stepped into a Chuck E Cheese is wild.
Ehm, that'd be most of children outside of the USA
@@ridhosamudro2199 I was thinking that, I’m talking bout American children
See I'm not a kid and when I saw FNAF it wasn't marketed towards children. It's concerning that these have turned specifically into content that is for children, cause my impression had always been that this was for like you know, those growing up in the 90s or whatever to have a fun nostalgia trip with a twist. FNAF in particular was perfect because the place was basically abandoned which indicated that this was a thing of the past. That's the weird thing though, should those of us who grew up with these things be allowed to explore that through other mediums like horror?
This has a tendency to happen a lot sadly, specifically teen/adult targeted content being shifted to kids.
Robocop was specifically a sci-fi action movie targeted towards an adult audience, yet somehow ended up becoming marketed towards children via toys and videogames.
Mature content being degraded for a larger audience is an anomaly I never will understand. I guess marketing be marketing.
EXACTLY like if something references childhood past doesn’t mean it’s automatically for kids, but maybe to resonate with an older audience and remind them of their past
@@Surkk2960 The "somehow" was the film execs, and RoboCop's creator fought tooth and nail against it. The third movie was the peak of executive meddling and no one wants it to be canon. It was supposed to at most be for edgy teenagers after Verhoeven (I definitely spelled that wrong) quit because no one up there understood it was anti-consumerist and wanted to market it.
Side note, it being "marketed for kids" was probably how RoboCop 1's uncensored version aired on a saturday at 5 pm on public access TV when I was 12 and I gained a traumatic fascination with trans-humanism and exploration of what it means to be human. Thanks, society, for making the 12 years old get existential through a torture scene and roboticization.
@@neoqwerty That makes sense. Oh the joy of corporate meddling...
Yeah but Clint’s Hints is better than all these
You're right 😔
HOLY SHIT ITS HIM-
Nah Chip's Tips is where it's at. Literally can pet da dawg.
@@riskingrain1560I was thinking about that!
@riskingrain1560 I love Chip's Tips for never fully devolving into horror, it just carries the perfect vibe of fuzzy memories of old edutainment games.
something that particularly irks me about the whole mascot horror genre is that fnaf, the clear spearhead/origin point of the genre, didn't really feel like an explicitly child-centred game. at least not the first few games. sure, there isn't anything shown in the series that i would say explicitly harms children to see, but it was clear that children were not the originally intended target audience. they just happened to gravitate towards it and the series adjusted accordingly with time.
that's where i kind of end up losing the rest of the genre. a lot of them come in with the explicit goal of marketing to children and gaining that same hit of popularity as fnaf, without any other goals in mind. the original fnaf was a cool, experimental take on a pretty simple but (at the time) untapped idea. but before it was The mascot horror game, before it was this giant media franchise, it was just a cool and fun little game made by someone who at that point had given up on making games for children. obviously with hindsight we know now it's very popular with children, but it wasn't exactly at the forefront of its goals imo.
for me a lot of the mascot horror genre kind of boils down to a very cynical and annoying read on children, that being that they will fawn over anything so long as you make it "secretly" dark. there doesn't seem to be much passion for horror as an artform OR the potential of childhood ideas used in a horror setting from a lot of the devs jumping onto the genre. i'm certain some of them do, but most i see just seem to have no heart, no soul, no overlying goal or theme.
I mean, they took "oh look pizza place mascot but bad and scary" and ignore the more subtle parts or.... Pretty much anything other than the instantly visible things one sees from a short gameplay video. It tends to happen, especially if people wants to cash in a new popular thing so it got reduced to simply "mascot horror".
Hey just so you know amanda the adventurer is honestly pretty unique and probably even interesting if you give it a chance its also coming out with a sequel soon
So theres a good opportunity to look more into it/try it out it has a lot more effort than banban thats for sure
And is a lot more well written and designed to
I think a part of it is that these things aren't really _made_ for children, but rather the adults that grew up with these things. Some of the time, anyways. It's just usually an unfortunate side effect that children will latch onto these things. There is also consideration to be had for all of the weird kids of the world who will latch onto things that are very clearly not meant for them, like Five Nights at Freddy's. That was something that was very obviously meant for a nostalgic audience, that kids for some reason glommed onto, bc somehow the monsters that didn't hurt children were appealing. (Kind of interesting that the entire conceit of Security Breach is being a child that is actively being hunted down by these guys; but they have to remain the antagonists, I guess, and it changed things significantly by making Freddy into Gregory's himbo protector sidekick.) idk for sure what drew them in, just that it ultimately shaped the future of the genre, in ways that aren't necessarily positive, as you said. Granted a little horror here and there probably isn't harmful, as long as it's comparatively mild. After all, I feel like children are capable of enjoying a wide range of genres just as much as anybody else. There might even be some that have no idea it's horror and just know it from the toy lines and merchandise, or silly parodies on RUclips... or, worse perhaps than the actual source material, soulless, frequently fetish-mining content farms...
