Before you pull out the pitchforks and lynch me in the town square let me explain why I didn’t hate this game unlike other games of this god awful genre. Mascot horror is inherently a scummy and money grubbing genre that rewards studios with disgusting behavior targeted at young impressionable kids who don’t know any better and have readily available access to Mommy's credit card. Games like Hello Neighbor, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Poppy’s Playtime, Garten of BanBan, all of these games regardless of whether or not these games are “Good” doesn't matter because they've all come from a place of greed rather than a place of actual artistic merit. Hell for as much shit FNAF gets for being the creator of this subgenreI’d still say it has some artistic merit; because for as shitty it was to give money to horrible people Scott Cawthon did not go into making FNAF for purely reasons of money and profit; he genuinely cared about the game’s he was making and after getting the backlash that was FNAF world a rushed mess of an RPG that was only plopped out to make money off of stupid kids he apologized, took the game off steam, gave people their money back, and then polished the game and released it on Gamejolt for free. He didn’t need to do any of that he could’ve just taken the money and run but he didn’t and that’s what makes Scott Cawthon stand out among other people like the head of Kindly Beast studios, that worked their devs to the bone, underplayed then for their work, possibly stolen ideas for said game, and best of all mishandling money so badly that they were forced to fire all of their employees around the holiday season, all that for fucking Bendy and the Ink Machine.

Regardless of what you may think of this game, I can 100% tell the devs of Amanda the Adventure did care about the game they were making. As a game it’s a basic escape room with replayability being a focus since you need to do some endings in order to progress with other paths and I honestly find that loop really fun and engaging. The game’s not scary, like at all. The scariest it gets is when the big spooky monster pops out and I get spooked so hard I barely spill my can of diet pepsi. The thing that makes this game stand out among the rest and why I think the devs really cared about the game was the amount of detail and work they put into the game. This game has like 5 different endings all of which are different if you’ve seen or found secrets taps that change them up slightly so replaying not only is the only way to progress and it’s never the same thing over and over again you’ll always find something new or a cool secret on another run, it honestly reminds me a lot of how FNAF 1 used it’s replayability just without the annoying RNG. Along with the detail in its gameplay it’s cutscenes are also pretty neat, they're not scary but regardless the quality is still impressive which each response adding to a (scary/funny) response from Amanda that I found cute and charming. They also added secret “LORE” tapes that are all presented in live-action, the live action videos range from being alright to cheesy as hell with all the actors but being great but adds to the cheesiness; personally I’ll always enjoy a good video game with live action FMV even if their cheesy as hell, it’s a special kind of feeling where the devs could’ve just written a simple note on a desk to dispense “LORE” but rather then they they went out of their way to make it live action with real poorly acted characters and idk I just find that really charming.
(Side note: don’t ask me what the lore for this game was because in all honesty it’s so vague and “mysterious” I’m not gonna put the brain power towards it to care)

If you’re still looking at me and asking yourself “what the hell is this person thinking, they said the game isn’t scary so what’s the point of playing a horror game” well first of all I’m in a point of my life where getting scared from movies, video games, and so on isn’t really a thing I do anymore, I normally like to look for the artist quality of the medium or what they offer as a video game. I don’t find Resident Evil scary but I love the campy tone of the original games and I love the resource management of the newer remakes and the arcade style of action horror of RE4. Amanda the Adventure is not a game made for a 21 almost 22 year old adult, saying I didn’t find this game scary is like saying the sky is blue and grass is green, it’s pure concept of “what if kids tv show was evil and demonic” is worn out and really the only people who’d even find it interesting would be kids, and honestly I’m ok with that. I would much have kids play games like this; games made by people who like what their making and care about it’s quality, rather then some money grubbing hack fraud like the Euphoric Brother with their Garten of Banban series, or the money grubbing NFT selling devs behind Poppy’s Playtime. Kids deserve good horror media just like anyone else, and if you’re one of those weird gatekeeping assholes who say shit like “Oh kids deserve better horror then stuff like this, why can’t kids like the stuff that I an adult with credit card debt and a mortgage care about” First of all I don’t think kids should be playing games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, also what about other pieces of kids horror media like Goosebumps, Courage the Cowardly Dog or Are You Afraid of the Dark? Kids like horror as much as everyone else. They just need horror media that was made for kids in mind and is still as good as its own thing. I feel like games like FANF and Amanda the Adventure can fill that void for kids to enjoy.