Review: Hello Neighbor (2017)

★★

If any of you were active on the internet between the years 2016-2017, you might've remembered the wonky production behind "Hello Neighbor." In late 2016, tinyBuild, the publisher, were handing out free keys to the pre-alpha to many YouTubers. The pre-alpha didn't offer much, but it certainly capture the attention of many YouTubers and gamers. Which I concur to that, the game had an interesting concept. It goes as follows, you, the player, have this suspicious neighbor who is hiding something in your basement and it's your job to find out what is down there. But getting in isn't easy. The door is locked with planks and a keycard slot. The hammer/crowbar and keycard aren't hard to find, avoding the neighbor is a challenge. The neighbor was programmed with advance AI that gets smarter each time you get caught. It has three phases, idle, hunt, and attack. The idea of the game was supposed to be a horror type game. With a load chase music, advance AI mechanics for the neighbor and spooky assets. However, after each alpha, the game got less and less interesting and boring. The game went backwards in terms of development.

The final game consits of three different acts. In Act 1, you play as a young boy investigating his neighbor's strange behavior, sneaking into his house to uncover secrets. Act 2 sees you trapped in the neighbor's basement, only to escape into a more bizarre, trap-filled version of the house as the tension rises. By Act 3, you return as an adult to confront your past, with the neighbor's house now a twisted fortress, leading to a climactic reveal of the dark secrets hidden within.

Act 1 was probably the better act, but Acts 2, and 3 felt like a joke. Why did DynamicPixels and tinyBuild decide to make the house bigger, with difficult puzzles, and the neighbor either being stupid or annoying? I don't know why. My guess is that tinyBuild wanted the game to be longer, so they increased the difficultly on the puzzles and split the game into three acts. And three acts too long, they were. Cause as I played through them, I got bored and wanted to fall asleep. But let's address the elephant in the room. The plot. What a confusing plot. It seems tinyBuild wanted to compete with Five Night's at Freddy's by adding lore to the game. But there was one problem. Fnaf's lore was interesting because it wasn't forced onto the game. Scott Cawthon included bits and pieces into each game which got people interested. DynamicPixels and tinyBuild just forced it in by making convoluted as possible. I can't tell you how many YouTuber's i've seen were annoyed and upset with the confusing lore. What's worse, is that tinyBuild kept tweeting out to MatPat to make a theory video about it. You know your game sucks when the publisher has to beg someone to make a video about it.

Going back the game's production history. The game really felt like a horror game up until Alpha 3. Once Alpha 4 came up, the game felt less like a horror game and just kind of like a puzzle game. The game was intended for adults, but tinyBuild decided to make it for kids because of its many spin-off games, books, TV show, and comics. This goes back to my point about tinyBuild desperately trying to compete with "Fnaf." Which is why I don't fully blame DynamicPixels for result of the game. Their publisher, tinyBuild is the one making all the decisions. So, if you're wanting to play this, just stick to Alpha 1, or any of the previous ones.