Vinny - KinitoPET (Bonzi Buddy but it doxxes you) 

The whole reason why Vinny took so long to play this is because he had to set up a burner computer that didnt have 200GB of UFOPORNO, hide behind 10 layers of VPN, and move to the most secure location he knows: Wildwood, NJ.

“Bonzi buddy but it doxxes you” so basically just bonzi buddy lol

I really wished this game went into the more ‘I have administrative access dipshit’ horror instead of the same old jumpscare analog horror stuff

I don't know if it was because of streamer mode, but typically, if you're recording or streaming this game, one of the questions it will ask is, "Why are you recording me?" Followed by it pulling up whatever recording software you're using, say it by name, and then do the creepy things

There's a lot of interesting stuff here but really think it needs rethinking. The analog horror stuff aside for now, I dont think it should start having spooky or out of game effect until kinito 'encourages' you to download the friendship club unlock thing that in-universe is supposed to allow kinito to execute code it couldn't before. That part came way too late, I think it should act totally normal for a few minutes, playing games like you did and ask increasingly personal but not unreasonable questions, and only when it innocently makes you unlock the code execution by not letting you do anything else on the computer until you do. Then shit should start hitting the fan. The analog horror stuff is odd, you can't have the users own desktop AND have the 3D environment outside of the virtual PC both be the 'real' world that kinito is effecting, that doesn't work together. I do think they are well done just completely derailing of the impact of 'out of game' effects

I can’t believe Joel hasn’t played this, it feels like it was made for him haha

This could've been a great concept, but it was really too in your face about how this little avatar guy was the embodiment of evil.

It's a crazy game but it seems to just fuck up your desktop It's just pretending to be malicious software with yeah is a big fear for allot of people

The dev is clearly incredibly skilled at coding, sound design, and designing a consistent aesthetic. It's a shame that they kind of suck at horror.

24:35 such a missed oppoortunity to make it the screensaver

Wow this game really just does not work. There's some neat technical stuff but its full of obnoxious scary loud noise and a few instances of flashing lights. Imscared still reigns king of 4th wall horror games

all of these problems could have been avoided if he had recorded his entire screen

Ah sweet, self-enabled horrors within my comprehension

bit bummed that the ms paint bit didn't show up in the recording because i remeber flipping my shit when it did that

It's somewhat of a good step in the right direction, but ultimately, it's not very scary. Like, Kinito is just not very scary and there's definitely more games that pull off this style of messing with your computer better. When something taunts you with the idea of controlling your computer, it should be threatening, not goofy. Even non-meta games like Lost in Vivo scare me when they "delete" my save file. Creepypasta games like REMEMBER.EXE and it's sequel definitely come to mind, or Welcome To The Game, absolutely amazing horror games that immerse you into that kind of atmosphere. But this game? It tries it's best and honestly, for a game that was presumably made in the Godot Game Engine, those are some amazingly realistic graphics in some sections, but, there just really isn't much of a "game" here, there is no gameplay.

yeah i'm not giving this any admin privileges lol

Joel NEEDS to play this game

The bits where it pulls from your friends list really does not hit as hard when your friends have stupid steam names

Cant wait for the humanization of this thing where hes wearing a pinstripe costume, wears a tall hat and makes out with onceler and jeff the killer

Vinny decided not to play this live after finding out it uses his actual desktop background, because he knew his HD Slime girls wallpaper would get him banned on twitch again, so he switched it out with a Chrono trigger background like the coward he is.

Fun fact: Vinny was going to play this game live, but was told that it was extremely meta and would likely mess with his desktop and display personal info, so he turned it into a pre-record. He didnt want chat member BillyFourSkinSlicer to obtain access to his IP Address and/or exact location. Coward.

48:58 *slays* me. The "WOE, PLAGUE BE UPON YOU" rat jumpscare. Glorious.

the fucking "plague upon ye'" jumpscare at 48:54 is so good

I feel like it would have been better if there was more of a narrative, and there was more purpose to the unsettling visuals. The main motivation of kinitopet was its possessiveness, but it went out of its way to be repulsive or unsettling very early on without prompting such a response. The forced immersion and loss of control should have increased to mirror the degree of its possessiveness, rather than occurring sporadically.

