Bendy Interviews and Responses

Each of the interviewees I spoke with agreed to let me upload their responses in a separate document so readers may see their words in the original context and verify that I did not misrepresent anyone. It's not a luxury that most writers have, but since I co-own this site, I thought I'd take advantage of it to let the interviewees speak for themselves. Spelling errors have been corrected for clarity, but no other changes have been made.

How would you describe your relationship to the Bendy and the Ink Machine series? Examples may include you being a fan or former fan, having played the games, made or consumed fan content and Let's Plays. Broadly speaking, how familiar are you with the two primary games: Bendy and the Ink Machine and Bendy and the Dark Revival?

Amber

I have seen many LPs of both games from YTers like 8-BitRyan and I think Dawko alongside various challenge runs from AstralSpiff. I was once a fan at the earlier stages of the first game up to about... Chapter 3?

I've seen both games throughout but more familiar with the second game at the moment

You said you were a fan up to Chapter 3. What caused you to fall off at that time?

I can't really remember well, but I think it was other horror series coming out that were more familiar or just where the plot was going at this point stopped interesting me as well. I still kept up with the game up till it's end, but I rember feeling not as into the game by the time the end was reached.

Jack

I am a Former fan of Bendy and the Ink Machine. I was 17 at the time of its release, and was still enamoured enough with the FNAF franchise to like what has nowadays come to be known as mascot horror. In hindsight a lot of that was the result of a lot of luck on FNAF's part in appealing to my mystery loving nature, the perpetual hype that FNAF enjoyed thanks to releasing so many sequels back to back and the gigantic amount of theories that were produced as a result of capitalizing on young folks who were itching for horror. Bendy I would go so far as to consider supplemental to the craze that FNAF started, where it was the next thing that looked like it was going to blow up big. I wanted to be part of that early crowd and figure out this weird new thing with people like me, and I stuck with bendy for at least a year I believe.

Bendy and the dark revival is only something I am aware of thanks to it being gifted to me as a joke. I have not seen gameplay of it, let alone play it.

In your words, why did you fall off the franchise?

It was the slow and painful realization that what I came to like in this genre of horror that FNAF created was not something that any of their stewards cared about at all, or were ever planning to deliver on in the first place. Like FNAF, Bendy very much had an "unsolvable" mystery as a direct result of not having anything of substance to it. Bendy and the Ink Machine had no story, just a loose set of tropes and ideas that it rather lazily borrowed from other games without understanding of their use and and interlock with the pre-established "lore". There was no care to the actual story being told, only ever to the optics of having one. But it could only perpetuate the idea that it had something to say for so long, and I think I am one of many people that fell off the series thanks to understanding that basic fact.

It copied straight from the book of J.J. Abrams. It had a mystery box. And just like the originator of that storytelling trope, they never put anything in it. And that kills any potential for a good mystery

Joe

Bendy and the Ink Machine (I’ll be referring to it as BatIM) is sort of the first piece of gaming I was introduced to after moving to Australia. As I was still somewhat young and only just grasped the full nature of the internet, having come from a developing country where the internet was a luxury rather than a commodity. I became an instant fan of the game and indulged in all the fandom stuff most fans usually do, but I never got to playing the game (as I already knew all the story and it seemed to be a waste of money to play it).

I remember most of the first game and only some of the second game. I don’t even know the ending of the second game, I was watching Jacksepticeye play it but I never got around to finishing it.

Are you aware of the development of a new installment, Bendy: The Cage, and if so, how do you feel about it?

Amber

I vaguely heard about it, but I know nothing on it other than maybe one promo image

Jack

Before this interview I was blissfully unaware of the fact that there was to be a third game in the Bendy Series. And the feeling this news makes me feel is the desire to unlearn that knowledge.

What would they even do in a third game when they spent the first game saying nothing at all. Ludicrous

Joe

No, I haven’t been following the franchise since I dropped watching the second game’s playthrough.

What are your general impressions of the way characters in the game are visually depicted, specifically in terms of character design choices?

Amber

I think the cartoon characters are pretty spot on for the vibes they try to aspire towards with the rubberhouse era of western animation with my biggest complaint being I feel more detail could've been given towards Alice. The more monstrous entities do try to seem scary and succeed in my eyes like the Ink Demon, the evil Alice, and some of the bosses but I think a lot else either is generic or unremarkable like the ink people in the sequel or Sammy's design being just a man in suspenders and an admittedly silly looking mask for his character and tone.

