I Completely Rebuilt Hello Neighbor From The Ground Up! 

Thumbnail was a combined effort by BarBADroid and GamesPofficial! Massive Thanks to Them!

I think Tinybuild will enjoy dissecting this frame by frame 👀

yeah the old concept trailer's realism was one of the things that made it scary, the hello neighbor at release was cartoony and abstract

If anyone interested, there is a video on RU-vid in russian where tinybuild CEO talks about how they intentionally made this game's lore to lead in one direction, and then completely changed it to keep the discussion going. His presentation is full of these marketing moves that they used, and that's kinda both impressive and disappointing

I've always been under the mindset that if TinyBuild just decided to take a bunch of time and reboot Hello Neighbor entirely with polish, they could still salvage everything, they're just too lazy to do that

I wish Hello Neighbor was like Alpha 1 or like Pre-Alpha.

Where it went wrong is simple: it's what happens when a publisher takes control of the direction of the franchise rather than them letting the creators make the game they actually fucking wanted (and promised) to make.

now THIS is how hello neighbor SHOULD have been!!!!! personally i watched aaronsaywhat play all the alphas (and get put on the cereal box!!!!) and those were SO MUCH FUN but then the final build came out and it was so.. underwhelming i definitely think your changes would make it a MUCH more enjoyable experience

Dude, letting people build their own maps is just the best. osu!, Terraria, Geometry Dash... None of those games would've been as big or live as long if it weren't for their mapmaking abilities.

This is honestly a really good idea for a Hello Neighbor reimagining, it’s more coherent and less messy. I think it’d be better if the Full Game had Pre Alpha or Alpha 2 Styled Graphics. The AI modifications make things more balanced. I’d think it’d be better if there was no double jump because it would be simpler and make things not easier unlike the shoulder bash which has a risk of alerting Peterson. The Final Boss rewrite where the player controls the Peterson and saves Nicky from The Thing is a great rewrite to make the story more coherent. It’s nice combination of the Full Game and The Alphas. It also reminds of a mod where you save the neighbor and kill The Thing resulting in an older Peterson revisiting Nicky.

Bro took "fine, I'll do it myself" to another level

I honestly think that hello neighbour story and the themes it has throughout are the strongest part of the original game. The story of hello neighbour is one about fear, and how it can affects ones actions. Before the crash, Mr Peaterson had a great life, but after it, he went into a depression, and was unable to help his own children process their own grief, leading to his son killing his daughter by pushing her off the roof. Mr Peaterson locks his son away in his basement both because of anger, but also because he is afraid of losing the only bit of his family he has left, and then once the player almost finds out his secret, he locks him in there two, he didn't want to risk his secret getting out.This then tramatises the player for the rest of their life until they go back to that family home, and ultimately comes to terms with what happened, choosing to no longer live in fear. I think changing the fear monster into being a literal other worldly monster kinda ruins the symbolism because it no longer becomes a story about the effect of fear and instead becomes another story simply about mosters, spirits, and white middle age men who work in or around children's entertainment committing violent crimes against children.

15:14 Fun Fact: There is actually a Hello Neighbor Builder on the Epic Games Store. You can include a bunch of locks, doors, and locks, and doors… did I mention the locks?

The only thing I completely disagree with are the powers and a bit of the art style. I’d just remove them entirely, they really don’t do anything good for the gameplay and just make NO SENSE…And as for the art style, I’d rather go back to the Pre-Alpha style where the character is cartoony but the world around it is more rough and scary, it sorta contrasts well and doesn’t feel like Mr. Peterson just meshes with its background (if that makes sense) I also just don’t think the HN art style works well for the horror aspect, but the Pre-Alpha one always makes me feel anxious, especially with the lighting! Though, I do think a shoulder-bash power of would work better as a mechanic rather than a power. Bro just finds Mr. Petersons training tape or smth lmfao

3:33 Also makes sense he'd only have so many resources to distribute. Could apply same to cameras also.

i think matpat is going to cover this frame by frame

Funny thing about the Abilities, In The Development Of Hello Neighbor Mainly In The Beta Phase, there Was Not Just 3 But Actually 5 Abilities The Player Can Get, The Double Jump From Fear Darkness,The Super Throw From Fear Factory,The Hiding In Crouch Ability From Fear Supermarket,The Double Lives Kind of ability from Fear School and a Unknown Ability From Fear Hospital, Unfortunately We Never Got Those Fully, and They Are Just laying Around In The Game Files

I personally think the early popularity was both a boon and it’s downfall. People ran out of stuff to do in the early builds so they started breaking the game by stacking boxes and making weird jumps, and those videos got views, so the devs started incorporating those things into the game. But while it’s fun to watch a video where someone made a huge box stack to get to a new zone, actually creating one and using it when the physics engine really doesn’t support that gameplay is aggravating. And the way to keep the theorists talking is to keep changing the lore.

