myPOPGOES – Is This Game Worth It?

myPOPGOES is a simplistic collection of bite-sized, challenge-based arcade mini-games that continues the canonical exploration into the Five Night At Freddy’s franchise, especially the character Popgoes Evergreen. Even with some notable design and visual flaws, the game does a good job of appealing to its FNAF fanbase. Let us take a closer look to determine whether myPOPGOES is really worth a try.

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Gameplay Overview

myPOPGOES is a series of fun and casual minigames that you may have already been familiar with such as Snake, Whack-a-Mole or Fishing… But this time around with Popgoes as your character.

The relaxing gameplay of My Popgoes is very much intended with the game’s simplistic control scheme which involves only 3 buttons. You can fully navigate and play this game with only the left ← , right → and down ↓ arrow keys. By completing these game modes and taking them further with Challenge modes, you can unlock Unlockable playable characters, stickers, character sheets, diary entries, and secret endings

Game modes

First and foremost, let us take a look at all of myPOPGOES’ game modes. For a simple game like myPOPGOES, you can reasonably expect to understand all of its gameplay by looking at each of these game modes.

1. Campaign

In myPOPGOES’ campaign mode, you will “babysit” Popgoes by managing his hunger, thirst and idle time (or music time) until the clock strikes the designated completion time. You will achieve this by using left with the following controls:

You can monitor each of these aspects by looking at his Water meter, Hunger meter and Music meter. Any of his needs not being tended to will increase the according meter and will cause the level to fail once any meter reaches full. Thus, campaign mode is about managing your actions so Popgoes can satisfy his demands in the most efficient manner possible.

2. Pest Control

In myPOPGOES, the Pest Control game mode will let you control Popgoes as he eliminates the pesky bugs by pressing the correct order of the buttons (in arrow keys) on a bug as it approaches Popgoes.

These bugs will become faster and faster which is why you will need to pick up the pace as the level progresses or otherwise the game will end once they reach Popgoes.

3. Whack-a-rabbit

myPOPGOES has its own Whack-A-Mole minigame but this time with a twist, it is Whack-A-Rabbit. It is still the typical Whack-A-Mole fare as you move from side to side with the left ← and right → arrow keys and hit the targets by pressing the down ↓ arrow key.

Your targets here will be the rabbits (or other creatures depending on the level) and you will need to identify them before hitting them or you can risk hitting the wrong targets.

4. Fishing

The Fishing game mode in myPOPGOES is as simple as the name suggests, you will control Popgoes to move his hook to where his fish is by using the left ← and right → arrow keys and drop the hook with the down ↓ arrow key to finally catch it.

Of course, the fish is not standing still and you will also need to hook the correct fish or otherwise the game will end.

5. Topping Juggle

My Popgoes’s Topping Juggle is a mini-game where you will navigate Popgoes as he transfers the correct ingredients into the ovens by moving left and right underneath the ingredients.

Obviously, this means you should stay away from the non-ingredients such as utensils. The game will end once you incorrectly take too much of the non-ingredients.

6. Longest Popgoes

Longest Popgoes in myPOPGOES is essentially and simply a Snake game, but with Popgoes as the snake. There is a twist, however, that you can only navigate your “snake” with only the left ← and right → arrow keys which makes it more difficult than your classic Snake game. Navigate Popgoes to eat his food to grow big and avoid walls!

Pros of myPOPGOES

A love letter to FNAF fans

First and foremost, myPOPGOES is a game that is intended for fans of the Five Night at Freddy’s franchise. The game is marketed as a canon entry in the POPGOES timeline. This means it has actual characters and real lore implications within the FNAF universe.

This myriad of lore tidbits is designed to satisfy the curiosity and enthusiasm of the FNAF’s fan base and expand the materials within the franchise canonically. By completing the game modes, you unlock new playable characters and their information in the character sheets and their diary entries along with many more customizations.

Adorable Customizations

myPOPGOES allows you to customize many of its visual elements and put your own twist on its appearance. From the characters that you can play as, to the stickers on the stage, to the stage itself can be customized with various unlockables during your gameplay.

