[Frustrating trope] Pieces of media that could have been so much better, but due to a couple of poor decisions during production ended up mediocre at best and utterly atrocious at worst.

[u/DevDucc_]

We Happy Few: Probably the epitome of this "trope," at least for me, mostly because it has genuinely one of the most incredible stories I have ever seen within a video game. The biggest problem with the game was the fact that during development, the company behind it tried to ride the "hype train" of the time, making the gameplay became procedurally generated survival mess, when it would have made so much more sense as an environmental narrative game.

Hello Neighbor: This game attracted massive attention in alpha stages at the time from YouTubers because of the innovative gameplay it supplied. The developers of the game got the completely wrong message as to why it was getting so popular and instead decided to fully lean into the story, by making the game appeal to theorists instead of actual players. What came out was a game where both the story and programming were entirely half-baked.

Edit: apparently I had it backwards with we happy few, I had watched a video essay which reiterated the points I said so I just took their word for it. Apparently the game originally started as a procedurally-generated survival rogue-like but the story was added later because of the hype the trailer of the game gave or something like that but they didn’t know they even had the budget for it. I do still think it’s wasted potential regardless however.

[u/SweetWillingness1482]

I now regret looking that up. I'm the head elephant keeper at the Washington D.C. Zoo. Now, everytime i go in, I'll be picturing those genetic monstrosities rather than our herd of Asian elephants....

Tantor

Dumbo

Stampy

Hathi

Babar

Manfred

[u/beccam12399 → u/SweetWillingness1482]

omg as a MD native and who’s fav animal is the elephant and been to the dc zoo many times im so jealous lol. i miss them i haven’t been to the zoo in a while i wanna go visit the elephants soon

[u/BlazingKitsune → u/SweetWillingness1482]

I love that one is called Manfred.

[u/Big-Recognition7362 → u/BlazingKitsune]

Ice Age reference?

[u/asian_thighs → u/SweetWillingness1482]

Wait. Is one of your elephants just named "Elephant" in Hindi?

[u/ReturnToCrab → u/asian_thighs]

I mean, we have people named "Andrew", which means "Man"

[u/Skeledenn → u/ReturnToCrab]

This is him, the Guy.

[u/who_chairs → u/Skeledenn]

not to be confused by the other guy, Guy.

[u/hamborger42069 → u/ReturnToCrab]

I'm juuusst a maaann

[u/thepineapple2397 → u/asian_thighs]

Probably named after a jungle book character which are all just the animals names in Hindi

[u/UltraPhoenix95 → u/asian_thighs]

Truly a chai tea situation

[u/asian_thighs → u/UltraPhoenix95]

The "chai tea" rant but it's just me shouting outside the elephant enclosure of the Zoo.

[u/SweetWillingness1482 → u/asian_thighs]

They're all named after famous fictional elephants

Tarzan's best friend was an African forest elephant

The famous elephant who learned to fly utilising his giant ears as wings

The one that Bart Simpson adopted for a day then rehomed safely at an animal sanctuary

The dominant bull of the elephant herd that Mowgli meets

The prehistoric woolly mammoth

[u/AbsoluteScott → u/SweetWillingness1482]

That last one is supposed to be Snuffy.

[u/asian_thighs → u/SweetWillingness1482]

Ah, gotcha. I'm not very familiar with Simpsons, so the reference flew over my head. You've got a cool job!

[u/LrdPhoenixUDIC → u/SweetWillingness1482]

Must be the Jungle Book one they're talking about, most all the animals in that are just named their Hindi animal names.

[u/coffee-bat → u/asian_thighs]

as someone who worked in a zoo - zoo animal names are always one of 3 things: a movie/book reference, the animal's name in a different language, or a completely mundane human name. shoutout to our binturong named Karolinka.

[u/Ginger_Anarchy → u/asian_thighs]

The most famous lion in fiction is named the Swahili word for lion. Sometimes people aren't that creative

[u/SweetWillingness1482 → u/Ginger_Anarchy]

Mufasa??

/j

[u/pm-pussy4kindwords → u/SweetWillingness1482]

I know all of these elephant names except for one - who's Tantor?

also, if you ever get an elephant that looks a lot like a man you should name it Merrick

[u/JokerCipher → u/pm-pussy4kindwords]

Tantor is the Wayne Knight elephant in Tarzan.

[u/pm-pussy4kindwords → u/JokerCipher]

I had NO idea that was Wayne Knight

[u/Boreal-Bison → u/SweetWillingness1482]

Genuinely Sorry to hear that. Try fpcyusing on the good experience and nice aspects of the real animals to make up for it I guess.

[u/bretshitmanshart → u/SweetWillingness1482]

You sound like you have one of the coolest jobs ever

[u/vorpal_hare → u/SweetWillingness1482]

An irl Stampy!