9:58 The way a grin slowly fades onto The Thing's face is so eerie. It's like it's thinking "Heh heh, I knew you would say that. They always do..."

I agree with everything except the lore part in act 4. Explaining that this was the past you got right, but the point of the cardboard cutouts represents the daughter and son are alive and not turned into carboard. The mother was an exception since she died in a car crash. If you seen act 2 secret minigame Mr. Peterson's son, pushed her off the edge causing her death. And this also proves my point in Hello Neighbor Hide and Seek. After a bit, Mr. Peterson's son became reckless and that caused his father to lock him in the basement as a punshment. And that you can say for Mr. Peterson's past. As for the shadow, that was for the protaganist has to deal with, not the neighbor. And that I will only change on but I like how you change a few stuff to make since.

We all know he built his house with galvanized square steel covered in eco friendly wood veneers

We gotta make this a real fangame

I think matpat will enjoy this👀

Just want to say Hello Builder would just be the modkit the game already has for free but also nice video! The ideas and editing is good. 🔥

I feel like you should have changed the mechanics. My least favorite part of Hello Neighbor at launch was the fact that in act 3, you had to stack boxes to get anywhere, and it felt more like a platformer than a puzzle game. I'm fine with the house being big, but this game's jumping physics were not made for the game to become a platformer.

I just gotta say that, a distinct artstyle does not mean that is pretty o appealing, or even pleasing to the eyes. Different is not always good. I do agree with the rest of the video tho.

I'm vibing with a lot of what was said in this video. This is awesome. Although I do have a few more ideas and some contradicting some of yours. -It seems you haven't mentioned the problem of having to solve complicated puzzles while also having to deal with a dude who runs after you 24-7. It's frustrating having to focus on these things but also have a guy forcing you to run around the house at random. This issue was mentionned by many people and Matpat even said once that the puzzles of Hello Neighbor 2 were cool, but it'd be much more fun if they, and I quote: *removed the Neighbor entirely*. The balance between puzzle-solving and sneak-from-your-neighbor is a problem that really puts some dirt on the concept of Hello Neighbor. They tried fixing it in multiple ways in the following games: make puzzles easier, make puzzles harder, make the Neighbor do nothing when he catches you, make the Neighbor reset the whole map if you get caught, etc. From all these things, I learned that the possible solutions to fix the balance without having to completely rework the gameplay of Hello Neighbor are the following. If you want to have complicated puzzles, you need to have a Neighbour who is generally easy to avoid and doesn't check on you very often. This is what made the VR game so enjoyable. Puzzles were not too easy (but not complete madness like the main game), but the Neighbor really wasn't a threat in this game. For example, he doesn't check certain rooms dedicated to complicated puzzles like the garage. If you made a really loud noise, the Neighbor would barrel toward the room and search the environment before eventually chilling. Sure, the Neighbour didn't have a complicated AI, but I somehow found myself enjoying the game better like this. And solving the puzzles felt more smooth and rewarding as well. If you want to have a threatening the Neighbor, you need the puzzles to be really simple and straightforward. Even a fetch quest could work. Think of Hello Neighbor 2. I found the puzzles of the sequel too easy in this one and wouldn't have minded the Neighbors to be smarter here. That way the player would have enough focus to both avoid the bad guy and solve the simple puzzles in the house. Let's look at another indie game that uses both puzzles and stealth: Bendy. In Bendy in the Ink Machine, you did have a few puzzles that required a bit of thinking. But y'know the big difference between this and Hello Neighbor? *You're not constantly harassed by an AI trying to kill you*. And when there is, the task is usually either a fetch quest or reach a switch without getting caught. - I personally think the developers could have gone through a different direction instead of giving out abilities. When I played this ability and found myself stuck in the basement, I looked up a guide and went: "... what? Abilities? Invisibility? Since when was that a thing? I thought this game was about sneaking into a guy's house." I'd be much more okay with this if those were optional and made Act 3 longer by simply adding more padlocks to the basement rather than those challenges that checks if you unlocked those abilities. It fits the game better this way. And if you really want variety to the game, you could instead replace the abilities with special tools that can, for example, break doors down. These could be mandatory for puzzles and still make sense in the gameplay. -Please don't hurt me for this, but there is something about the artstyle of the first game that doesn't quite match the genre. The cartoony artstyle is based on (I'm assuming) the imagination of a child. The furnitures and objects all look like they were made from a child's drawings with the mixture of simple shapes (squares, triangles and circles). That's an interesting idea, given the plot of a child's trauma, but problem is: it doesn't necessarily fit the genre of Hello Neighbor which was meant to be a game about trespassing rather than, like you said, a quest to conquer fear. Trespassing is supposed to be a dangerous thing to do, so the artstyle should contribute to the atmosphere. That's not to say they should change the artstyle entirely, given that it does have some originality to it, but perhaps give it a certain corruption to it. Like a child's imagination gone wrong, twisted by the traumas from an early childhood. As of now, the colours of Hello Neighbour are flashy and bright, which honestly takes away any creep factor in the atmosphere. -I seriously lost you when you went over the new lore for Hello Neighbor. Although, I will agree the current plot for the main game is not interesting, I think the lore of the game is fine the way it is. It's just the way it was presented with mostly everything taking place in the player's mind or a pocket dimension. This may be a very biased opinion, but I think what makes the current Hello Neighbor lore so approachable is how simple it is. When going over to different gaming communities, I learned that there were people actually interested in the current lore of Hello Neighbor, saying it's simple to understand. I personally lost interest in the story when Matpat said that the Neighbor could be working with a devil or sth. I didn't like the idea of things diving into the supernatural. (Also, in 14:08, that is just the player's old model). I think the game could have made the story better if Act 3 simply had clear clues onto what was going on with the Neighbor and how his story connects to the Player's story. That would have been enough imo. Also, I'll be honest with you, you are the only person I know who thinks Act Finale fits the game. I don't really see how. This final boss doesn't connect to anything you've learned along the journey, like how final bosses should. I will say though this whole essay of a comment took only a 10 minutes of analysing. Please do not take this as like an expert's opinion. I'm going to assume that you have taken more time to analyse this game than I did, even though I've been sticking with the HN community all the way. If you've read all the way here, thank you so much for listening and I'd be glad to know what you think of my opinions. Keep up the good work!

