Joyville isn't so Joyful?!

What do you think of when you hear the word Joy? Feelings of being elated or happy? When you think of the word Joy - Stress, terror and anxiety surely don't come to mind. Well let me tell you about Joyville...

Joyville is a single player, puzzle rich, mascot, survival horror game where you play as an unnamed protagonist navigating your way through the abandoned children's camp called Joyville where you attempt to uncover the mysteries of missing workers, children and the case incarcerated founder. The game was released in August 2023, developed and published by KudPlay Games.

The game was extremally easy to navigate (for the most part, but well get to that) the gameplay felt very linear and the maps and objectives were easy enough to do. The puzzles were a little too easy, in my humble opinion, but as someone who normally struggles with puzzles in games I appreciated that. During gameplay I encountered no bugs, framerate drops or audio anomalies while playing, which was nice. However at a playtime of anywhere from 25-60 minutes I do wish that it was slightly longer. 

The story was cadenced okay. I am not super thrilled with the story as we only had a few morsels of backstory from newspapers, pictures and a video camera from a lone employee. I do wish the game had more lore and backstory, I truly felt for a game as short as this, i could have benefitted from a lore hunt. I am fully aware that this is merely chapter 1 of this franchise but I would have still liked to see more of the story. 

Before I get into my thoughts on the ending of this colorfully anxiety educing adventure I want to talk about the antagonist that we meet in the game. Allow me to start with Wooly Bully the fluffy, sunshine colored abomination and mascot of the Joyville game. WB has a few really well timed jumpscares and his presence is not over used, but just knowing this massive flaxen haired mouth breather is lingering near by with his razor sharp teeth were ready to swallow you whole was anxiety inducing enough. We also meet Blenny, Seini, Mordy and Ronny, (kind of) we meet one of the worms during the rainbow puzzle on the Joyville fun floor. Just don't mess up the rainbow and you wont see how nasty this little worm could be. We end up meeting the rest of the gang in the tunnels under the playplace...well let me rephrase, we meet their goo and a quick peripheral jumpscare from the wiggly 4some.I do feel we could have seen more of these creepy crawlies by using them in another chase sequence or puzzle. 

I do have to say the sound design was fantastic and the visuals were colorful, well rendered and gave me a feeling of authenticity and nostalgia of being at a kids camp back in the late 1980's. It was really well done!

Something that I was not so happy with, so much so I had to rage quit the game, was the final chase sequence featuring the mascot of this horror show "Wooly Bully" to me, the timing was off and I felt as if WB was always so close to me that I had NO time to input the code needed to get past the doors at the end of the chase sequence. After about 45 minutes of attempting to complete this section, I FINALLY got it only to be met with an unsatisfying ending telling me about chapter 2. I totally support indie devs making a chapter 2 or more to tell their story buy I feel we left it way too open. 

Scores are rated out of 10:

GAMEPLAY: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 6/10

SOUND DESIGN & VISUALS:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐6/10

CONTROLS:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/10

STORY:⭐⭐ 2/10

CHARACTER DESIGN:⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/10

Overall Score: 5/10

Final Thoughts:

For what its ment to be, Joyville was a fun experience that left we wanting to see a little more from KudPlay Games, I do look forward to the 2nd installment of this series and I do plan on playing it when it releases. Although there was elements from Poppy Playtime and FNAF I feel it was done to pay ohmage to those that came before, and I am not going to hold that against them, because someone will always do something first and unfortunately if you create something to follow that you will live in that shadow. I do recommend Joyville, if you want to solve some well made puzzles, experience well timed jump scares and begin a whole new era of mascot horror. Pick up this game today over on steam for $9.99! I do feel its worth a playthrough!