I hear you out but there's a few things I disagree with. While I agree that horror is a fine line to walk when it's presented for kids, the "why are we showing scary stuff to kids" feels along the same lines of "video games cause violence". I feel like quite a few mascot horror games, like Bendy, Banban, FNAF, etc do, do a good job toeing that line. It's kinda like Goosebumps or Coraline to a more mass scale. Both Coraline and Goosebumps is horror media presented for kids. Do I think that they are bad or evil or bad for kids? Not at all. I think that parental guidance with these genres should be considered, which unfortunately doesn't always happen, but is it really fair to say that kids just can't experience a lightly spooky game? When I play Bendy or FNAF today, I'm kind of surprised I was scared of them as a kid. But I think that's why its good and so popular, while it may secretly explore somewhat disturbing themes, what the kids see is something that to an adult would be like a slasher movie, something mildly scary that might keep them up a bit at night, but overall doesn't cause much harm. There are some controversial things to consider, like how intense Poppy Playtime has gotten as of recently, but I still think we should consider the fact that kids should be protected, but not to the extent of essentially isolating them from the world. I'm concerned about the sloppiness and lack of substance in most mascot horror games now, of course, but I think it's healthy to slowly introduce them to more mature topics. There needs to be a balance of course, but so far I've been keeping my eye on the mascot horror genre intensely, and its been pretty mild. A lot of the games little me wouldn't even be afraid of. I agree that the substance and quality needs to be improved, but the horror itself stays. We need to supervise and manage the level of maturity, not completely eliminate the genre because some games go a little too far. Why cut off the whole leg when cleaning the wound and bandaging it will do the job better?
Hello, I bring context for this game for anyone who wants it! I saw some people mentioning game jam and other short form game making events, so I wanted to add:
Marrs games are made by two people, that's all! Grant and his wife. Lovey Dovey, TFWLB, IFA and soon IFI as well as Mint's Hints are all products of two people writing, modeling and coding these games from scratch.
The mascot horror genre with its established pattern and beats was chosen specifically for those reasons because MH is the result of Grant teaching himself Unreal Engine, which is what he wants to use for Imaginary Friend Institute which is much bigger and more involved than it's predecessor, Imaginary Friend Asylum. Having a usable formula helped him to understand that game engine and now he plans to expand on the next chapter as he learns. MH is 99% Grant, including the video scenes, with his wife helping with writing and voicing.
The merch store was a form of passive income, and is included in all their active game series as it's currently their ONLY income. Originally it was to find the development of IFI, which is meant to be voice acted (by up and comings, not just the devs) and the IFA store has an artist share program where the profits are split between the devs and artists who submit art for merch. At the moment it's through a proxy service so there's a middle man cost to the products being sold as they don't have the space necessary to host their own inventory.
As it comes, the money became more necessary for survival, as they are/were affected by Hurricane Milton which, as one can imagine, put quite a road bump into the development path of any games they have.
If you don't like MH because it's "just another mascot horror" that's fine, but please don't judge them based on that alone. They do have other games! Mrs. Marrs is even planning to write some books set in the IFA universe to expand the lore and understanding of what the Friends are. 8-bit Ryan, SuperHorrorBro and GT live all have partial or full playthroughs of TFWLB and IFA that might be worth a look if you want more story and a unique tale on "asylum" horror/thriller/mystery content.
Please be kind to them. They got so very lucky with this hurricane that their home wasn't destroyed but the road to recovery will be long. Thank you ❤
I want to start off by saying that I FULLY agree with your points about Mascot Horror. I want to share an idea I had is sorta "mascot horror" game but the "monstrous mascots" are your allies, the opposite of the few games where the mascots are against you. But I don't know how to flesh it out more aside from an indoor liminal space (an abandoned indoor obstacle course) and the topic of Escapism.