hello neighbor 2 seemed like it had the setup for a better story, i liked the direction of a whole town, or at least, the whole nearby neighborhood being in some type of weird cult and they're all in on it

15:33 they did that with secret neighbor (w and fun game btw)

Remember, the neighbor doesn't do vertical heights well, so adding a ability that encourages creating more platforming sections is a..... Choice

I love the oldest hello neighbor game because the house looked realistic and not stupid

Here's what that "THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY" writing could say: All across the house, you have a chance, like, a 1% chance each time you look at a wall for words to spawn, and they spawn in a certain order, here's that order: "I RECOGNIZE YOU..." "NICHOLAS..." "THE ONE HE FAILED TO CATCH..." "THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY..."

you should ask a dude really good at modding hello neighbor and make your version of hello neighbor a mod for hello neighbor. great video

I thought you’d be making the game in this video, but as a programmer, I could assemble a few builders and put this project to life.

I honestly feel like Sandwichly should come up with his own kind of mascot horror game with his methods! He's definitely able to come up with a good method for game concepts & promotional stuff!

The more recent instalments of Hello Neighbour have actually improved since the original one. Just not by much, which is arguably worse than not having changed at all. To squander the chance to do a genuinely brilliant concept justice

I've always felt like what went wrong with hello neighbor WAS Tinybuild. Things were great when Dynamic Pixels ran the scene, but once Tinybuild got involved, everything started going downhill. I have to say I love all the technical aspectd of your ideas, though i definitely prefer the OG plot! (HN 1 and HnS, you know, before they suddenly decided to make him a heartless outright villain?) Also 8:06, I'll say the abilities do have SLIGHT relevance, they're to show how Nicky is getting over certain traumas and realizing that now he is older and more able, and can defend/protect himself. The escape from the neighbor is him realizing he can defend himself, the invisibility crouch is SUPPOSED to represent getting over the paranoia trauma can instill, like everyone is out to get you, and him realizing in real life, nobody sees him. Tbh the double jump never made sense, it's getting over a fear of the dark? 🤷‍♂️ (All my opinions based off of the implications and story ofc, as we know the lore of this game is about as solid as jello) 13:50 Fun fact! Act one and two actually DON'T take place in the real world (at least partially)! It is the real events that happened, but you'll see at the beginning of Act three that Nicky is waking up, the first two Acts, as you play them, was Nicky having a likely PTSD caused nightmare/flashback, hence why things like the neighbors basement, the fences around his house and the expansion of his house in act two, are SO unrealistic! In reality, the basement was a normal sized basement, and the fence was much smaller, only just tall enough to keep Nicky in! (Many of the most accurate portrayals of the house are seen in SnR!) Sorry for yapping y'all this game has been my special interest for years I love yapping about it and the injustice it was done 😭