Jack

The best way I could describe it is "cutely derivative". Bendy and the Ink Machine had a habit of copying bits of story already, so taking ruberhouse characters, find and replacing all the fleshy bits with ink and then running it all through a Cronenberg filter was something that I have to admit is still rather neat to me. Though in recent years I have come to think that a lot of the time the design is rather... oh how the fuck do I put this. It felt like characters more than usual were kinda designed backwards, where they had a character trait and that informed the design, with a lot of the time the design being more cool than scary. Very in line with trying to be memorable and marketable instead of interesting.

Joe

I think it’s unique and reminiscent of old cartoons. The visuals are what kept me so into the game, as I imagined that it’d be amazing and interesting if the things I doodled on paper came to life and started haunting me. The character designs are eerie, and give me the chills whenever I look at them.

What are your thoughts on these two versions of Alice Angel (Susie and Allison) specifically? How do you feel about the way Susie is depicted physically compared to Allison? Do you feel differently about Susie’s character design than you do the standard enemies that use body horror imagery (specifically the “Butcher Gang”)

Amber

I think it was initially confusing when I first saw that there was 2 Alices and felt Allison was a bit redundant when Susie provides a more interesting character especially when it feels like Allison exists only to exposit dialogue from my limited recollection. I will say it is far more interesting and menacing to twist the wholesome angel lady into a Two-Face inspired design to invoke fear and easily establish her motives in this ink world where she feels scorned. I will say however that it could've been (and probably should've been) more willing to make her more inhuman or twisted as a simple showcase of her outside matching her inside in a classic villain trope that seems to have been eased up on to... I guess warrant more sympathy? That or to keep her attractive and similar cynical thoughts like "her being woman so she's not allowed to be that ugly" I have when she seems less warped compared to anyone else in the plot that has been inkified or brought to life and experimented minus the sequel.

Jack

Alice Angel is the perfect example of what I just said, where a character trait informed how the character looked. They wanted to show a lady who went mad from not being noticed by Joey Drew and decided that the best way to show she is Two-Faced and manipulative.... Is by making her look like a genderbent rubber hose Two-Face. And then to differentiate Alice Angel from Allison they just had Allison be basically normal beyond the slight bits of ink fuckery. It is one of the more insidious displays of TheMeatly's and joey drew studio's lack of thought in what they were doing with basically everything, where the act of taking inspiration from other popular media seeped into Bendy, interlocking together into a mess of stupidity. And the fact that there was Watsonian elements of explanation into her design showed that they recognized they obviously had an issue with how they portrayed one of the few ladies in their story, they simply didn't wanna change things.

Susie's portrayal might have been intended to be body horror, but to me it is yet another example of Bendy and the Ink Machine being derivative

Joe

I feel that Allison’s character design was not really that unique, and it’s quite forgettable compared to Susie’s design, which I still can remember after 6 years. The way Susie is depicted physically is a twoface reference imo, that she is lovely and all that but you shouldn’t get too close because she is still dangerous on the other side. Compared to the Butcher Gang, who are made to be fodder, she is depicted as a strong and different type of enemy. That’s the only thing I feel about that.

Susie and Allison are the only female characters in Bendy and the Ink Machine specifically. Susie’s story is that she was flattered by the studio founder Joey Drew and given a job as the voice actor for the character of Alice Angel, grew very attached to the role, and was fired in favor of new talent Allison. She held a grudge over the incident and was then betrayed by Joey Drew again by being thrown into the titular Ink Machine to become a living embodiment of Alice Angel.

While Susie wants revenge, her primary goal is to make herself “perfect” by taking pieces from other ink creatures, cursing Joey for taking her beauty away from her but not for feeding her to the Ink Machine. In the events of Bendy and the Ink Machine, she is depicted as a villain with erratic and homicidal behavior, ultimately killed by Allison (the woman Joey Drew betrayed her in favor of) who is more docile and supportive of the main character.

Do you agree with this interpretation of events, and what are your personal thoughts on the way Susie is depicted in the first game in terms of goals and characterization if different?