I'll give this game credit by saying the polish and detail on display is immaculate. The filters, the sound design, the crunchy clicks of the mouse and keys, and especially the way they made the commercials and articles relating to the company. The way it interacts with your computer like the virtual pet is really trying to infiltrate your system had so much potential, but the only payoff was an anolog monster.jpg screeching in your ear and flashbanging you.

Most of this is so not scary but when it said something like "wouldn't want to show your address to all your fans" that was legitimately kind of a good one

48:11 love the idea that the program saw "alien" as "a lien" and tried to jumpscare him with a lion picture

when will someone make a game where you're followed by a monster then when he gets you you're blasted with the brown note and you shit yourself, that'd be a good 4th wall break

When will a little video game horror mascot be as scared and confused as you are when horror stuff starts happening? Scroople Doople was just a red herring and was just trying to be a little cartoon character all this time.

The fucking "plague be upon ye" jumpscare is some of the finest comedy this plane of existence ever experienced

man, all the people talking about the analog horror segments taking them out of the experience, and all I can think about is how much kinito doesn't look and feel like an actual desktop virtual pet design from the time

It's a neat idea but it seems to switch between "obsessive ai friend" and "evil malware", honestly it'd be better if they went full in with the obsessive ai and stopped with the random dead bodies

the game being able to change the volume of the system is fuckin DANGEROUS for any systems that use expensive audio equipment, since for example for me, just 28% is louder than the max volume on many systems

I like how the scary part of the game isn't the creepypasta tropes, but what it can do to your actual computer.

Kintino pet taking “kintinopeg” as an acceptable choice for your best friend was a power move if I ever saw one.

Man I sure do hope that this marketable plushie doesn’t become mascot horror

I believe this game would have been good had it been more subtle.

ok beyond the shitty jumpscares and way too obvious set-up, the horror just seems completely disconnected? what was with the body bag and crime scene? how does that connect to kinito being a "real" toy? how does that connect to the sewer chase thing, etc, etc. the meta stuff is genuinely cool but it makes the rest of the game its attached to come off as lazy and annoying

Zero Subtlety Literature Club

This game would have been so much better if it leaned harder into the fear of giving something unrestricted access to your computer and not LE ANALOG JUMPSCARE

This game could really do with some more subtlety... When I think of a malicious malware from the 90's, it's the loss of privacy and control that's scary (had a really nasty one that uninstalled the antivirus and would close your browser whenever you tried to look up "virus", or the one that sent out messages to your friends), the sense of dread and not a big loud jumpscare. They could have had something really great, but the end result will make anyone above the age of 13 roll their eyes. At least they can market to the fnaf fans.

50:00 It was reading off your Steam friends list, this scene hits way less hard if you’re friends with every person you meet

The fourth wall breaking stuff in the game is really cool and all the visual effects and details the dev put are very nice, but it really tries WAY too hard to be spooky, like that section in that brick sewer that leads to ear torture, and the barebone analog horror tier stuff. It's a very well put together but weird experience, the dev has lots of potential though, the visual presentation is amazing, it's just misguided in a lot of ways.

I think that the developers are incredibly talented, but they could improve on the horror and predentation of it, I have pretty much seen this exact game millions of times but with a different character. On the bright side, this is way better than that "jumping julian" thing. But the game messing with your PC is pretty scary, and they nailed the early internet vibe! Overall, it's pretty neat!

This was a pretty fun lil horror game, but I could definitely go without the sudden loud noises, as they aren't scary, just aggravating.

Two thoughts. The concept and graphics were really nice but the screamer jumpscares lost a lot of goodwill from me, especially taking control of the volume which could easily do real harm to people's eardrums. Second, as interesting and effective as giving the program sysadmin powers is, I do think actually malicious games could piggyback off something like this getting popular with kids and legitimately fry some computers. Youth computer literacy is apparently pretty bad these days.

i think this game is actually pretty neat and would be a lot better if it didnt try to explode your ears every time something scary happened

The production quality is surprisingly high. Do wish it had waited before turning into horror, and maybe not done loud + analog horror of all things. Christ, nevermind, it gets even louder. Why

"We all become skibidis" is the new worst religion I've ever heard.

Imagine one of these games pulls up your criminal record to jumpscare you

aww hell nah they done made psycho mantis a whole videogame

This game's about as scary as an episode of Blue's Clues, but I'm pretty impressed by how the dev utilized the Godot engine.