I do like the idea of a mascot horror game where the mascots are (or become) your allies. Games like FNAF Security Breach, Indigo Park and while not a game, Angel Hare seem to explore this idea and I'd love to see it explored further.
@@shinyneko8136 I think My Friendly Neighborhood gave options to have allies, but my idea is that despite having a horrific backstory (that involves experimentation and having to kill their creators (not the mascot designers)), they remained as friendly as the characters they are based on to the player and letting them have a fun time in a dark place and help you escape.
I liked the concept of Mints Hints but Chapter 1 of the game felt like Garten of Ban Ban Chapter 1 where it could have been a demo or pilot instead and a mix of Poppy Playtime with what was shown at the end. ATP everyone should make their own version of Mints Hints just for the fun of it like people do with the concept of Sonic.Exe :]
we are not doing that shit again
@@rickanimationsnewchannelWhat?
Update: Also, Garten of Banban Reincarnated led to the creation of Indigo Park, so fanmade (or anti-fanmade) remakes could lead to creators branching out and making more original content.
I mean, it was free, so likely was meant veery much as a demo/sampler. Will say maybe more content might have been nicer of course
Indigo’s Indications sounds like it would be like that one Baldi's inspired game, advanced learning or something along those lines, could be a neat angle of approach.
I'd unironically buy a Garten of Banban toy if it were like those little rubber lizards our local Zoo sells, they're so adorably squishy and the toys you showed on screen look like they'd be great to experience in such a format.
Your version of Mint is so adorable, they look like you leaned pretty far into nailing the Blue's style which I find helps reinforce the gag further but also it's just generally a fun design, I do quite like the scrunkly evil version too, enough time and care put in to really push forth the gag and let's be real a lot of horror, even non-mascot, tend to get cold feet and either drag on for too long or don't commit.
Congrats on the extra traction and such all the same :)
I do wish you would have given your Mint the tail swishes you did in the actual animation though, you're just gonna sit there on a still frame with lens hairs adjusting and such in the background but not do the tail swishes? tsk tsk :p
I think the name was probably a coincidence ngl its not the most not to be harsh complex name
Neither Grant nor his wife seem to bring this up in the comments section, so maybe I'm off base here, but I'm sort of at a loss as to what would might lead to the assumption that this game is aimed at children..? I think my most likely confusion is that everyone has a different age range in their minds when they use the word "children," but to me, a "children" is a person 10 years or younger. Which is not to say anyone over the age of 11 isn't still a 'kid,' but that they are no longer the audience demographic associated with the idea of "children's media." To be honest, I don't know of very much "horror" made with absolutely only "children" in mind, that isn't either the "Disney Channel Halloween Special where no one actually gets hurt in the end" variety or the "oooooh its gorey and scary and super super twisted, but there aren't any serious or realistic consequences in the end" stuff. the latter of which tends to be made specifically with those kids that don't Want to feel like theyre being targeted as "children," in mind. And, while I know next to nothing about this video game, my guess would be that it wasn't Actually Made for "kids" or just not with children in Mind, or, that it Is made with one or both of those things in mind, and that it falls into that aforementioned category of media that is scary but treads carefully around anything that might be "too real." Which I think is actually an important option for kids to have. Without "horror" made with children who want to step outside of that box of things being made "for children," in mind, their only option is horror that is Not made for them; horror that doesn't have any reason to tread lightly around scary subjects or depictions that are Made to seem realistic- things a kid might not have gone into having been totally prepared for, given they're only reference up to that point would've been something like a Bluey episode discussing death or a Disney movie like Mulan.
Sorry this got so long, I'm very sleepy and not very succinct ^^'
In defense of the Chuck-e-Cheese part, I haven't set foot in one because my mother never wanted me to. The place didn't have the greatest reputation for starters, and money is a thing that needs to exists. Though I have seen Blue Clues, because my mother does care
i do believe there is more content for kids that's genuinely good than you're giving credit for. but none of them are the real titans popularity wise that these mascot horrors + bluey are. while i mainly know about the existence of these things through friends, there is some comfort is knowing they do exist
2:03 Only 3 of these things are actual GoBB characters (as in, actually from the games and not fanmade / bootleg ripoff / content farm originals). That, I believe, makes it worse.
