Who is Huggy Waggy, and why games with him have flooded mobile stores — analysis of the case from AppMagic

At the end of last year, games with Huggy Waggy, a blue monster who lives in an abandoned factory of children’s toys, began to actively appear in mobile stores. AppMagic analysts studied the trend and told where it came from and which titles turned out to be the most popular.

Poppy PlaytimeHuggy Waggy

This is one of the heroes of the horror game Poppy Playtime, which was released on Steam by indie studio MOB Games last October. According to the plot, a former employee of the toy company Playtime Co. received a letter from his colleagues who disappeared without a trace at the factory 10 years ago. He goes to an abandoned factory to find out what really happened there. In the building, he meets the bloodthirsty Huggy Waggy.

Huggy Waggy looks like a huge fluffy toy with a big red mouth and very sharp teeth. The title tells that originally Huggy Waggy was not a monster. He was born as a very ordinary toy, which quickly won the love of children and even became the mascot of the factory. However, Playtime Co. tried to make Huggy Waggy (and its other toys) as realistic as possible, for which it conducted inhumane and frightening experiments.

So far, Poppy Playtime has released only one chapter (the second is scheduled for release in early 2022). It was warmly received by gamers and received 85% positive reviews on Steam.

The title quickly became viral on the web, and the most popular was just the share of the mysterious Huggy Wagga. The blue monster has become the hero of many videos on YouTube and TikTok, including several memes of his own.

Mobile Games with Haggi Waggi

The character of the MOB Games game inspired a lot of mobile developers. According to AppMagic’s calculations, 1,935 apps were released in the App Store and Google Play that used the image of Hagga Wagga. Among them were apps with wallpapers for smartphones, mods, guides and games. Some games were entirely built around Huggy Wagga (he was the main character in them), others exploited certain popular brands like Minecraft, “Squid Games” or Tiles Hop, where, among other things, a blue monster was added.

However, now the Hagga Wagga trend has gone into decline.

Most of the mobile games with Huggy Waggy appeared on November 16 — a month after the release of the original project. Then about 60 titles came out in a day. But since January 10, the number of new games has been rapidly declining.

The maximum peak of downloads for games with Huggy Waggy came on January 1, when most of the projects have long been out. AppMagic did not specify exactly how many times per day all such titles were downloaded (judging by the schedule, about 5 million times), but noted that the top five collected 3.59 million installations. Over time, the downloads decreased. For example, on February 7, the same five titles collected only 245.5 thousand installations.

At the moment, only 322 projects out of 1935 continue to generate new downloads.

Top 5 Mobile Games with Haggi Waggi

Poppy Rope Game (Monster Rope Game)

On December 1 , the Vietnamese Zego Global Publishing published a game in the spirit of GTA V. In it, the user plays as a character inspired by Huggy Waggy and fights criminals.

In total, the title has 24.9 million downloads. By the way, in December, the Poppy Rope Game was among the ten most downloaded mobile games of the month, taking fourth place.

Poppy: Hide and Seek Playtime

Another game from Zego Global Publishing, but released on November 19. This is a hyper-casual arcade game in which the user tries not to fall into the clutches of a monster (or, conversely, tries on the role of Huggy Waggy and tries to catch people in the maze).

The game has 13.3 million downloads.

Poppy Horror: Chapter One

This is one of the most recent games. It was released on January 4 under the Vietnamese ABI Global. Poppy Horror is a first—person quest in which the player has to solve puzzles to get out of an abandoned toy factory and escape from Huggy Wagga.

The game has 12.59 million downloads.

Poppy Stickman Fighting

Another game released by Zego Global Publishing. It was released on December 16. This is a hyper-casual action game in which Huggy Waggy fights with a lot of opponents (among them there is, for example, Spider-Man).

The game has 8.36 million downloads.

Blue Monster: Stretch Game

On December 21, the French Azura Global released its game with Huggy Waggy. This is a puzzle in which the user has to move the blue monster to a given point. To do this, he can alternately shift the arms and legs of Huggy Vaga on the screen, with which he rests against the walls. There may be obstacles along the way.

The game has 6.24 million downloads. It is also known that its revenue after deductions to the stores amounted to about $2 thousand.