Petscop

Last updated

Petscop
Petscop.png
Fan recreation of Petscop's in-universe logo
Presentation
Genre Horror
Creepypasta
Surrealism
Let's Play
Created byTony Domenico [1]
Language English
Production
No. of episodes24 [lower-alpha 1]
Publication
Original releaseMarch 12, 2017 
September 2, 2019 [lower-alpha 2]
Related
Website www.youtube.com/@Petscop/

Petscop is a YouTube horror web series by Tony Domenico, made to resemble a YouTube Let's Play series. The videos follow "Paul", the protagonist, exploring and documenting a supposedly "long-lost PlayStation video game" titled Petscop. The 24-episode series ran from March 12, 2017, to September 2, 2019. [2] The series received widespread coverage for its storytelling, authenticity, surrealism, and its active community of viewers. [3] [4]

Contents

Plot summary

The main character, Paul, has found or received a copy of the titular unreleased game Petscop supposedly developed by the fictional company Garalina, uploading recordings of its early levels. Initially, the game seems like a standard PlayStation puzzle game, centering around the player character—named "Guardian" [5] —capturing strange creatures known as "pets" by solving puzzles. [6] [7] Paul notes that the game is unfinished and lacks playable content. The first four episodes are recorded by Paul for a specific, unnamed, person. Later, Paul acknowledges that his recordings have found an audience on YouTube, though he still narrates directly to the unseen character, and occasionally speaks to them on the telephone.

The game box, however, came attached with a note containing a code and instructions. By following these, Paul is able to access a dark, hidden section of the game. The new area, known as the "Newmaker Plane", [4] [7] [8] is a vast grassy field, pitch dark except for a spotlight following the Guardian. The field has few landmarks, and a large network of underground tunnels. The area still loosely follows conventions of puzzle games, and Paul attempts to reverse engineer the puzzles (and the internal logic of the game) to continue progressing. As Paul finds more content, it is slowly revealed—through references to 'real-world' events and characters—that Petscop was designed for a specific person who did something horrible.

The series' overarching plot involves a man named Marvin, the disappearance of his childhood friend Lina, and an incident in which Marvin kidnaps his own daughter, Care, who he believes to be Lina reborn. There is a recurring focus on "rebirthing", a failed attempt to rebirth a girl named Belle into a girl named Tiara, and a growing connection between Paul, his family's past, and the game. It is later implied that some footage is not from Paul's perspective, introducing new viewpoints from Belle and Marvin, who are all playing Petscop simultaneously. Marvin solicits Paul's help to find landmarks on the Newmaker Plane, and re-enact the process of rebirthing his daughter, Care. Later, Paul realizes that the landmarks on the Newmaker Plane may have significance to real-life locations; after presumably traveling to one of the real landmarks, Paul's voice is no longer present after this point, though his videos continue to be uploaded without narration.

Characters

Inside the game

Pets

  • Randice – A flower who exists in a symbiotic relationship with Wavey.
  • Toneth – A pet shown in a painting alongside Randice. Only found on the Newmaker Plane, he is a bird who has apparently broken his leg in a car accident.
  • Wavey – A cloud who waters Randice to keep him alive.
  • Amber – A large sentient ball who enjoys staying in her cage.
  • Pen – An aspiring mathematician who spends her time in the music room, despite being deaf.
  • Roneth – Toneth's baby half-brother. The method of catching him is retroactively revealed in the Newmaker Plane, in a series of puzzles that mimic the Pets.

Outside of the game

Reception

Petscop has received coverage from many news sources, such as The New Yorker and Kotaku : Kotaku's Patricia Hernandez wrote "if this is an internet story / game, then I am in awe of how elaborate it is", [18] and for The New Yorker's Alex Barron, it is "the king of creepypasta". [4] The Petscop YouTube channel, as of July 2023, has over 396,000 subscribers. [19]

Petscop, as a video game, is fictional, [2] [1] [7] although this was obscured for the entire run of the series. Some viewers were initially unsure as to whether "Paul" and Petscop were real, until further into the series when it became more surrealistic. [4] Petscop was not officially identified as fiction until after the finale, when creator Tony Domenico—who had remained anonymous for the series' 30-month run—revealed himself on Twitter. In his only interview, Domenico admitted that, while the story had a concrete plot, he chose to omit most of it, sometimes scrapping footage that was already done. "I hoped to get across a feeling like there's... something strange and complex happening in the background, and you just aren't getting a full view of it." [3] In the darker sections of the game, there are many references to child abuse, [18] [1] childhood trauma, and irreparable corruption, making those recurring motifs throughout the series. In addition to these themes, Domenico has cited the Marble Hornets and Ben Drowned web series as influences, involving the audience by hiding things in each video. He also named the 2006 David Lynch experimental film Inland Empire as the strongest influence for the series and noted that "too much is lost in that translation into words". [3]

The series' initial episodes also include allusions to Candace Newmaker and her death in rebirthing therapy. [11] [18] [20] Throughout the series, the word "Newmaker" appears several times; the name of the central location, and as a title given to Rainer, the Guardian character, and/or Paul himself. In addition, there is an area known as the "Quitter's Room", the repeated question "Do you remember being born?", and a character named Tiara. Domenico has stated that while the references were intentional, he later regretted them. [1] [21] Other references include a quote from the book Daisy-Head Mayzie by Dr. Seuss ("Good grief and alas"), and the imagery of the character Care crying underneath a large flower, which at first appears to be growing from her head.

Notes

  1. 25, if one chooses to count the soundtrack, the final video uploaded as part of the series, which includes a brief epilogue. [2]
  2. Soundtrack video was posted on November 28, 2019.

See also

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References

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