Simple and relaxing arcade mini-games

My Popgoes gameplay can be summarised as a series of simple and relaxing minigames in a Five Night at Freddy’s visual. Of course, these mini-games are your very typical old-school games like Snake or Whack-A-Mole, but it is this simplicity and familiarity that can offer its players a casual and enjoyable gameplay experience.

My Popgoes’ controls scheme is also designed to be as minimal as possible which allows you to kick back and relax while playing the game leisurely. Beyond the different mini-games, MyPopgoes also extends your gameplay value with its challenge modes such as Sticky, Expire, and Endless modes!

Cons of myPOPGOES

Questionable UI design

As you may have already seen, all game modes in myPOPGOES take place in a stage-like model of a mini playhouse. While this design choice is undoubtedly chosen to emphasize the game’s theme and facilitate a number of customizations, it also definitively brings a number of issues.

Clutter background: The actual game screen will always stay in the middle of the stage background. This essentially means more than 50% of the entire screen will be dedicated to the background at any point of time without contributing anything to the gameplay itself.

Visual clarity: while it is a cool design to have the pizzeria stage behind the game screen at all times, the transparent game screen on top of the background makes it all too busy and cluttered which further reduces the visual clarity of an already low-clarity, 8-bit type of game.

This issue is further exacerbated by the fact that many game modes force you to rely on identifying the correct element such as identifying the correct ingredients in Topping Juggle or the rabbit or mole in Whack-A-Rabbit or the fish in Fishing.

Clunky controls scheme

myPOPGOES insists on having a minimalistic control scheme of three buttons. It “insists” because the game works fine with this navigation system except for two mini-games: Longest Popgoes and Topping Juggle.

As mentioned earlier, Longest Popgoes really is just a basic Snake game but you can only navigate your “snake” in a left or right direction of itself. For example, if you want to go down and right the input will either be [Left ← + Left ← ] if you are moving to the left and [Right → + Right →] if you are moving to the right. Not to say it is the most convoluted control scheme, it is not, but it has been unnecessarily modified unintuitively to fit into the rest of the game.

The other troublesome game mode that doesn’t really fit in this system is Topping Juggle. This is because this game mode requires you to input left or right not only to move Left or Right but also to face Popgoes in the Left or Right direction. This is another case where you need to unnecessarily keep in mind Popgoes’ direction to accurately input its action. While this is not impossible for a player to adapt to, it is surely not a great fit.

This issue could have easily been remedied by either removing both of these game modes or letting them have additional input actions. However, neither is the case. Hence this incongruence.

Abrupt difficulty

myPOPGOES is a casual and relaxing game until the difficulty is taken by ten notches because there is an unlockable behind it.

The prime example here is level 5 in the campaign mode. You will find yourself casually cruising through the first 4 levels of the campaign to be stopped dead on your track in level 5. This level really forces you to manage your resources really well and this abrupt increase of difficulty can be a little off-putting, not to mention the further enhanced difficulty from the challenge modes. However, all things considered, this is only a minor complaint as the challenging gameplay can also be quite engaging.

Misleading marketing

myPOPGOES markets itself as a resource management, survival type of game with hints of horror elements but this really is not the case. The truth is the game modes are way too basic to give them any further description other than “puzzle”, “casual” or “mini-game”.

This is misleading because the fact that the game being a direct spinoff of Five Night At Freddy’s – a horror, survival game – will most likely be associated with these elements as well by new players coming to myPOPGOES. Alas, it is not a “survival” or ” horror” game and should not be introduced as such.

Is myPOPGOES Worth It?

myPOPGOES does a good job at emulating the style of a simple LCD game system from the early era with its unique styles and tie-ins with the Five Night At Freddy’s universe. It does well enough at being a series of fun and casual mini-games. The game truly shines the most as a fan-service type of game for FNAF enthusiasts.

However, it is held back by some game design flaws. These flaws can be boiled down to the fact that myPOPGOES just try too hard at selling its “FNAF factors”. From the fixed background to its clunky controls scheme. The truth is that myPOPGOES is a very simple game and does not need to complicate itself with these redundant elements.

Having said that, these flaws are by no means game-breaking. myPOPGOES is still a cute, charming piece of FNAF media that can be worth it as an enjoyable experience for any FNAF fan.