These kids aren't even consuming the main thing anymore, it's all just fake gameplay animated by someone 'inspired' by the main thing's popularity to get easy money from kids watching it thinking it's real Banban. While GoBB was notorious for adding in new characters every chapter, it still has a relatively small cast compared to the twenty thousand new characters these "GARTEN OF BANBAN CHAPTER 387?!" youtube videos would have you believe. And it's not like they're original characters either. They're either copies of each other, stuff from the fancharacter wiki, or characters from other media that someone lied about being the "new leaked Banban character" that they scrambled to add into their thing before the actual next game came out. These plushies and figurines you find out in the wild aren't even the actual GoBB merch, it's all a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. And they're everywhere.
Adding this to my lovely Google slides how titled "how not to make a horror game."
(Because I geniunely want to make a horror game in the future)
Nice, gotta love that kind of dream goal.
I actually have a game idea that is a parody of bad indie horror games, but I’ll have the story unironically be peak fiction.
Some of these comments make me sad. I was there to hear and watch the game's development grow and I can't understand how people don't get that making EVERYTHING for a game down to coding is not easy. It can take hours to understand blender if you're not the best at understanding certain techy programs. While yes, people may not know of an original that exists, it is a simple mistake. But as long as the issue is dealt with in a mature and friendly manner, you don't get people making fun of something you worked on, regardless of how long it took.
I understand it can feel frustrating, but let's not normalize going after each other over our creations. This part is moreso aimed at the people who see this, it costs you nothing to be nice. Don't shit on someone's hard work. Because I bet if you were to sit down, voice act, code and make your own models from scratch without knowing how to use your programs, you'd not be having a good time, would you?
I hope both of your pillow sides are cold
Exactly. And I'm actually a FAN of Grant Marrs' TFWLB and IFA purely because of the characters and story.
Plus, and I keep saying this, NOTHING is completely original anymore. Everything has been already done. The most that you can do is put YOUR own creative twist on a concept and go from there.
I'm also tired of the whole "this person plagiarized something I made YEARS ago but never mentioned until now so that means they're a copycat" argument.
And the thing about FNAF and Bendy is that Mascot Horror originally was NOT for kids!!!! But now it is because it's easier to cash grab off a periphery audience I guess!!!!
This video reminded me of something I've been thinking about for some time: the world is becoming less and less child friendly.
How will we convince future generations to have kids if we're unable to provide them with the very best?
fr, I can’t imagine being a parent today. where do u go? what do u do? malls are dying, chuck e cheese is dying (p sure all the tickets are on cards anyway), mcdonalds playplaces are gone, etc. I can think of some occasional/special things like seeing a sports game or going to a theme park, but I can’t think of anything that’s like, wholly kid-friendly or kid-forward
@@rotisseriepossum
I mean I can't imagine at least being a parent in America anymore. This country is seriously going downhill compared to some of the rest of the world.
I agreed until you said that "For the Garten of Banbans there will be the Amanda The Adventurers". Amanda the Adventurer is actually nothing like Banban and imo has pretty interesting puzzles and gameplay but I suppose you wouldn't know that if you never played it
dude it hurt me somewhere i didnt even know i HAD when the new kinda "protagonist" friend of blue (which i have no problem with, they had to get someone new. i get that.) but what actually got me was that they used emails instead of the mailbox. and im pretty sure they used an ipad parody instead of a notepad
HELP- IM WITHERING AWAY LIKE A FLOWER IN THE SUN, BURNT TO ASH, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
DO LITTLE KIDS NOWADAYS NOT KNOW WHAT A REGULAR MAILBOX IS OR ARE THEY TRYING TO MAKE IT MORE RELATEABLE- EITHER WAY IT SCARES ME.
Bruh the joke made in less than an hour looks better than the entire game 😭😭😭
I’d like to start this comment with saying that I’m pretty sure that this is just a major instance of parallel thinking but there’s an earlier use of “Mint’s Hints” as a title for something and it’s used on a really shitty drawing from sgt frog abridged episode 8 which predates both the short and the game by 13 years
If I ever have children (and that’s a VERY big “if”) I already have some shows and movies in mind that I’d want to show them! Puffin Rock, Dinotrux, Transformers (Animated, Prime, and season 1 of Earthspark), Bluey, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Hilda, Maya And The Three, Carmen Sandiego (2019), Mune: Guardian Of The Moon, Song Of The Sea, and The Secret Of Kells are some I’d be so excited to show my extremely hypothetic and unlikely children lol
After watching Dakblake played this game, imo gameplay wise, Mint's Hints would've worked better as a point and click horror game since Mint's Hints is like Blue's Clues
stuff like this is why i wanna make children's books. I've made it my goal to Hopely have at least 1 book published before I'm 18
They look like Magic Mixies for some reason.