Amber

I do agree with this interpretation and deeply wish for this to have been more thoroughly planned and fleshed out for how sympathetic a motive like that can be and how ultimately a lot more of what she became was as Joey's hands rather than Susie initially and he seemingly never is confronted about nor acknowledges this person he essentially broke and stuffed into the ink machine for how much time and weight she's given.

Jack

As is probably evident from my previous answer, I agree with this interpretation of events and I don't have much to say about the way she was written beyond. Disappointed and perplexed. I don't believe for even a second that the people in charge of writing bendy and the ink machine noticed what they have done with Susie's story, nor that they even care that it is just. Disgusting. Especially as I believe that if it weren't for the fact that her design is... like that nor the reason for her wanting to take from other ink creatures was to restore her beauty, this could have been a somewhat compelling character. But at that point I am once again doing the work of Bendy for it by imagining a better story, and I don't want to waste more of my time creating a better character in my head when the current version of Alice Angel as she exists in Bendy is just insultingly trope laden and misogynistic

Joe

My memories are fuzzy about the ending parts of the first game, as I sort of grew out of/apart from the fandom and games as these last chapters were released, so I can’t comment on the interpretations of the game’s story. Going by that interpretation, my thoughts on Susie’s depiction is that they sort of painted her as a person just hellbent on revenge and looking perfect, which kind of reminds me of teenagers in a way (their fixation on being perfect and habit of not letting small things go).

The primary villain of Bendy and the Dark Revival is a new character by the name of Wilson. Of all the characters in the sequel, he is the only one to be depicted as 1) old, 2) balding, 3), physically disabled (blind in one eye), and/or 4) having a raspy, strained voice.

Even the memory of Joey Drew in the sequel is depicted as a young man and a more heroic figure compared to his depiction in the first game. What do you imagine was the creators’ intention with this depiction of Wilson, and how does the end result make you feel?

Amber

I... can't imagine anything about Wilson as anything but a joke. I know he couldn't possibly been intentionally made as the mostly unsubtly evil person you could imagine without him eating babies, but it's so insanely on the nose and heavy handed that I can't understand the intent other than creating an actual unrepentantly evil villain with no moral ambiguity since they decided to redo on Joey Drew's character (another aspect that in of itself that activates cynical thoughts of wanting him to become a flawed good person rather than the callous controlling jerk he was both in the first game and of his obvious inspiration: Walt Disney, but this may be digressing a lot). I also just find it upsetting to use factors like ages, scars, or lost eyes as signs of evil or untrustworthiness. At best, it's clichè. At worst, it feels skeevy and prejudice in the same way one would prejudge someone over skin color or other physical factors.

Jack

Frankly I don't even know what the fuck to say about him. I'd go so far as to even say that this feels like I am being pranked? This guy is the main antagonist of bendy 2? He looks like the caricature of a janitor. I don't understand.

And fuck me they really had to copy bioshock by having Joey Drew look straight out of bioshock. Hell he looks younger and more dapper than Andrew Ryan ever did, and that man was supposed to be the ideal of the objectivist

Joe

Going off web images, I imagine the creators were trying to make the viewers feel uncomfortable and weirded out, not to mention creeped out by this old man. Especially since the Dark Revival’s MC is a girl (I think?), I’d imagine they were also trying to bring in those types of predator vibes as well. At least that’s what I feel/get.

In plain terms: do you believe that the creative teams behind these two games knowingly or unknowingly reinforced the idea that good people are beautiful and that conventionally unattractive features such as age, scarring, or warped physical features indicate negative personality traits?

Or in other words: do you think that the creators made their characters “ugly on the outside” to reflect that they are “ugly on the inside”, intentionally or not?

Amber

I feel it's hard to say knowingly without intimate info about the creation of the game, whether writing and/or art for these games. Unintentionally? 100% yes, unquestionably so no matter how they tried. It's very shallow in that anyone that looks evil is evil and anyone who is smooth and flawless is good with no subtlety or real breaks from that black-white mentality that pervades across all entries minus the ink people where it's slightly more complicated, but that opens its own can of worms when the overwhelming majority of that population are enemies that get killed with no remorse nor consequence or even acknowledgement.

