Toy Box sounds like a very Christmas-themed game, but then you watch the trailer and realize that it’s not very Christmassy at all. It’s a free visual novel with a macabre, mysterious element. The setup is such that you are a toy inspector working for the jovial Great Toy Maker whose face is hidden above the top of the screen. Your task is to dismantle the toys – five in all – according to his bizarre written instructions and either “save” them or “condemn” them to the incinerator.
Toys can be “contaminated” because they appear to be alive. They talk to you and share their memories when you separate them. The obvious thing is to save them all – after all, who would throw a miniature talking ballerina into an oven? But toys aren’t pretty. They talk about suffering and anger, darkness and blood. Some of them have glowing eyes and teeth. And then there’s the mystery of the Great Toy Maker, who returns periodically to evaluate your choices. “It is extremely important that inspectors take care of the image of the Creator,” he explains Steam pagenot very reassuring.
From what I’ve played, the spookiness of Toy Box is partly just the basic eeriness of toys, the gray area they inhabit between objects and companions, though it’s possible that the ultimate and simpler twist is the possession of these strange decorations. The game doesn’t feel gratuitous or pornographic in its approach to the above themes, but it’s certainly disturbing: the worst of Pinocchio with generous support from FNAF and Thomas Ligotti.
Developers DEADline Studios is a “small POC and queer-owned studio” that “strives to convey stories about what it means to be human and delve deeper into the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.” There’s plenty of the latter here. Their other projects include: A fool’s paradisea satirical horror visual novel with romantic elements.
I’m writing about Toy Box partly because it’s been a while since I last had to stop playing a horror game, and partly because I think the premise of telling a story by disassembling objects is great and I’d like to see more of it. It doesn’t have to be horror related – the closest comparison I can think of right now is Hardspace: Shipbreaker. Which I guess is a pretty terrible game with its depiction of slavery and self-cloning, but at least these spaceships aren’t begging for mercy when you dismantle them.