i have a small deer its covered in nostalgia for a past just to fell cosy s but it's got kids in mind
I already knew it was a copy, but I thought it was only an Amanda's rip-off
christmas branded blues clues
funnily the first game i've seen do it is chip's tips, manlybadasshero played it on his channel and i think that game has charm with it trying to replicate the old dos games to me, that and it does have charm of what blue's clues does
Honestly? I agree that kids shouldn't eat garbage, even if it's colorful. They deserve quality stuff, being it horror (as a former kid I would like to remind that some kids absolutely love spooky things) or other.
So, when I got a hint that my boss's kid loves all that mascot horror stuff I started recommending him (through my boss) some actually good things from my own childhood: some soviet cartoons (region specific), spirited away, all that stuff. And he absolutely loves it! He is mostly interested in monsters, so I chose cartoons with good visual designs and good morals, preferably about different cultures so that from the young age he was aware about that.
And if you have a young child in your life, I would encourage anyone reading this to do the same: don't shame them for their interests, but try to find something more healthy to be interested in. In years to come they'll understand themselves what was quality and what can be easily left behind.
Speaking of mascot horror, let’s see how Don’t Fret will turn out.
Or Finding Frankie (I actually wish I could visit that park shown in the trailers, it looks so fun)
I didn’t know you had a RUclips and I’ve been like a genuine fan for at least two or three years now wow
I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT
ME TOO. I HAD A SNEAKING SUSPICION
What are your thoughts on Indigo Park?
Ngl, i barely even saw it as a proper horror game, it almost seemed self aware of how stupid it is
03:50 im sorry I had to retake what is being said here lmaoooo
me nodding: ah, the mandopony
Dear god not that damn creep again-
I just wanna say that from the outset one thing that makes both your and the game version of Mint's Hints look infinitely better than the majority of the "mascot horror" genre is the fact that both did a good job of capturing the vibe of Blue's Clues before twisting it. Crap like Banban is just nonsensical globs, while Fnaf and Poppy keep even their "normal" designs a bit too creepy. In a way that highlights just how bad the situation is with kids media that people are infinitely more imterested in designing horror parodies of child friendly characters than actually making anything good for kids.
I feel like it’s kind of unfair to trash talk Amanda and compare it to banban when it’s probably the least cashy grab of the games you listed.
Do you think Scott Cawthon looks at the modern video game scene like Oppenheimer?
I want to say something and I mean nothing bad by it so you confused me when you listed games from good to bad. When you mentioned Amanda The Adventure you put as worse that BanBan. Which I don’t agree with as It has no merch and in terms of story it has one victim making it easy to sympathize and fell bad for her. And while it is inspired by Dora the Explorer it doesn’t fell like I’m watching a Dora parody. Look I’m sorry if this comes across as hate or mean spirited in any way. I’m just passionate about a game I like and genuinely want to know your opinion on the game
it also has really unique game mechanics compared to other mascot horror
yea true I think this person put it as worse than BanBan since she didn't knew nothing about it.
@@lime86 ok makes sense
@@Shadowonwater yes thank you
Ok so i just remembered this recently and this is gonna be kind of an obscure pull, on RUclips there's an abridged series for the anime Sgt Frog/Keroro Gunsou, and in Episode 8 of the abridged series the line "Mint's Hints" Is used at least two times and funny thing about that is the fact that the characters in abridged episode decide that that's what their gonna name their show in an episode where they make their own cartoon. When i first saw the mint's hints game i immediately felt like i remembered hearing the name before and just upon watching this video i finally remembered that it was from this stupid funny abridged series that came out 13 years ago.
Never thought I’d see Sgt frog here
Fun Fact: Mint and Fuchsia are foxes, not cats.
doesn't mean that the game didn't copy or rip her off, usually people who want to get away with taking credit for other's ideas will change something up but otherwise keep everything else the same.
@@hansoap4658I hope you saw the pinned comment and the comments below it
@@EddisdeddDoesn't change anything tbh, I just don't believe two people came up with the same idea and similar designs one to one. He had to have seen her video and probably just got a bit inspired. But it's not my creation, nor am i gonna argue in the comments over what i think. I've already said what I said and at the end of the day, the game looks like another cash grab and is disappointing based on his other games.
