When MOB Games released Poppy Playtime Chapter 1 it took the internet by storm, and it’s easy to see why. Following the massive success of Five Nights At Freddy’s and Bendy and the Ink Machine, it capitalises on the popular theme of cute, kid-friendly characters turned into murderous monsters, twisting the toy factory of our childhood dreams into one of our nightmares. If you’re hoping to survive until chapter 2, we’ve got your back, as our Poppy Playtime walkthrough for Chapter 1 takes you through every step of the first part of the game, so you can get a little closer to uncovering the secrets of Playtime Co. and Poppy herself.
For more fearsome frights, check out our Poppy Playtime character list, featuring Poppy Playtime’s PJ Pug-a-Pillar, Poppy Playtime’s Boogie Bot, Poppy Playtime Boxy Boo, and Poppy Playtime’s Candy Cat who all wait inside the Poppy Playtime factory. Or, take a look at our Poppy Playtime Chapter 2 walkthrough (Poppy Playtime’s Mommy Long Legs is prominent there), scope out Poppy Playtime’s CatNap from Poppy Playtime Chapter 3, and discover what we know about Poppy Playtime Chapter 4.
What is Poppy Playtime Chapter 1?
Poppy Playtime is a survival horror game with puzzle-based gameplay, developed and published by MOB Games. You take the role of a former employee of a formerly popular toy company called Playtime Co., revisiting the abandoned toy factory you worked at ten years after the disappearance of other staff. Wandering the halls in a first-person perspective, you’re tasked with solving a variety of puzzles using the GrabPack gadget, and dodging the spoogly, possessed toys that want to play.
Chapter 1 is called A Tight Squeeze, covering your initial return to the factory. It pits you against the horrifically hug-hungry Poppy Playtime Huggy Wuggy and leads you up to the discovery of Poppy Playtime’s Poppy herself.
How do I play Poppy Playtime chapter 1?
Poppy Playtime Chapter 1 is available for free on PC, or to purchase on mobile, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch. You can download it on Steam, Google Play, the App Store, the PlayStation Store, or the eShop today, and get spooked on your platform of choice. Just follow our Poppy Playtime download guide if you have any trouble.
Poppy Playtime chapter 1 walkthrough – A Tight Squeeze
As mentioned above, Poppy Playtime chapter 1 is called A Tight Squeeze, and tasks you with exploring the abandoned toy factory while dodging the deadly embrace of the long-legged, long-armed, terrifying people hugger, Huggy Wuggy. In order to make it through the night, you need to solve a variety of puzzles, collect a specific amount of items, and avoid getting squeezed to death. Simple, right?
Chapter 1’s runtime is about one to three hours, but with this walkthrough, you can blast through it even quicker – it took us about 45 minutes to complete everything. Also note that there are five VHS tapes to collect in chapter 1. These are entirely optional but do contain important story hints, so it’s worth collecting them all. If you die after collecting one, it still counts, so don’t worry.
To begin your horrific new adventure, simply press start in the main menu, and select ‘new game’. You’re told that you’re an ex-employee of Playtime Co., returning to the factory many years after everybody within disappeared. You’re then told about the monster Huggy Wuggy, who chases you throughout the chapter.
After watching the opening video, you gain control of your character. Walk to the front desk in front of you and grab the green tape. Take the green tape to the VCR player to the right of the door. Put the tape in and watch the video.
Turn right and walk past the ‘eat healthy like Bron’ poster to get to the gift shop. In the gift shop, there’s a colorful toy train running along red tracks suspended from the ceiling. The colors of the train carriages are the answer to the next puzzle.
Leave the gift shop and walk forward towards the door with the colored keypad next to it (to the left of the starting point). You simply need to press the colors to match the train you saw in the gift shop. In case you forgot, the combination is:
- Green
- Pink
- Yellow
- Red
Hitting the colored squares in this order unlocks the door and allows you to access the security office.
Enter the security office and grab the blue tape off the desk. Put it in the nearby VCR player and watch the video, which introduces you to the GrabPack upgrade you’re soon to obtain. After the video finishes, the container in front of you opens, revealing the blue hand. Interact with it to equip it.
Great, you’ve got your blue hand! That’s pretty handy because when you head back to the reception area, you need it to get to the lobby. Hop over the turnstile by the desk and high-five the blue hand sign above the nearby door. Enter at your own peril – this is where things get spooky.
As you enter the playtime lobby, you see a huge version of Huggy Wuggy with its hand raised. There are seven doors in the lobby that lead to different parts of the factory but, before you go through them, you need the yellow power room key. But first, high-five Huggy. This doesn’t achieve anything, but we know you want to.
To get the key, hit the blue hand sign above the door to your left. It doesn’t open because it doesn’t have any power, but it prompts the yellow power room key to drop into Huggy Wuggy’s raised hand. Reach up to grab it, then head through the ‘power’ door around the corner to the left of the blue hand door.
Head to the end of the room to find a covered socket. Use your hand to open the cover, then shoot your hand into the newly-exposed socket, allowing you to conduct electricity through your wiry arms (please don’t try this in real life). Leave your hand connected to the socket then walk through the room, connecting the two conductive poles. This turns the power on.