Jack

Unintentional, but aware they did it in Susie's case at least. The one thing I can pin to Joey Drew Studios and TheMeatly is the fact they are derivative in a way that to me reeks of laziness. They don't care about their stories beyond what they can push for marketing, for the cool moments they had planned out, for the twists and lore bits that will get MattPatt out of retirement to make a new game theory about Bendy. Because the people in charge of creating Bendy are lazy and hypocritical, that is what was shown in the games, what was shown when people left the studio in mass during their first big scandal, throughout the butchering of showtime bandit until it went from a game I was hyped about to a game that was made for no one by folks who didn't care about the creative vision of the poor suckers under their employ. I feel sorry for all the folks that worked or still work in that game studio. their creativity will never be on display while they work there

Joe

I wouldn’t know the true intentions of the creative team, but to me, it doesn’t really feel that way, at least not intentionally. It has been a common trope since the dawn of animation to depict bad guys with scruffy-looking features, scars, ugly, and all those negative features. I think the creators utilized the same trope to design their characters because honestly, it’s the norm still.

Moving onto a separate topic: are you aware of allegations toward the creators of Bendy and the Ink Machine by former employees?

They’ve described the creators not responding to messages, throwing out finished software, verbally harassing employees, mass firings without warning, and insufficient severance pay. Of note, the only HR employee was the sister of CEO Mike Mood (who was accused multiple times of being verbally abusive) who herself went onto public media to imply that former employees are lying about their working conditions.

Does knowledge of these allegations have any effect on how you see the company behind the game or the public-facing figures associated with it?

Amber

It massively made me against the game around the time the last chapter came out for the first game, and became all the more disgusting when the second game came out and tried it's best to redeem and recharacterize Joey Drew as a more sympathetic character when you see the real life abuse felt by those working in an industry inescapably tied to crunch and working employees into dust with no let up or repercussions. If any or all of these allegations were lies and made up for whatever reasons they had been, the games would still not sit well to me for the what little has verifiably truly happened that has been scummy.

Jack

absolutely. Before then I was already rather done with The company and the game as i felt that I was taken for an idiot. Bendy doesn't have a good story. it has good plot beats and ideas it then discards at a whim. the puzzle pieces never aligned because they were painted over bits from a dozen different puzzles. To pull a comparison I know will probably get me a lot of hate from someone but I feel it appropriate, it was akin to watching the first season of RWBY. So full of promise that was simply stolen from other better shows.

When the allegations came out I completely wrote off Joey Drew Studios. I left my Bendy fan discords, unfollowed artists on social media on mass. It was one of the greatest purges of a piece of media from my mind since Cloverfield. The only reason I agreed to even talk about it to someone was thanks to me having a lot of opinions on it thanks to having had that experience, as that is one of the few things Bendy is really worthwhile for. Something for people to talk about not as a game that exists but an event that happened, with a chronology of events that slowly stained the image of Bendy until nobody wants to even think about it anymore. I don't even know who the third game is for. Did people really by the dark revival that the studio got a second wind? If so I really don't even want to know what the modern Bendy fan looks like, as I don't think they would agree with anything I have said thus far.

Joe

I wasn’t aware of these allegations, and the knowledge of just makes me think of that company as yet another bad-working-environment company (like Blizzard).

Do you believe that Kindly Beast changed its name to Joey Drew Studios partially or wholly in hopes of distancing themselves from these allegations, either by making them less likely to be found as a result of search engine optimization or implying that the company has “turned around”?

Amber

100%, and in bad taste for my previous reasons about the character of Joey. If anything, I hope it garners more eyes and stares at them for how obviously transparent the attempt to seem like they changed is a smokescreen to how really nothing had changed per what I last heard.

Jack

I think it was more so an attempt to free themselves from their mistreated child, Showtime Bandit. It was of course rather convenient and i'd say that it surely helped that they wanted to get eyes away from them, but i genuinely think that it wasn't so much the scandal as it was the failure of that game that killed kindly beast and created joey drew studios

almost like a threat. no more other games. only bendy remains

only the golden child

Joe

I think that is the likely scenario, given it’s a tactic that’s used by many people/companies when trying to save face value or revenue.