@@hansoap4658
well
mint
rhyme with hint
and cat colour?.,......mint
@@lenondenonstill sus.
Dang, ur ver of Mint looks way cuter than the game
...
I wanna talk abt my problem with MOST mascot horror (not all of it)
Basically, the products that they are selling are usually really creepy, kids (well mostly the parents) wouldn't wanna buy a toy or watch the show if the characters look like...that.
Which is why I like dandys world (boo at me if you want, I like the game lol) cause the characters look like something in a kids show, friendly and full of personality
In contrast, poppy playtime...
I don't know much about the game lore, but the toys look very off putting and bad in general.
Sometimes, it does work, fnaf has animatronics, and animatronics before weren't exactly..the greatest in their looks.
So what do I have to say for mints hints (the game)
...
The colors are WAY too saturated, the characters are very off putting, even before their spooky versions, and the enviroment for the actual game look like hyperpop done wrong.
Its in beta sure, but I don't have high hopes
With Poppy playtime chapter 4 apparently being just the Critters again, I have realized that they don’t care about story, just what appeals to kids and content farms.
There were so many other toys they could have used for chapter 4 (Bron, Catbee, Boogie Bot, Boxy Boo), and other toy ideas that would have had so much potential (Action figure series, Furby knock off, one of those toy phones you pull, blindbox army, War propaganda product, nesting doll), but no, they chose more critters because they did well.
Also I played Dandy’s world (That problematic dev, Rox, got fired, so that inclined me to play it), and it’s fun! I love their designs!
@@Cubeytheawesome Yippe another dandys world fan :D (off topic but who ur fave toon? Mine is shelly)
and yea, makes sense why their using the critters, it became a super popular content farm which kids like because thats the garbage they've been exposed too =w=
Tbh I have a sort love hate relationship with mascot horror because there are some genuine fun games in it but its quickly become the Elsagate of gaming content.
It also isn't helped that any game that's sorta creepy and has a potentially marketable character(s) gets lumped into that by default so even if you make a game for adults and/or with no intent to sell merch. Like not only will people assume its a lazy cash grab you WILL get kids on your page begging you to sell plushies to them (I wish the latter was a joke but that's basically what happened to currently in development mascot horror game called Indigo Park).
Honestly makes me think of amazing digital circus getting lumped into that genre.
I saw halloween costumes of the TADC characters in spirit halloween store...I have alot of thoughts on it and they're not positive at all..
@@sh00t1ngst4rzz fair enough.
Yeah I JUST saw a video on the game and I was kinda urked a bit. It reminded me of garten of ban ban in the way the graphics looked. I do enjoy both of the Mints though, cats and foxes are so adorb ❤
This is a bit uh off topic but i dont like seeing amanda being lumped into mascot horror. Its a commentary on how children, especially black children are exploited in media. Anyway... This video is like super well done. I enjoyed mints a bit but its just ehhhhhh. Your art is so damn fire too
To say it doesn’t reference mascot horror would be a mistake tho, it clearly references Dora the explorer, the difference is that they actually decided to put some thought into their story and didn’t just make it a scary game for kids to make money
Thanks for sharing! 😊
the only "mascot horror" I respect is the bendy franchise as its managed to make its sequal into something so different and separated its self from mascot horror and made its self into a masterpiece ... NOW ITS GETTING A FILM!!!
This crap isnt even scary anymore.(Talking about maskot horror not your mint cat)
Is mints hints related to blues clues?
Mints hints is what Amanda the Adventurer is to Dora the Explorer. A Parody
i think it's a lil too convenient that they went with the same name and similar color pallet even though yeah it could be a coincidence but it's too much of a looks like it was copied to be one. If you place the two mints side by side you can clearly see your idea was the inspiration, there's no way they just randomly decided to oh let's give this fox character a heart shaped nose also and strictly only use mint and white as their color choice instead of possibly different shades.
If that's the case then Grant better give me some of that sticker money!
I mean to be fair mint is one Color lmaoo but it is very sus there’s also the coincidence that there is another mint fox in media rn and that’s slushie from the chikin nugget series
@@RotheAlien True about Slushie but comparing her with these two isn't really a comparison since if her design was placed next to these two, you can see that she stands out on her own.
