Ruined Critters

Smiling Critters

Ruined Critters

Audio

Ruined Critters
Leader	CatNap †
Members	CraftyCorn (multiple plushies) PickyPiggy (multiple plushies) Hoppy Hopscotch (multiple plushies) KickinChicken (multiple plushies) Bubba Bubbaphant (multiple plushies) Bobby BearHug (multiple plushies) DogDay (multiple plushies) CatNap (multiple plushies)
Status	Extant
Affiliation	Playtime Co. Smiling Critters † (formerly; enemy)
Base of operations	Playhouse
Voiced by	Tobias Cascia Layne Price Eric True Elijah Delaney Avalon Delaney Ben Rooker
Date created	1989 - August 8, 1995
Debuted in	Chapter 3: Deep Sleep
Appears in	Chapter 3: Deep Sleep Chapter 4: Safe Haven (briefly) Miscellaneous Content

“	A million pairs of eyes are on you now. Watching, waiting, hungry. They want nothing more than to crawl beneath your skin and eat away at you bit by little bit- fill what feels empty inside themselves.	”
— DogDay talking about the Ruined Critters, Chapter 3: Deep Sleep noicon

The Ruined Critters are living, deteriorated Smiling Critters toys who debuted in Chapter 3: Deep Sleep as minor antagonists. They reside in Playcare, serving as the primary antagonists of its Playhouse.

The Ruined Critters were originally a neutral group that joined the rebellion of the Bigger Bodies experiments on August 8, 1995. The Ruined Critters then inhabited the darkness of the Playhouse where their bodies had withered until the eventual return of The Player in 2005. Upon their intrusion into their home, the Ruined Critters do everything they can to bring their quarry down and consume them. Ultimately, they fail to complete their objective, and they are last heard screaming in rage (through DogDay's corpse) as The Player escapes.

Appearance

The Ruined Critters resemble grimy and battered toys of the Smiling Critters line, with large gashes on their bodies exposing the white stuffing underneath. Their zipper pendants - save for DogDay, CatNap, and CraftyCorn, whose pendants are clean and fully intact - are either chipped or broken. Nearly all of these experiments have their black button eyes popped out of their sockets, with at least one eye still attached to their heads by two white threads, except for the CatNap and CraftyCorn versions, which have neither whiskers nor eyes. Inside their eye sockets lie black pupils encircled by luminous white irises, similar to the Bigger Body versions of CatNap and DogDay, when possessed.

Personality

Though initially presented as mindless rabid and feral creatures, the Ruined Critters are also driven by an intense desire for survival. Like the other experiments, they participated in The Hour of Joy to obtain freedom and to stop their mistreatment, which Playtime Co. had refused to grant them.

They are known to be very violent and hostile as shown when they attacked a man, swarming and devoured him, and are also noted to be ravenous creatures who want nothing more than to devour out any prey or food they can find.

The Ruined Critters enjoyed the thrill of the hunt when confronting their prey. During The Player's trek through their home, they emitted distorted giggling and animalistic snarls as they approached the intruder. The Ruined Critters also displayed wariness when they were met with resistance, keeping their eyes locked on the aggressor as they retreated backwards into the safety of Playhouse's infrastructure.

History

Backstory

The Ruined Critters collaborating with the Mini Huggies to bring down their victim during The Hour of Joy.

Soon after the creation of the Smiling Critters in 1989, miniature experiment versions of them were built, along with Bigger Body versions to work in Playcare. During The Hour of Joy, they had joined in the carnage and one of their known victims was a man who they swarmed, pinned, and devoured alongside the Mini Huggies, with their actions being recorded on a nearby CCTV camera.

Prior to the factory's abandonment, the Ruined Critters were a neutral faction that wanted revenge against their former captors, hence their involvement in The Hour of Joy in which they attacked and killed numerous people and then ate the bodies of those people as a means of sustenance.

They had made their abode within the Playhouse, remaining there for the next decade - with prolonged exposure to the elements and darkness causing most of their bodies to decay and their eyes to adjust until The Player's return in 2005.

Chapter 3: Deep Sleep

A few Critters can be seen and heard inside Home Sweet Home, breaking glass items and releasing their distorted, childlike laughter. A single critter can even be seen peeking from a shelf. Eventually, The Player enters the Playhouse, and upon their first step into the facility, several Ruined Critters emerge from the holes in the walls and crawl towards them. The Player quickly responds in turn, utilizing their GrabPack 2.0's Flare Hand to fire flares in their vicinity, the resulting light blinds and scares the experiments and forces them to scurry back into the safety of darkness.

As their quarry moves throughout the Playhouse, eventually reaching a maze-like area, more Ruined Critters emerge in an attempt to overwhelm The Player with their sheer numbers. Despite their numbers and home advantage, The Player's flares prove to be too much for the Critters to handle and they exit the maze, escaping the hungry experiments for the time being. When the Ruined Critters overhear DogDay, considered the last Bigger Body counterpart of the Smiling Critters, conversing with The Player, they begin to pour into the prison cell and crawl inside DogDay's severed torso, with one of them entering through his eye socket, devouring him from the inside and then controlling his lifeless body. This action not only granted them faster speed and mobility, but it also protected them from The Player's flares, nullifying their effects.

