...

This time I played Piglet's Big Game. After seeing this tweet, my girlfriend wanted to play through this game, and so we did! It was more interesting than I expected, considering it's a children's horror adventure game in the vein of Silent Hill and Resident Evil.

The game is a loose adaptation of the film Piglet's Big Movie, which I have not seen, and the game is only slightly concerned with making sure you get what it's about. Piglet leaves the Hundred-Acre-Wood due to him being afraid of a monster that only he saw. He comes across a telescope that lets him enter the dreams of his friends and help them with their problems, gradually gaining the confidence/bravery to become the hero he believed he could never become. The telescope part feels like it comes out of nowhere in the story, unless the game accidentally skipped a cutscene (might've been an emulator error, there were slight glitches here and there), but it's not hard to get the gist of the game.



Each character's dream is its own level where you solve basic lock and key inventory puzzles to help characters with their problems. Along the way you will be kicking various objects in the environments to collect cookies, with a few being quite a challenge to find. They also fly very far, so it's hard to get them before they disappear, requiring you to kick the object again and hope they land in a close and reachable place… In terms of obstacles there's wandering enemies known as Heffalumps and Woozles, elephants and weasels respectively, that chase Piglet down once in line of sight. To get rid of them, Piglet must face them down and do a small series of button presses to make a scary face, not quite a rhythm game since there's no rhythm, but timed as the enemies gradually get closer and if they reach Piglet will scare him. A cute way of turning "Face your fears" into a game mechanic. Get scared three times and its game over, which doesn't matter much other than starting at the beginning of a level. To heal you must touch a Cristopher Robin balloon, where he will comfort Piglet.



Later dreams introduce more difficult enemies, sometimes requiring you to complete the button press series when they're vulnerable, rotating the screen, hiding the button presses, or even changing them. You can increase your power by buying new scary faces with your cookies. By these later stages you usually are either getting as much distance before engaging combat, or just outright ignoring them if it isn't necessary to progress. There's also segments where you control characters like Tigger and Pooh with stealth or chase sequences. They can be pretty difficult because of how slow they are, or I'm just impatient. Emulation fast forward was used a lot throughout this game, especially with the back and forth for inventory puzzles. At least they're all straightforward. My girlfriend and I are currently playing through RE7, and while this is easier, they're honestly not that different in terms of structure.



More than its gameplay similarities, what's giving the game social media notoriety is its similarity in atmosphere to those survival horror classics, especially in the mansion of Eeyore's dream and library of Owl's dream. With its tracking shots, combination of silence and creepy tunes, and genuinely strange mood at times, it's a well-earned reputation, probably just the right level of creepy for children. It's not all scary though, there is still a good amount of brighter, happier environments.



While turning Winnie the Pooh into a horror game seems strange, it resulted in something more unique than something more conventional would be. Fits well with other children's horror games like Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland or Luigi's Mansion.