@ the youtuber/artist- Disclaimer! I love your art, ideas, and amazing character design skills very much- Your style is one that I adore so much so no hate @ all‼️You keep doing you 🫰🫰
BUT- 😭😭 If y'all (this is probably just moreso towards the people in this comments section but if you wanted to read it then ye🫰) think "Mint's Hints" is original then it might be time to take a good look around 😭😭 That's prob one of the most unoriginal/WAY too easily thought up ideas I've heard & it's wild people think it's something so "never done before" so much?? Sorry if it sounds harsh/rude- But the amount of specifically CAT OCs that are mint&white colored (even I've made some YEARS ago) is literally endless let alone other animals being the exact same colors and also probably being named Mint 😭 +The Blue's Clues themed horror game has definitely been done before _repeatedly_. So it was only a matter of time that people combined the two and they probably still will even after your's & this guy's game! Seeing as how "Mints Hints" specifically has also ALREADY been thought of _& done_ before BOTH of y'all did em is pretty proof enough 😭🪦
The character design definitely isn't anything new but I'd like to think the simplicity & generic-ness is the point of the parody Jane made & the game that this guy made (after reading the pinned comment & seeing how they purposely didn't work too hard on it/wasn't passionate abt it(?)). Not to make any1 feel unoriginal or lacking in their own skills ofc but yeah-If it was easily thought of/took little to no effort in thinking of for you then I can almost guarantee it was probably thought up by at LEAST 30+ other people 😭😭 (Seeing how there's biLLIons out there-isn't uncommon for more than a couple people to have the same idea) It's probably just moreso a matter of who DOES it first/gets seen DOING it first probably?? Unsure but yeah- Definitely shouldn't immediately go accusing people of "stealing ideas" or designs when there's no very evident clear signs of it/of course when the ideas & designs are SO,,,,,s o,,, easily thought up,,,🪦
"Their design looks jUst like mine & they have same name" is definitely valid and all!! & Don't be afraid to confront people/question things ofc- But good lord probably not for the very generic pastel colored animal character named after the color they are in a game about them 😭 If that makes sense🫰
Again no hate‼️Just thought this for some reason needed to be pointed out 🫰😭 Hope I didn't come off as too rude or smth- Much support & love still to y'all, my fellow artists💞🥹
(PS just a note-please don't lump in games like Amanda The Adventurer with high-key low effort, souless, 100% lost-plot, "just an endless cash grab" type games like GARDEN OF BANBAN again bc dkHdj wTh,,, Uncalled for,,,😭 I've watched both be played & gOodness-Ik Amanda ain't some master piece ofc but at least they actually put work & care into it🪦🪦)
I literally say this in the video ☠️☠️☠️
Oh yeah! Let's just spit into game devs and writers hard work because "ooOOoh this is just like a FNAF rip off!!"
Talking about Amanda the Adventurer here. I'm not saying your video doesn't make sense but you literally picked any half-famous indie game and kicked it under the curb with snarky comments and passive-aggressive pessimism. That's really bold of you to try to criticize something you didn't even give a chance to.
Just a little add-on after reading Grant's comment that you didn't even give yourself the TROUBLE to actually play the game and said it was a copy of your 2-second effort video even though you yourself pointed out that it was not a very original or hard to come up idea when trying to parody Blue's Clues. BRUH.
It's just like if you made a video essay talking about a book you saw in the book store once and never even opened. Yikes.
It seems you've missed my point.
@JaneGumball nah bro i agree yikes, especially for putting Amanda under Banban 💀💀💀
I agree looking more into things if your gonna make such a sweeping statement when it comes to games you have allegedly looked into.
But maybe my standards are set too high when looking at people who actually research before yapping.
Why are you comparing Amanda to Ban Ban. They’re nothing alike. 😭
The point is they wouldn’t exist without the subgenre fnaf popularized, I’m not saying they’re literally the same
From what I’m comprehending you imply lowered quality. At (1:30), you say copies of copies of copies of RUclips horror games exist, then you compare fnaf to poppy playtime, and garten of Banban to Amanda the adventurer. Which besides the genre, are games that are too different to list like that. Also, you are saying they’re the same by literally calling them copies. Am I misunderstanding??
Where can I find the show?
You’re taking this surprisingly well 💀 while yes two people can come to the same conclusion there ain’t no way bro didn’t at least see your vid and have the idea in the back of his mind when he made the dumpster fire game.