Binty this is baby virus, play notpetya instead, it good, encrypt all your files

this game wouldve been so perfect if it included WAY less jumpscares lol it had too many, like it didnt know how to close scares up to move on to the next thing. But ill be honest its pretty amazing how meta it gets

man, i feel like the biggest part to be criticized here isnt necessarily the jumpscares or the typical analog horror vibes, but just how aimless they all feel. when that body was first dragged on screen, i became intrigued into what it could mean. during the hide and seek segment i wondered if maybe there was some importance to the environment chosen. when it started asking cryptic questions, i imagined if it could culminate into some hints at a bigger philosophy the game had. but none of this ever seemed to amount to anything, and so its hard to justify it as it is, existing more as a collection of fairly impressive technical executions of a genre and not as, yknow. an actually interesting experience that justifies any of the non-meta scares being there at all. which is why i see everyone saying they wished it leaned more into the meta-horror, because yeah, by that point, why not focus entirely on it if youre really not going to bother to make any of the other scares coherent to what youre trying to say? and im sure there will probably be people replying going 'but you see!! there is more lore in the skibidi whatever ending!!' and its like. sure. listen. i shouldnt have to play a game like 6 times only to put together some semblance of coherence that makes its scares justifiable, or even watch other people do so, specially when such a game already fucks with your computer so badly and people can get easily tempted to just delete it after a first playthrough as vinny implied he would do. at the very least if a game is trying to pique your curiosity to keep playing with oooo a scary mystery it should try doing its job of egging you on to keep playing and what you couldve done differently.

Some of the ideas of the game are really cool but the execution felt really disjointed. Whatever narrative it's trying to tell is not very coherent. I feel like it fails where Pony Island and Inscryption succeed in that aspect. Definitely the extremely loud jumpscares soured the experience for me when playing.

This game is both really damn cool and like, technically impressive. The 3D section looks great, and the manipulation of other programs is wild. I don’t know how it gets permission to do some of the things it does.

This feels like it was designed to be played specifically by Master Shake

interesring horror spin on the concept of early malicious software. i wish it stayed in that lane rather than going for all the jumpscares. for a game trying to be so immersive its downright invasive bordering on malware, the "WHO IS THAT BEHIND YOU........" and glitch segments break that miserably. unfortunately malware as horror just hasnt been expanded enough to be scary on its own without being actually dangerous

This game brings me back to an old golf game demo I played on a Windows 95 computer. After pressing start it crashed, and there was a loud, high pitched beep that kept going until the computer was shut off. It scared the hell out of me as a kid.

This would have been a revolutionary indie game 8-10 years ago lol. Still fun and nice job from the dev.

Was the "there is a dead body and its your fault" thing resolved and I just didn't notice or was it just never brought up past the house painting?

48:00 for reference, normally the game uses an ai image generator to generate what you wrote as your biggest fear, but since you put something that likely wouldn’t be allowed with the ai generator, I imagine it just showed a tiger

this would have been so much more enjoyable if the game was about a cheeky desktop pet that messes around with both your virtual and actual desktop and files and had idk, some other gameplay, maybe about trying to find a way to delete it while it does funny stuff. but not... woagh i downlod thing and it think and is real and has lore!!!!!!!!!!!

I really hope "fake" malware doesn't become a trend, because that would be beyond insufferable.

ohno analog horror gaem play loud noise I am screaming and crying at this pink egg with eyes

I wish vinny recorded his desktop with the icons turned off since this is a pre-record, we seem to be missing out on a lot because of exclusive window capture. I understand why not though

*puts shelf on floor* “I am a fuckin’ genius when it comes to decoration”

50:00 Epic rap battles of history: Powerplant vs Malice

this is the virus you get when you're looking for how to "watch sword art online free no virus" and you accidentally misspell "kirito"

I think the unfortunate truth is that you literally just cannot make horror games disguised as unassuming or harmless media anymore. Like yeah this game lacks subtlety but before it even went anywhere i knew immediately where this was going to go. I don't think you can catch people off guard like how Doki-Doki Literature Club did anymore. I honestly thought the game was gonna be a satire with the silly Anemone Jumpscare, The Body Bag, the Liver, but no it kinda just takes a little bit from every recent horror trend and just uses them without adding anything to them. This had SO much potential and it did some interesting things but it wasn't really all too special at its core.

