My Friendly Neighborhood

About

My Friendly Neighborhood is a 2023 mascot horror and survival horror video game in which the player finds themselves on the abandoned set of a children's show now populated by aggressive puppets. The game was released in July 2023.

History

On July 18th, 2023, video game developer John Szymanski released^[1] My Friendly Neighborhood, a survival horror / mascot horror video game set in an abandoned production studio for a formerly popular puppet show (launch trailer shown below).

Gameplay and Features

In My Friendly Neighborhood, the player plays as a repairmen sent to an abandoned production studio of the formerly popular morning puppet show, Our Friendly Neighborhood! The game is a survivor horror where the player has a limited number of resources to deal with the enemies, and is often tasked with solving puzzles to progress further (gameplay video shown below).

The game features a grid-based real-time inventory inspired by the Resident Evil survival horror series.

Reception

Upon release, the game received positive reviews from the audience. On Steam,^[2] the game had a 95 percent approval rating with over 150 reviews as of July 19th, 2023.

Fandom

In 2022, a demo version of the horror game gained popularity with Let's Play YouTubers, including JackSepticEye and Markiplier. For example, a gameplay video by Markiplier, uploaded on June 29th, 2022, accumulated over 4.6 million views in one year (shown below, right).

Upon release, the game drew attention online as a part of the larger Mascot Horror discourse at the time. On July 18th, 2023, Arsi "Hakita" Patala, creator of Ultrakill tweeted^[3] about the game and gained over 360 retweets and 3,500 likes in one day (shown below, left). Later that day, Kane Carter, creator of POPGOES, a Five Nights at Freddy's fangame, tweeted^[4] about the mascot horror subgenre, using My Friendly Neighborhood as an example of a properly made mascot horror game (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References