Does knowing about Kindly Beast’s alleged treatment of its employees change your feelings about the franchise at all, especially since a big theme of Bendy and the Dark Revival, released after this controversy, is about “not letting past mistakes define you”?

To date, all public-facing members of the company still face allegations of being dishonest to the public about what really happened at Kindly Beast; the general consensus is that there has not been a sufficient apology or attempt at accountability.

Amber

(You spoke on this already above, but if there’s anything you would like to add on the topic, you can do so here.)

Mostly have already said my peace: it feels gross, dishonest, manipulative, and using your major IPs to protect those at the higher up perpetrating this abusive and ignoring anyone complaining while giving off a fake veneer of growing better by naming themselves after a Disney-esque sympathetic figure.

Jack

it doesn't at all as i had no feelings for the game beyond dismay that it even exists. i don't exactly want to put people out of jobs, but i genuinely just don't understand how Joey Drew Studios still exists beyond licensing deals and merchandise sales. I don't get it. especially now in a gaming landscape where finding a mascot horror game is easier then ever, the fact that Joey Drew Studios is still in operation boggles my mind and I would like that status to change. I want Mike Mood and TheMeatly to give a proper apology. I want them to go the fuck back and release the version of showtime bandit that the passionate folks of kindly beast worked on. i want them to start actually thinking about games as art instead of products.

But that will never happen. So all one can do is ignore their efforts to stay relevant and hope everyone does the same

Joe

I don’t really care much about the franchise anymore, so my feelings toward it aren’t much. Given the game’s message though, I think yeah it’s quite ironic they are still doing that stuff when they put out that message.

Has anything discussed here affected your feelings toward the franchise overall? Would you still consider yourself a fan? As above, there is no shame in enjoying the series despite what’s been discussed here.

Amber

While I still like some aspects of Bendy, I've overall soured on the series as a whole between the original being made as it went along and the unignorable aspects of the sequel either being as patchworked, worse, or used to save face. I will never shame or be upset at others being fans still, to each their own and not an immediately indicative poor display of anyone's character, but I personally can't stand seeing the awful owners of this series prosper with no backlash or justice to the pain they've caused.

Jack

I am dismayed that Bendy still continues. It shouldn't. I haven't been a fan in a long time, and the fact there are people out there who still are makes me feel the same sort of mild sadness as knowing there are people out there who enjoyed garten of banban. If there are kids out there who like it, then ah well, this is garbage that is tailor made for a young child's brain to latch on. I was there for fnaf and bendy, i know what it was like in the moment. But that moment has passed for Bendy I feel. Even if it still has fans, i don't believe it will ever have the amount of fans it had at its prime. there are new kings at the throne of mascot horror. and the fact that Bendy and the Ink Machine can be taken as a cautionary tale about the real life Joey Drew Studio is deliciously ironic

might even be ironic enough to make one laugh a bit

I like Garten of Banban

....oops

Joe

I wouldn’t consider myself a fan, more of a retired fan I guess, given I don’t follow anything about the franchise anymore, I just liked the game a few years ago and sort of grew apart from it.

Is there anything else you would like to say about the franchise that has not been covered here?

Amber

The worst bane I think this series ever wrought onto horror was making every other mascot horror being a chapter based release that makes all others past feel incomplete and made up as it goes along in the worst ways possible, even worse than Bendy 1 turned out. I know it isn't squarely on Bendy for that happening, but domino effect and all that. More of a personal greivence than a true issue.

Jack

The worst part about Bendy as a franchise is the fact it had promise. Just the same as with Fnaf, its first chapter had genuinely good ideas albeit with a very basic and rudementary feel to it. It very much was an uncut gem that with refinement could have turned into something really good. Instead, the lazy option was taken so now we have bits of diamond dust littering everything. I don't believe any of the big people involved with Bendy ever thought half as much as the people who made theories about Bendy, who tried to make sense of the first games story, who made fan songs and clipped out of bounds to see what was going on behind the scenes. I don't think they thought half as much about the actual story than I have just now answering your questions, and I genuinely mean that. Maybe that changed in the second game. I couldn't tell you, but I know in my heart of hearts that if i were to play that game, i would see the same puzzle pieces as in the first game

all of them disparate pieces

and after trying to solve it again I would once again see that they were taken from a dozen other puzzles

Joe

Nope.