It peeking through the window and coming in the room is so goofy but i don't know if they sort of knew that or if they were really thinking "this is going to be so scary"

I do not regret warning Vinny about this game.

Greeb is not a creative color.

Truly the subtlety of a brick to your face

48:56 Plague be upon you jump scare was my favorite

The desktop icons missing might just be the game having unchecked "Show Desktop Icons". I doubt the dev would be malicious enough to actually delete them.

Gah. I really wanted to like this. Technically speaking it’s not put together poorly. And I’m always a sucker for fake OS systems (hypnospace outlaw is a personal fave but I also like kingsway and crossroad OS). But I REALLY wish it had stuck to the theme of violations of privacy because in my opinion that sort of horror isn’t used enough OR well. Most games just have haha spooky fourth wall break it knows things, but a whole game that gets into your computer sounds terrifying. One of my favorite games that does this is called A Dark Place because it genuinely does feel like a virus with how it yanks you around. Shame, it was doing great until it fell back on the tropes.

Vinny is the first person I've seen play this that doesn't mess with the brain nor open the email during the Factory Frenzy minigame. Thought that was interesting

Reminds me of that one boss battle in Inscryption where (spoilers below) it pulls up your steam friendlist and you have to search your files for chunky files to tip the scales.

Imagine releasing a Game Theory bait AFTER Matpat announces retirement

I'm a guy that fucking loves analogue horror, specially if its something that will keep me up one night, but games hardly do it right, and the very first bit when the computer "errored and bluescreened" I just rolled my eyes lmao

Man, why is it that the coolest concepts always have the lamest executions? They could've gone with subtlety. With the dread of knowing that something has taken over your computer. And then all they do is Le Spoopy Creepypasta Jumpscare and the occasional grammatical mistake.

The "traditional" horror parts feel kinda out of place, imo. The whole "obsessive ai friend" part sounds much more neater than dead people, super realistic hide and seek, or that part where super realistic kinito with bloodshot eyes look inside your virtual room's window.

One of these days, a game will have a cognitohazard that affects Vinny only, and he’ll go on to create another video later on that just fucking corrupts the devices of everyone who watches.

i sure do love horror games that force me to play / watch them at 5% volume

I enjoy the fourth wall breaking. Feels like the next evolution to what Doki Doki Literature Club was. Could do without the "LOUD AND ANNOYING NOISE = SCARY" moments, though.

I think this game has good aspects but its horror elements fall a bit flat. I think the room bit was good where he appears at the window but once he scares you it becomes a bit laughable. I think the dev has a lot of talent though and im sure they will only get better.

I like it when games end with a song, like portal 2 and doki doki literature club.

24:17 For some reason this sound tickles the right side of my brain.

streamer swatted

I sure can’t wait for the many 1 and a half long videos abt how deep scary this game is and how it’s redefining horror in gaming.

The only reason Vinny played this cause Joel would get severe PTSD if he touched this

There are stuff in this game that's really good, mainly how it's able to take and use the inputs you give, but from a story standpoint, a lot of the scares don't make sense; Kinito's whole deal is that he wants to force you to be his friend forever, so why the hell does he subject you to dead bodies 20 minutes into the game?

Some cool ideas here, but definitely some parts felt like they were trying too hard to be "scary"

This felt... bleh? The fourth wall stuff was interesting but the scares were flat out bad. It really does feel like one of those old bad creepypastas in that regard.

L O U D N O I S E S

It's a shame this game went with the easy route of cheap jumpscares and overdone tropes. It would have worked much better with the more subtle horror of having a virus on your PC doing God knows what. I remember how stressed out I felt as a kid when I stayed up late to fix a virus on the family computer, or when I first encountered ransomware.

There's an interesting base idea and some mechanics in there but the execution ends up fuckin lame and laughable. Could've been anything but the dev chose to make "epic analog horror" version of doki doki literature club with annoying jumpscares with cringeworthy "le scary face". If you've played DDLC or watched any crappy analog horror video you've basically seen everything this game has to offer but with probably (definitely with ddlc) a way better premise/execution

The game is impressive in aspects, but swung way too hard to get kinito to be a horror mascot, but i just don't care about him. They needed to get to Inscryption or Undertale levels of the viewer giving a fuck about KINITO to try that sappy ending shit.