In that case I will have to set up child support payments with Grant
@@JaneGumball make him pay so much alimony!!!
Oh the joy of convergent ideas :3
Coincidence aside, yes, kids deserve better stuff than the brainrot being fed to them nowadays by lazy corpos out to make a quick buck.
Not to say all the devs who make the "mascot horror" genre are bad, but the ones who are you can at least see the major telltale signs * -banban- *
''brainrot content'' (mostly creators like lankybox and generally content farms) have led me to reach a breaking point of sorts where i now want to try writing a hypothetical kids show just to be something better for kids to watch. im not the best at writing and im still pretty bad at dialogue especially but i do have the ideas for the characters and premise that i think could genuinely work. i think the fact that i as a 16 year old am able to genuinely make work with more passion and effort put into it than a lot of content farms on youtube today really says something
(btw this comment is not directed at mints hints or the creators of it, i read the pinned comment and dont have anything against the creators of the game)
the only good garten of banban charcter is..
JUMBO JOSH BRAH!
Nah, I'd say Stinger Flynn, Sherriff Toadstar, and Bittergiggle are the only good BanBan characters.
This thing somehow uses 80 to 90 percent of my RTX 4070, what the actual fuck is going on? No LoD system, that's legit. If it's trying to mine crypto, run a botnet for something, or just doing it to look like it's a "demanding game," let the 34th rule of the internet go to town on Mint's Hints.
Oh!
2:14 Where's the imagination? Where's the inspiration??? WHERE'S THE JUMBO JOSH??????
I have to say that the copie claims are parnetally true there are indeed copies like muzzy and stuff but it’s just insparetion
I think you mixed up the last 2 ban ban should be LAST. Bc there’s no effort being put into it!!!!!!
I'm 19 I enjoy watching horror games but marketing horror games for kids I don't agree with it
I agree with your argument. Mascot horror games like Garten of Banban and Muzy can be so derivative and unappealing. Just a lazy cash grab scheme.
Things like Poppy Playtime to me feel very "horror slop first" rather than like media that actually feels like its era. Like no, Huggy Wuggy does not look like a "Tickle Me Elmo", he looks like he was designed for horror first. Poppy looks more like a 2010s minidoll like LOL Surprise or a blindbox figure than a 50s plaything.
Unlike the FNAF ones that seem more unintentionally scary, especially the more toylike takes.
I Knew it!
God that yellow room destroyed my eyes 😭
Also the look of mint and fusha ruin the vibe both for the blues clues rippff vibe and horror vibe in general. They look more like littlest pet shop or bratz characters than mascots for a children's I spy show. Or y'know V tubers considering that one drawing on the wall in one of room shows them i think so its easy to see that as an inspo. They're just not scary and they feel so out of place IN THEIR OWN GAME.
That's what I thought too when looking at the foxes, they reminded me more of littlest pet shop rather the actual show it's parodying off of, funny enough all the other talking objects do actually seem to have some actual inspo off of Blue's Clues, it's just the foxes. But my guess it's probably of the character designer's actual style being used that may be inspired of things like Littlest Pet Shop or Bratz that just happened to leak through I guess. :/
2:13 these are bootlegs, most of the characters here arent even real
The fact I couldn't tell is pretty rough ☠️
Damn, typical game developers stealing from other creators.
Oh Jesus Chris yep the merchandise is fake and it’s bad
I’m sorry your thing was stolen
To be completely fair there are ways to arrive at having a concept called “mints hints” based on blues clues, but that was kinda the point. I think its just funny that I predicted it ☠️
Me make own horror game analog horror My game name Incident and me know you think you think is mascot horror games my game not mascot horror games really my Nightmares my Nightmares me make game About my Nightmares is old Lady skin Blue white hair Deer eyes black
Oh know pls take action this is not right
Who pays $12.00 for 3 inch stickers?
I can’t tell whether the internet making bad furry bait and calling it “horror” is funny or just sad
Why can't it be both?
i like mints hints the cat is sexy as fuck
WHAT
5:45 ALL THE CARTOONS ON TV BESIDES BLUEY ARE ACTUAL SLOP FAMILY GUY BEING AN EXCEPTION BECAUSE IM ACTUALLY AN ADULT AND IT CATERS TO MY HUMOR
No as there’s way more different shows. The only shows you know are family guy replica ones. There’s some that already are finished and nothing like family guy so I recommend you to watch non family guy replicas if you don’t like them.