Now that the power’s on, head back to the playtime lobby. Oh no! Huggy’s gone! Well, not for long – this marks the beginning of a very scary relationship. Go to the blue hand door to the left that you tried to open before getting the keys, and head through it. Walk down the hallway and go through the door on the left, following the dim corridor to the next destination.
In this new room, walk past the yellow VCR player and head up the stairs to the catwalk. Follow the catwalk until you reach a control panel with a blue fuse next to it. Grab the fuse and interact with the fuse box to slot it into place, then drop to the floor below through the gap in the railing.
From here, you need to find three additional fuses. We believe they spawn randomly but are usually on the shelves or the floor. They’re pretty easy to spot due to their bright glow.
Once you’ve found all three, pull the door to the right of the conveyor belt and control panel open, then climb back up the stairs to return to the control panel and put the fuses in. This triggers the crane to drop the red hand onto the conveyor belt below. Hop down and interact with the red hand to equip it.
Though this is entirely optional, if you’re hoping to snag all the VHS tapes, you can find one in the factory room. It’s on the second leaning shelf from the door, and you simply need to head behind the first shelf in order to snag it. Walk back to the yellow VCR player you passed on the way in to play it.
Now you’ve grabbed a new hand and the next VHS tape, you need to exit the factory room. You can’t go back the way you came – instead, you need to hop onto the conveyor belt where you got the red hand, open the door at the end of it, crouch to get through, and then slide to the area below.
When you get to the bottom of the conveyor belt, you find yourself in a bit of a pickle – you’re trapped! If you want to get any further, you need to complete a circuit puzzle.
Start by heading to the immediate right of the conveyor belt you just slid down. Follow the belt along, around a corner, and up a ramp. On the right, there’s a socket. Hit it with one of your hands and keep a hold of it. Opposite this socket, there’s a one-way ramp with a conduction pole. Slide down and wrap your arm around it, then head back to the entrance and walk towards the door. Turn to the left and shoot your spare hand at the socket there to complete the circuit. Then just sit back and enjoy the conveyor belt ride of doom.
At the end of the conveyor belt, you find yourself in the make a friend room, but you need to complete another circuit puzzle to get the power going again. Head up the stairs to the right of where you first entered to get to the catwalk. You need to use one of your hands to pull the catwalk to you in order to cover the gap.
If you want to grab all the tapes, walk along the catwalk until you reach a socket. Before you interact with that, look to the right to find the pink tape on a blue square. Shove it into the pink VCR player at the top of the stairs to watch it.
Walk towards the middle of the catwalk and look to the right to find another piece of catwalk. Pull it towards you to make a shortcut between the different poles. Now comes the tricky bit.
Grab the fuse at the top of the catwalk with one hand, then cross the bridge that you created by pulling the catwalk piece across. Turn right, then walk forwards in the direction of the second fuse box and use your other hand to pull the catwalk to the other side.
Turn around and weave your arm around the two poles, and you should have just enough arm length left to walk across the new bridge you’ve made and hit the switch on the other side. See the picture above for a visual representation.
Now the power’s on, head downstairs and interact with the ‘Make A Friend’ console button at the center of the room (you can’t press this button with your hands – don’t get caught out like so many of us do!). Pull the three levers to the left of the console and wait for the toy to be assembled. Pick up the completed toy and place it on the scale next to the door that says ‘nobody leaves without making a toy’ to open it.
Head through the door and walk into the darkened hallway to trigger the Huggy Wuggy chase sequence. As soon as you see the monster, turn and run to the end of the conveyor belt where you got your Make a Friend toy and head through the open door. From here, you need to run through the vents avoiding Huggy Wuggy as it chases you. Whenever you see it, turn back immediately and run the opposite direction, following new paths as they open for you.
As the chase comes to a close you find yourself on a catwalk with a dead end. Look up to see a yellow crate with hand prints on it. Grab it with both hands to pull it down. Huggy Wuggy appears and the crate knocks it down, causing it to take quite the tumble. The scares are over, yay!
From here, walk along the catwalk towards the door with the flower around it. You can see the grey tape on the floor as you progress. Grab it and then take a right to get to the grey VCR player at the end of the catwalk.
To finish Poppy Playtime Chapter 1, simply head through the poppy door and follow the hallway along until you find a doll in a glass case. Unsurprisingly, this creepy gal is Poppy. Use your hand to pull the case open, freeing Poppy from her prison.
And there you have it, you’ve completed Poppy Playtime Chapter 1: A Tight Squeeze! If you’re eager to continue your creepy-cute adventure through Playtime Co. factory, check out our Poppy Playtime chapter 2 walkthrough and discover more about Huggy Wuggy’s better half with our Poppy Playtime Kissy Missy guide.
We also have Poppy Playtime Smiling Critters and Poppy Playtime Dog Day guides, just in case you want to learn a bit about the toys that await you in Deep Sleep. There are a lot of secrets unraveled in the latest chapter, so we recommend that you get to it as soon as you can, even if it leaves you with a nasty cliffhanger