Interesting video, considering that you're Hello Neighbor's Number One Fan

I honestly find alpha three the best version because of the fact that it’s always night, this makes it MUCH scarier! But there’s two things I’d change, one flashlight with limited battery, this would make the player conserve their power and be wise on how they play! I would also remove the ability to tell how close the neighbor is to you be removing the indicator on the edge of you screen! This makes you aware that he is coming, but having no idea where he is! These two concepts would make the neighbor much more of a threat to the player!

better solution: just make hello neighbor alpha 1 with all floors completed, boom now you got a better version of hello neighbor. good house, old artstyle, better puzzles, and more scary vibes.

Finally, a positive hello neighbor video

i love the into the pit reference

We need a game like this to be made.

0:06 Who's that other person?

To me, a Hello Neighbor story that's straightforward yet deep is possible. Take Zack Snyder's photoshooting style and use it to better use to show the audience what's going on without the use of words (unless necessary). That way, it can turn what is possibly the most straightforward plot beat more emphasized than it would be if told casually.

Congratulations! You managed to understand game development better than TinyBuild EVER HAS!

I have to be honest... your story is just better

OML I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS!!! I’ve always loved hello neighbor but hated how they didn’t show the story very well but your version is awesome!!! I love this :D

I was unfortunate enough to get the first book in the series and read it, and it made me realize what the lore actually was, since I think you got some things wrong. Everything you said up until the car crash was true. The car crash killed his wife, but his kids weren’t there. The neighbor(his name is Ted Peterson) started adding large additions to his house to cope with his grief. Meanwhile, Ted’s son, named Aaron, was wracked with grief, became hostile towards his sister, eventually shoving his sister at the top of the newly-expanded house, accidentally causing her to fall to her death. Ted covered up her death by burying her body in his own backyard, tearing down the house additions, and claiming her to be missing. Angry at his son, Ted locked Aaron in his basement, which is what the player sees at the start of act one. I think the “shadow monster man” was supposed to symbolize Nicky’s childhood fear of Ted, since our only ever appears after he escapes, and at the end after it is deafeated, you can see the Ted has his own personal fear, that still haunts him after all those years.

Holy crap you COOKED with that story

I feel like they should’ve made the more areas you open up in the house, the more areas you open up for the neighbor too since he realizes someone broke into his house. And the neighbor hatch was introduced into Hello Neighbor Diaries, funnily enough. But it’s only when camera/laser traps are triggered.

1:42 for hello neighbor - get to the basement -''horror'' - about the main character having ptsd from the neighbor kidnapping him - bad- cartoony - bad - atrocious - begging a famous youtuber to recap their games

But like no joke, your story idea was actually fire.

if i was to redesign hello neighbor, i would put these changes: 1. If neighbor sees you in his house, and you escape him, he would automatically turn hunt mode on and he would check ALL of his house to make sure you are not there (he would check hiding spots, but he would check them if he has seen you in the hiding spot or when you leave it) 2. In act 3, neighbor would behave diffriently (because its a dream).he would get faster, smarter and would sensetive noises from long distances 3. he would do more activties like: reading a book, fixing his car, eating something by the dinning table 4. if player is spending too much time in neighbor's house, neighbour would lock the main door and all other doors that lead to the outside with a key (he would have the key by his waist) and would actively search for the player, until he checks every room and hiding spot in the house or until player leaves his house, and he sees it or until player is captured 5. in point 4 i mentioned he would lock the doors, but not only that, he would also barricade every window in the house. i like to call it "lockdown mode"

Not really redesigned from the ground up, but this is certainly a major improvement over the original story. I especially like the new story and ending, and the build mode proposed. I personally liked the art style of the Pre-Alpha and Alpha 1 though.

