Kingdom of Gaming Episode 11 ( Granny )

 Granny is a survival horror video game developed and published by Dennis Vukanovic, under the name DVloper, as a spin-off to the earlier Slendrina series. The game features an unnamed protagonist trapped in a house, needing to solve puzzles while avoiding the titular "Granny" to get out of the house in a time period of only five to six days.^[1]

Reviews for Granny were positive, who praised its tense atmosphere and gameplay, but some criticized its graphics. The game gained heavy traction following its release through various media platforms, such as YouTube, Twitch and other sources of social media. The latest update the game received was on January 20, 2021.^[2]

Contents

Gameplay[edit]

The game is centered on using a variety of items in a time period of only five days to escape the house whilst avoiding the only active stalking threat.^[3] The player can either escape by removing the locks on the front door, or by repairing the car in the garage, the latter of which requires an additional set of items.^[4] There a total of 16 items that are necessary to collect in order to escape.^[5]

Granny searches the house for the player, using any loud sound to her advantage and setting traps to hinder the player's progress. If Granny spots the player, she will start chasing him at different speeds depending on the difficulty. ^[6] There is also a giant spider on the top attic floor, which guards an important item and will attack the player on sight if it is not distracted or killed, but cannot move around the house freely. There is also an additional 'nightmare mode' which adds a bloodier texture to surfaces and re-textures Granny's model as well as re-skinning Granny's bear traps.

If the player is caught, Granny will knock the player unconscious, which ends the current day. The player can also get knocked out by several other environmental hazards found throughout the game. If the player is caught on the last day, one of 4 "game over" cut-scenes play, and the player is sent back to the title screen. The player can knock Granny unconscious (which lasts for a period of fifteen seconds to two minutes, depending on the difficulty level), or blind her temporarily by using a variety of different traps and weapons. If Granny is knocked unconscious with certain weapons, an extra 30 seconds is added (15 if the player is playing on the hardest difficulty).

The player also receives injuries during the period of time they are in the house which includes limping and blood surrounding the peripheral vision.

Plot[edit]

The game's plot is only vaguely hinted at. In the PC version, the game starts with a cut-scene of the player walking through the woods before being subsequently attacked by Granny. The player awakes in a bed, which starts the game. According to a note found inside the basement and evidence scattered throughout the house, the player is not the first person that Granny has trapped. The hanged corpse of Slendrina's Mother (first seen in Slendrina X) is found in a room behind a bookshelf, with a book placed at a stand in front of her, which may suggest shamanic execution as Slendrina's Mother's cause of death.

Players can summon Slendrina through easter eggs, but this does very little to contribute towards the story. Clues in the developer's previous Slendrina series of Slender fan games imply that Granny was Slendrina's grandmother and that Slendrina was trapped inside a book (proceeding the events of Slendrina X where the players trap her in a book during the ritual mini game at the end of the game) but somehow escaped.

Sequels[edit]

Granny: Chapter Two[edit]

A sequel, Granny: Chapter Two, was released for Android on September 6, 2019,^[7] iOS the following day,^[8] and on Microsoft Windows on December 30 the same year.^[9]

Similar to the first installment, the player is once again trapped in a house. Granny: Chapter Two also introduces a secondary antagonist, Grandpa, who has limited hearing capabilities and will not be alerted by most sounds. The player also has the option to choose between Granny or Grandpa on lower difficulties, as opposed to harder difficulties, in which both are automatically forced on.

There are several new items and weapons in this game, and in addition to the front door escape, the player can also escape via helicopter or a motorboat. Two new monsters also pose a threat to the player. It initially received positive reviews.

Granny 3[edit]

The second sequel, of the now trilogy series, simply titled Granny 3, was released for Android on June 3, 2021.^[10]

Granny and Grandpa's house has now expanded to an even larger property, a Mansion, with even more difficult obstacles and dangers such as a moat containing a vicious creature, a new antagonist, and a feature of new weapons. This game starts with a cutscene that shows the player breaking into a mansion gate. The gate locks after the player breaks in. Soon after, Grandpa arrives, shooting the player with his new shotgun weapon, which then starts the game. Similar to Granny and Granny 2, the player has options in the menu to adjust difficulties and choose which antagonist to face during gameplay as well as choosing different modes.

The player gets five days to escape the mansion, just like the first two games. The player must face many difficult obstacles to gather keys and other objects to escape. This game is different from the first two games, however, because not only is Granny and Grandpa both hunting the player, but Slendrina, from the Slendrina series, is as well, making the game even harder to beat. Granny is still the classic antagonist from the series as well as Grandpa, only Grandpa now has a ranged weapon, a shotgun, making the game significantly harder as he is able to injure the player from a distance. Although Slendrina has no way of injuring the player like Granny and Grandpa, she can incapacitate the player by simply having the player look at her until they look away. At the moment, the player only has one option in the game to escape which is the front gate.

Due to Apple’s policy, Granny 3 is currently not available on iOS and Apple devices as the Apple company considers the game a “spam” and it is too similar to the other Granny games, as mentioned by DVloper on Twitter^[11]. Unfortunately, as of June 2021, DVloper also mentioned that verification of the Granny 3 will never be approved, once again, due to Apple's policy.

Reception[edit]

The game became a viral hit on various media platforms, becoming the second most viewed mobile video game on YouTube in May 2018.^[12] It is rated 4.2 out of 5 stars on the Google Play Store,^[13] and 4.4 out of 5 on the App Store.^[8] The game also spawned numerous clones, such as Scary Granny, a scam game designed to infect player's devices with malware.^[14] The game had received over 100 million downloads as of June 2019.^[14]

William Lewinsky of Indie Game Critic gave the game 10 out of 10 stars, praising its controls as "very well implemented" and its sound effects as "stellar", while also stating that it was effective at scaring the player.^[15] Neilie Johnson of Common Sense Media gave the game a negative review, giving it 2 out of 5 stars, declaring that it "feels like a prototype for a more finished app", and criticizing its graphics as "bland", while nevertheless finding that it was frightening.^[16]

Spiritual successor[edit]

The game had received an episodic spiritual successor on Roblox developed on January 23, 2020 by MiniToon entitled Piggy (see here). The game has a similar gameplay style and objective to Granny, albeit incorporating characters and settings from the British children's television series Peppa Pig into a zombie apocalypse setting. The player has to use distinguishingly colored keys to access different parts of the map, as well as weapons to fight off Piggy. The purple and gold keys can be used to access safes. The orange, red, green, and blue keys are used to access different rooms, as the white key is the usual key for survivors to escape. Players can also earn "Piggy Tokens" for escaping as a survivor or killing them when they are selected under the role of Piggy. They may use the tokens to buy survivor power-ups, traps they can place under the Piggy role, and skins for their selection as Piggy. MiniToon has released a sequel entitled Piggy: Book 2, with nine "chapters" currently.