The Player quickly drops into a nearby hole and sprints into a tunnel, with the possessed DogDay in close pursuit. In an attempt to corral them and catch them off-guard, a few Ruined Critters stand at some of the entrances to tunnels branching away from the main shaft. Despite their best efforts, The Player ultimately escapes the possessed DogDay, leaving the Playhouse and Ruined Critters behind as they shriek in rage.

Chapter 4: Safe Haven

The Ruined Critters make a minor brief appearance in the Shelf, where a ruined DogDay and ruined Bobby BearHug can be seen eating a dead ruined CatNap. They are scared away when The Player fires a flare at them as it burns away the ruined CatNap.

Abilities and Anatomy

Like the Bigger Body experiments, the Ruined Critters are organic in nature, which is confirmed by their need for food, and blood stains seen beneath some of their bodies. However, they possess at least one known bio-mechanical component: a voice box module. Following The Hour of Joy, these modules seemed damaged; as a result, their childlike laughter, animalistic screeches and whimpers became distorted.

The Ruined Critters are the smallest known experiments created from the Bigger Bodies Initiative. Like Poppy, their stature allows them to fit through vents and holes. To compensate for their size, the Critters utilize sheer numbers and coordinated group attacks to eliminate larger prey. These traits were seen in CCTV footage captured during the Hour of Joy, where they cornered an employee in the Water Treatment Zone with the Mini Huggies, demonstrating a level of cooperation uncommon among the larger toys. When the Player intruded in their domain, the Ruined Critters revealed their strong survival instincts. They backed away, using their familiarity with the area to navigate even around corners without ever looking away from the Player - until they reached a point of safety.

These Critters also have the unique characteristic to reanimate and to control others bodies when they go inside them. After the Player speaks to the severely damaged and restrained Bigger Bodies DogDay, Ruined Critters swarm him ravenously. They crawl into his open wounds and contort themselves perfectly into his skin before puppeteering his body in a violent attack on the Player. DogDay could do nothing but emit gurgling screams during the process. His body granted them his strength and speed, making them a much more significant threat to the Player than they had been before, short-lived though it was.

They stand in a quadrupedal posture. Although this doesn't improve their speed, they can leap onto elevated areas and climb padded tile walls. Their primary weakness (in the context of the Player) is their sensitivity to bright light, brought about by their decade-long period in the darkness of Playhouse. This weakness made them susceptible to flares launched by the Player's Flare Hand, temporarily blinding them and forcing them to retreat.

Gallery

Renders

Ruined Bobby BearHug.

Ruined DogDay.

Ruined KickinChicken.

Ruined Hoppy Hopscotch.

Ruined CraftyCorn.

Ruined Bubba Bubbaphant.

Ruined CatNap.

Ruined PickyPiggy.

Jumpscares

Ruined Bobby BearHug's jumpscare.

Ruined DogDay's jumpscare.

Ruined KickinChicken's jumpscare.

Ruined Hoppy Hopscotch's jumpscare.

Ruined CraftyCorn's jumpscare.

Ruined Bubba Bubbaphant's jumpscare.

Ruined CatNap's jumpscare.

Ruined PickyPiggy's jumpscare.

Scrapped Content

An unused animation for the Ruined Critters for what seems to be their charging/jumping animation. Bobby BearHug's mesh is used for the showcase (no textures).

Theorizing

• It is most likely that due to the lack of food in the Playcare and the lack of care, the Ruined Critters began to attack each other for food or simply because they dislike each other, causing them to become ruined.
  • It is also possible that due to the decaying and dark state of the Playhouse that their bodies began to deteriorate.

Trivia

• The Ruined Critters are the only monsters from Chapter 3 to not die a brutal fate or simply die in general.
• They are the third group of monsters to be miniature versions of a Bigger Bodies counterpart, with the first being the Mini Huggies from Chapter 2: Fly in a Web, and second being the Wuggies from PROJECT: PLAYTIME.
  • They are also the first group of miniature versions to not be versions of Huggy Wuggy.
• They are the smallest monster in the game, being slightly smaller than the Mini Huggies.
• Mini DogDay has a button over one eye, but the other without a button. The buttoned eye parallels the eye that the Mini Bobby BearHug enters through when hijacking the body of the Bigger Bodies DogDay.
• The game shows that at least the Ruined DogDay Critters are cannibalistic, as it features some of the Ruined DogDay Critters consuming DogDay from the inside, as well as all the other variants.
• There is a funny gag with the Ruined Critters, where if the player shoots them and if they’re not facing a hole, they will crab walk backwards and clip through their head.
• Ruined CatNap and CraftyCorn are the only ones with both the buttons over their eyes gone.
• The critters that attack DogDay (and the ones in Home Sweet Home) are more intact (except the Bobby Bearhug toy who crawled in his eye socket).
• Ruined CatNap, DogDay, and CraftyCorn are the only members of the Ruined Critters with their pendants still fully intact.
• Ruined CatNap, DogDay, Hoppy Hopscotch, and Bobby BearHug have the exact same tear patterns on their torsos, as well as Ruined Bubba Bubbaphant, PickyPiggy, and CraftyCorn, but Ruined KickinChicken has a unique tear pattern. This may be due to the fact that his wrists are not a different color.
  • The tear may have formed due to them rotting away, given the state of Playcare.