I like your new HN story line but the ending scene where old Mr. Peterson connects minds with Nicky seems a but over the top. Great video though :)

I bet Mr Peterson hired a bunch of builders to build his ginormous house

K so lemme explain the lore: The neighbor(Theodore) has a wife(Diane) and two kids Aaron and Mya. If you’ve played Hello Neighbor Hide & Seek then you know the neighbors wife dies in a car accident in stage 3 and Aaron kills Mya by accidentally pushing her off the roof at stage 5, Then the neighbor locks Aaron in the basement so he doesn’t get in any trouble (which is part of the premise of Hello Neighbor 2) Anyway, Nicky (The player) Wittneses this and tries to save Aaron but fails and escapes on his own in Act 2, he moves away from Raven Brooks in Act 3 and is forced to move back into the same house he used to live in, then the thing appears as just a representation of Nicky’s fears and the rest of Act 3 is a dream, in the finale once inside the back house we protect the Thing from our child self and we then defeat it representing Nicky beating his fears

Someone finally did this (I’ve been waiting so long) and I like the into the pit reference

Mate, the idea of a hello builder is something I’ve wanted for a while, I rushed to buy secret neighbor just because they announced a level editor

Cool vid but I think I like the original story more. I like that act 3 and 4 is all in his mind. I like that the main antagonist is the fear/trauma from being locked in a basement of your creepy neighbor

Honestly, I want to see you make a fangame with that premise of possible.

I fully expected this video to amount to “strip away all the wackier and confusing elements of the game until it’s a more polished version of the alphas”, and as one of many people who prefers the alphas to the final product, I would’ve been fine with that. However, I was VERY pleasantly surprised with the direction you chose. The way you retained the feel of the full game while incorporating elements from the alphas was great, and I legitimately enjoyed the idea for the new story. Tbh now I’m sad this isn’t the real game. Side note: I think the shoulder bash could actually work as a high-risk, high-reward version of the “breaking free” mechanic as well. If you time it correctly, you could ram into the neighbor while he’s chasing you and knock him over, giving you an opportunity to flee, but messing up just means you run right into him and get caught.

I think tinybuild made a game about time travel called 'no time to explain' which is where their logo comes from.

I seen you, the sandwich, so I made a sandwich and thought I would share with what exactly I ate: First off, 1. Natures own perfectly crafted multigrain bread Secondly at 2. We got Dukes real mayonnaise 3. we got some smoked sun dried tomato turkey breast, does not matter what brand And lastly, 4. Sargento Munster cheese Thank you, that is all

The games story is about PTSD and childhood trauma. I think it should've stayed the same. The gameplay or who Nikki fights, I can live with that being changed. Good video still.

Worth subscribing for great content like this. Keep up the work 👍

WHOA! I never thought I'd see someone else talk about this! While I'm not fully on board with your rewritten story, as I've read most of the books and watched the TV show _(you should totally give it a watch, btw),_ thus, growing to like the story, I'm definitely still on board! *I even made a Google Doc a while back explaining how I'd tweak the gameplay a bit!* If you're interested, I could share the link with you!

When I saw the title and thumbnail of this video, it reminded me of DarkDax's Yandere Sim Code Review. Maybe, if there appears another youtuber that can fix another of the less successful indie horror games from back then, I could make a playlist 😂

I think the other thing that made it less appealing was the models overall, it got from sort of realistic models to cartoonish models, everything looks clunky, and yeah the neighbor himself is not realistic, but the change in models really changed the atmosphere, and from what I remember this was supposed to be a scary game, the creepiness of the house went away with the model change Edit: I hadn't watched the video in full when I made the comment so I didn't know this was already talked about

hello neighbor (full release) can't be fixed

hello neighbor was at its peak alpha 2/1

Hello neighbor is a good game it's just marketed a little poorly. usually i see people criticise the game for being a messy puzzled platformer, that isn't scary. The thing is that they could change the genre to a puzzle platformer. They would still have to make the puzzles make sense but i see why people hate the full release to begin with. The first alpha was VERY promising. They made it creepy mysterious, and the puzzles made you have to think like if it were real life. Instead of having a cheap jumpscare or chase scene, your fate is upon you to survive, which with the adaptive soundtracks is stressful and scary, especially since you lose your items. Nothing can stop him, but he can stop you which makes it seemingly impossible. All this made for an exciting alpha, but it was a different game. It was not scary at all, It actually was peaceful and beautiful. I loved the game for this but not the alpha fans. Many big youtubers posted on alpha 2, one being dantdm. I'm pretty certain that dan completed all of the alphas + the full game, but not the 1st alpha, and along the way a friend named turkeyboy55 which basically paused criticism to the complexity of the game. This redeemed the game i believe, but they ruined it straight after. The lore, they wanted it to be a game like fnaf or something, or maybe they even thought it was at rivalry with the game, idk. They stopped being a big figure in the horror genre after alpha 1 (for most people). They begun to tweet at matpat to make some theories on the game, faster than he could make a video on it. This ruined the franchise, permanently.

I think alphas 2 and 3 struck the perfect balancw with the artstyle, it was cartoon-esque and let the game have a distinct style, but it didn't go over the top with the zaneyness to the point it looked ugly. Just a nice sweet spot in my opinion

i agree on everything but the artstyle. the prototype or pre alpha’s art style would have made the game infinitely more terrifying

honestly, despite the games being undeniably bad, I still really like playing them

my brain cells are just melting by watching this

I get that you like the newer art style but, the reason why it doesn’t work is because it makes the game look more goofy instead of scary. This is part of the reason why a lot of people say that hello neighbour has a massive identity crisis

i wish they kept the house similar to pre alpha and alpha one, the new house is cool but the older ones felt a lot more labyrinth like, with many hallways looking the same and also offers potential for cool chase scenes with the neighbor

Omg i completely forgot how pushy they were towards Matpat. Really makes you wonder.. how. delusional is this developer. Or. It feels like they lived under a rock with a potato chip, a penny, and a dirty tissue as friends for ten years, left their fruity home. And said. Im gonna make a game and be really desperate and unconfident about it!

7:05 Honestly, I'd just make the house less ridiculously big after the first act. All of the random addons and platforming nonsense feel like they take away from the core idea.

The thing I love about hello neighbor is how glitchy it is

0:37 “time traveling ball pit” gave me fnaf flashbacks

Been waiting for someone to do something like this effectively since release

nice to see that Marlton got freed from the Aether and made Hello Neighbor better as his first act of business

Nice Fixes and Improvements, but I feel that a major part you ignored was the Literal Level Design. If you'd like an idea, Hello Neighbor should've been more like an Immersive Sim.

The reason why you can double jump in act 3 is because everything happens in a dream

"we're going back in time to the first alpha to get bad game off the menu, thats right, we're going back in time to the first alpha to get bad game off the menu"

hard mode is when he actually calls the cops after 5 time caught

I like how you added the Hello Neighbor Mod Kit in-game. That would definitely make creating Hello Neighbor mods way easier.

It’s a good idea to dream but a dream is just a dream talking can only get us so far, we should put that idea into action. In short Mic up 🗣🎙

Now this is what hello neighbor could’ve been!

instead of that piggy reference I think like making a system similar to obby creator a game about creativity.

Don't make a 16 minute video for this. It's just a tiny house + good AI + good physics + logical puzzles = a good Hello Neighbor game!

The ballpit had me thinking he was gonna end up in "Into the pit" for some odd reason.

I think that hello neighbor's story was good because it could happen in real life

I kinda feel like the dash removes the purpose of locked doors because they are naturally locked for a reason and you have to find a way to get in so I think maybe it could be some kind of tracker or camera system that would be very limited

I was watching Denis Daily and the other former members of The Pals play the alpha versions of the games and was thinking of how the game should’ve been. I was thinking of making it similar to a mix of Pre-Alpha and Alpha 1, a large house but on the outside it looked normal like alpha 2. The art-style would look like how it did in Pre-Alpha. The player would dream of seeing and being scared of the neighbor when they were little. It would be like the intro of the final release Hello Neighbor. The player being a child, and seeing the neighbor drag someone in the basement, and being regretful. But the player would go back to his house. The player would start at his house, playing soccer, so the player would probably go back to where they were to get away from the neighbor once spotted. The game would have environmental clues and environmental storytelling inspired by a video reviewing the original game as it changed over time. That was all I was thinking.

I LOVE THIS AS A HELLO NEIGHBOR 1 FAN I WOULD RATHER THIS OVER THE STORY

About the hello builder thing, back in like 2017 they made it possible to mod hello neighbour through unreal engine. there were mod of the week type things also. i'm not sure if this is still active now however.